(deities) treasures of the Chola emperors. This dictat was repeated around 300 years back when the last great Chola King, Kulothunga III, the builder of the great Sarabeswarar Temple at Tribhuvanam on the outskirts of Kumbakonam, hails Lord Ranganatha at Srirangam in an inscription in the Srirangam Koil, as his 'tutelary deity'. As per findings of Dr. Hultzsch, the great epigraphist, in this inscription acknowledgment is made to the earlier great Chola king Parantaka about declaring the Chidambaram (Siva) Koil and the Srirangam (Vishnu) Koil as 'Kuladhanams' of the Cholas – a pointer to the fact that the Cholas were secular and patronized equally all religions and sub-sects within the same religion. Another proof of this is the existence of as many as 40 Vaishnava Divyadesams out of 108 such temples in the Chola country, which are functioning and flourishing even today.
Chola king Sundara (Parantaka II) was a staunch devotee of the reclining Vishnu (Vadivu Azhagiya Nambi) at Anbil in the banks of Cauvery on the outskirts of Tiruchy, to whom he gave numerous gifts and embellishments, and prayed before him by keeping his sword before the deity, beforeo his proceeding for war for regaining the territories in and around Kanchi and Arcot from the waning Rashtrakutas and while leading expeditions against both Madurai and Ilam (Sri Lanka). Parantaka I and Sundara Chola endowed and built temples for Siva and Vishnu. Rajaraja Chola I patronised Buddhists and provided for the construction of the Chudamani Vihara (a Buddhist monastery) in Nagapattinam at the request of the Srivijaya Sailendra king. While it is true that the biggest and grandest temples of the Cholas were dedicated to Lord Siva, all Chola kings especially from Aditya to Rajendra IV built great temples for Lord Vishnu and gave numerous grants and gifts to them.
During the period of Later Cholas, there were supposedly instances of intolerance towards Vaishnavites, especially towards Ramanuja, the
