Well done. The case was well-thought out and well presented.:-) (I've got a doubt though- I was of the impression that the Veerapandian who had an affaire with Mandakini -I'm pretty sure that Nandini was Veerapandian's daughter- and the Veerapandian who died at the hands of Aditha Karikalan were one and the same...this is the first I've ever heard about the 'brother' theory.)
I had a discussion on the same subject about a year ago with another PS fanatic. To my question about Nandini's origins, I got the reply that she was undoubtedly Vaarapandian's daughter. The reasoning went like this...
1) A person of Nandini's character and temperament would never fall in love with any one in a space of few days (like a wounded Veerapandian after math of the Madurai por). Assuming that she knew something of her parentage by then, this would amount to a classical "Electra complex" case study.
2) A person of Nandini's character and temperament would go to any length - even to calling her father her lover - for attaining what she wants.
3) The chronology. Even though Kalki muddles up in the chronology, there is clearly a gap of two years between, the parting of Sundara Cholar- Mandagini and the birth of the twins in Pazhayarai. And these two years are filled up with the Payithiyakaran a.k.a Karuthiruman account.
4) The Karuthiruman story - Here he clearly states that he picked up both Mandagini and Veerapandian in his "odam" and left them together in northern Lanka when he went to Rohanam with Veera Pandiyan's message to Mahindan. And when he returned he found Mandagini pregnant. This not-so-subtle information confirms, Veerapandian as the father of mandagini
The angle about Veerapandiyan being Nandini's brother was suggested by Ram in one of his threads here. I think I have given the thread there. I guess we can consider the possibility because if Veerapandiyan senior (the one who met Karuthiruman and Mandakini) is the same one killed by Karikalan then we can expect him to quite old. I guess it is difficult for think that she would have fallen in love with him.
But Nandini as a character has puzzled me a lot for various reasons -
If she wanted to take revenge on the Cholas or especially Kundavai for their treatment towards her the best revenge would be to marry Karikalan. Being the elder brother's wife I am sure we can expect Kundavai to be subservient to her in position and power. Yet she goes ahead and spoils it all by telling karikalan that she had fallen in love with the wounded man.
Did she do it just to scorn Karikalan? To show him - "You have all the power in the world but I would prefer to marry a wounded and defeated king than become your wife and a part of your arrogant family" Is this what she thought?
On the other hand we have Veerapandiyan who is either her father or brother. Yes you are right Pavithra it seems like she had deliberately turned Karikalan's anger on him. Why?
"Electra's complex" - quite possible. It can also be a deep yearning to be a part of something important and dangerous. Like she sees herself as a heroine liberating, avenging and taking up responsibilities for an entire kingdom.
We should also not forget that her revenge is a double edged sword both on Veerapandiyan and Karikalan. She turned Karikalan's anger on Veerapandiyan because she felt that he had abandoned her mother and herself therefore he got his head cut off and in the same time she took revenge on Karikalan for allowing Sembiyanmadevi to send her away.
In many ways her revenge on Veerapandiyan was milder because it was Karikalan who had to bear the guilt of his actions which was a bigger revenge.
Hai All, Its happy to know that efforts are being made to get PS in web.Recently Dr V.Krishnamoorthy (Former anna university Professor) released a tamil OCR named PONVIZHI.I think this will help people who are involved in converting PS to e-version.The first hand opinion of the OCR seems to be satisfactory.Even they had tested this with Anandarangam Pillai's biography and its looks pretty good.He can be contacted at.
Dr V Krishnamoorthy Inforeed, 11, Fourth Street, Padmanabha Nagar, Adayar, Chennai 600 020 Tel: +91 44 446173
Sorry for the rather long gap- but I'm back anyway.:-)
Your views gave me a good deal of food for thought- I found myself doing a lot of thinking on what you've said.
About what you've said about Nandhini exacting her revenge by marrying Karikalan- I though of another view-point. Most of the times, the daughter-in-law of a household weilds power only in name- she's generally expected to keep back and do what her husband/mother-in-law tells her. The real power, sometimes lies with the daughter of the house-in this case, Kundhavai. Kundavai is not just the daughter of the Chola emperor, but she's very popular with the masses too, and held in great esteem by her people. Nandhini would be thrown into the shadow, while Kundhavai would still retain her prominence. In essence, she may not have been able to get her revenge at all. What do you think?
>On the other hand we have Veerapandiyan who is either her father or >brother. Yes you are right Pavithra it seems like she had deliberately >turned Karikalan's anger on him. Why?
Do you mean, why she made Karikalan kill Veerapandian?
For one thing, she is of the opinion that Karikalan jilted her- in her heart of hearts, she wanted him to win her back in spite of opposition. When he didn't do it, she became furious. And what better way to take her revenge than to make him kill her supposed lover Veerapandian (who was already three-fourths dead anyway, and wouldn't have survived) in a fit of anger (notice: she knows exactly how karikalan will react after he commits the deed of killing her 'beloved' and knows that he will regret it because he has hurt her terribly) then blame him forever?
Personally, its my opinion that Nandhini didn't care much about the Pandya Kingdom either. *She* had been hurt by the Cholas and been humiliated by them, therefore she decided to hurt them as much as she could, notably Karikalan.
Well...what do you think?
BTW, Imli, your photos are cool:-) (How are your studies going on?)
Thanks SPS for reposting this. Reading it was as intriguing as the novel itself! A very good attempt at unraveling a complex, engaging, intriguing character and story that was ever created.
Thanks for bringing this up - would Nandhini have been so calculative - that she knew one way or other Veerapandian's time was up - Aditya would capture him and that would already weaken the pandya forces. She was well aware of aditya's love for her ( and from the aditya assasination chapter and their conv during the fateful night - we see that she too loved him dearly) - did she use it to twist him to kill an unarmed injured veerapandian. That would explain why she called him her lover.
on second thought, maybe shee watched a few Murali or early vijay movies - where the hero would sacrifice his love for his lover's lover !!!
In my view, I think at that point Nandhini would not have known that she was veerapandiyan's daughter and the injured person in her house is actually her brother. So it might be possible that she really was in love with him or just told that to Aditha just to infuriate him as she was angry with him. May be she just did not care abt the outcome of her action. May be at a later point of time she might have learnt the truth and wanted to avenge the death of Veerapandiyan. More than the death of Veerapandiyan, i guess it might be all the insults and yematram that she faced in and by the Chola royalty that would have made her resolve to avenge them.