Hi all, Time and again, I find people enquiring about wives of Vandhiyathevan, Sundara cholar etc. - these girls are unable to believe that Ponniyin selvan characters had more than 1 wife !:-) Probably Kalki portrayed them so well - sincere to their loved ones - that it is hard to believe historic facts !
The truth is that all of these old kings had more than one wife ! There were political and social reasons behind this - apart from simple lust !
Wrost still : Not just kings, but many officials and businessmen - who demanded some respect in society had more than 1 companion ! This is mainly because of the fact "pala thara manam" (marrying more than one girl) was an accepted norm in the society.
It took more than 2000 years for the tamil deuds to realise the simple truth that it is difficult to manage even one wife:-))
Jokes apart, here is a piece of bitter truth from historical evidences :
* Sundara cholar had 2 wives * Arulmozhi (Rajaraja) - 15 wifes (probably worst deud in the lot :-) * Vandhiyathevan - 3 wives (including Kundavai) * Sendan Amudhan (Madhhuranthakan uttama cholan) - 3 or more
good research on no of wives : ) ..where did u got this these information..... i like to know about the life history of raja raja chozhan is it available like a book or any historic book which narrates his life story that is important events happened in his life . expecting ur reply ....
It's quite acceptable that PS had many wives.In SS Narasimavarmar would marry Pandiyan's daughter for political support.Same way,PS would have married many girls.Rajaraja chola's expedition was vast and no wonder he had more than 15 wives!Even his Pattamagishi was not Vanathi. But VT having 3 wives is...hard to accept. Regarding Senthan Amuthan,I'm sure Madhurantakan Uttama Cholan may have many wives but not our Senthan Amuthan. My mom said,"I think your group is going to do a Ph.d in PS!" -Im.Lakshmi
Hey all, Gokul..u are doing an excellent job...thanx for all the insights...I would like to make a point abt Senthan Amudhan....I think we discussed this earlier too...IMO there was no real SEnthan Amudhan...it was actually the Madurandagan who ruled after Sundara Chozhar...Since Kalki dint wanna project a Chozha king as a conspirer he created a Sentham Amudhan and told us the so called "madurandagan" dint deserve the kingdom by birth at all...If Senthan Amudhan was real I doubt whether he would have ruled the kingdom for abt 10 yrs effectivel...also If senthan amudhan was real then we have to believe that Poongazhili,Oomai Rani,Nandini were real characters...I think this is the greatest thing abt the novel..I dont think neone other than Kalki could have mixed facts with fiction with so much ease. Shanker visit www.tamilnool.com and visit the history section u must be able to locate a whole bunch of books related to Chozha history.
>Probably Kalki portrayed them so well - sincere to their loved ones - >that it is hard to believe historic facts !
Too right! Kalki made them all (especially PS) look so goody-goody where romance was concerned that its hard to swallow 15 wives. Wow! (I remember feeling depressed when I read later (after PS, ie.) that he *had* married other princesses:-)
> It took more than 2000 years for the tamil deuds to realise the >simple truth that it is difficult to manage even one wife:-))
Is that so...:-)
>(Have I missed out anybody else ?)
Awesome research, Mr. Gokul. Since you know so much about these issues, could you please tell me something about Anbil Anirudha Brammaraayar? I've always been impressed by the way he was portrayed- master strategist, supremely intelligent...he's been shown as a secondary character in PS- is there more to him?
Oh, and what happens to the Kadambur Vamsam after Kandamaaran's time?
Guys you know what it is so disheartening to hear about the number of wives. Why don't we just imagine that they all had one wife only like Kalki wanted us to believe? Because next time i read Ponniyin Selvan i am sure i am gonna remember all this