Nandhini's marriage to Periya Pazhuvettarayar is an offstage event whose meaning is disputed before its circumstances are fully known. Rumor makes it the key to Aditha Karikalan’s melancholy and the reach of Pazhuvoor power; Aditha’s own account instead connects his journey to a plea for forgiveness over Veera Pandiyan’s death. The marriage matters both as a political fact and as a story that others use to explain what they cannot understand about the prince.

The rumor and its political setting

The first account arrives in a group conversation, not as an authoritative history. A newcomer insists that Aditha once fell deeply in love with a Pandiya woman, then claims that Periya Pazhuvettarayar married her while the prince was away fighting in the wars associated with the Vada Pennai River. The speaker presents the marriage as a sudden seizure of the woman and joins it to a larger political consequence: the Pazhuvoor Ilaiya Rani’s word, the newcomer says, has become law in Chozha Nadu. In this telling, a private attachment, an older lord’s marriage, and the influence of Pazhuvoor power form one chain of explanation for Aditha’s troubled state.

The conversation itself marks that explanation as hearsay. The newcomer reports what is said, while another speaker broadly endorses the familiar notion that a woman stands behind every war. A skeptical voice rejects that maxim and challenges the story’s logic: if the woman had loved the prince, why would she immediately marry a man old enough to be described as sixty? The challenge does not establish that the marriage did not occur. It exposes the weakness of the romantic explanation and the way an uncertain story is being treated as a ready-made answer. When the skeptic demands an explanation for Aditha’s unmarried state, the discussion has not resolved the rumor; it has shown how quickly listeners turn fragments into a theory.

A marriage framed by dynastic duty

The question becomes more consequential when Aditha’s grandfather, Malayaman, asks him directly about the invitation that has prompted his journey to Kadambur. Malayaman has heard that Aditha received an olai from the woman married to Periya Pazhuvettarayar, whom he describes as a temptress and as well beyond sixty years of age. Aditha confirms that the invitation is real. His confirmation verifies the immediate circumstance—the invitation and his decision to travel—but does not endorse the rumor that he is returning to a former love.

Malayaman’s alarm rests on dynastic honor. He recalls the long history of the Chozha clan, whose ancestors varied in territory, religious allegiance, and marital practice. Some were devoted to one wife; others married several women. For Malayaman, that variety has a boundary: no ancestor, he argues, dishonored the clan by desiring another man’s wife. He invokes Paranthaka Chakravarthy, who married seven women, to make the distinction clear. Aditha may marry, even more than once, but he must not pursue the wife of Periya Pazhuvettarayar. The marriage thus becomes a test of conduct within a powerful household, not simply the fulfillment of a private love story.

Aditha’s explanation and the earlier wound

Aditha answers the suspicion directly: he denies being guilty of desiring Nandhini or intending to stain either the Chozha or Malayaman clans. When Malayaman asks why he accepted her invitation, Aditha pauses, bows his head, and decides to explain. He says that he once caused her grievous harm and intends to make reparations by asking her pardon. For Malayaman, the prospect of his grandson apologizing to a woman is itself shocking; his reaction shows how little the idea fits the prince’s expected authority and warrior pride.

Aditha then recounts the events of three years earlier. He hunted Veera Pandiyan to a secret lair, where Nandhini intervened frantically and pleaded that Veera Pandiyan’s life be spared. Aditha rejected her plea in anger and beheaded Veera Pandiyan. He describes the remorse, despair, and sorrow that have burdened him since, and says that he cannot find peace until he has at least asked Nandhini for forgiveness. He believes she is willing to let the past rest and is genuinely eager to dispel the kingdom’s confusion. In this account, the invitation is not evidence of a renewed courtship: it gives Aditha an occasion to face the person whose plea he once refused and whose loss he cannot forget.

Political consequence and narrative significance

The marriage rumor gains force because it offers a simple explanation for several visible facts: Aditha’s low spirits, his unmarried state, Nandhini’s influence, and his willingness to visit Kadambur. Yet the text sets that explanation beside Aditha’s more specific account of guilt. The contrast does not erase the political importance of Nandhini’s marriage. Malayaman treats her status as Periya Pazhuvettarayar’s wife as an absolute limit on Aditha’s behavior, while the earlier gossip portrays her influence as extending across Chozha Nadu. The same marriage can therefore be invoked as a matter of personal desire, household honor, and political authority, depending on who is speaking.

The event is never shown as a ceremony in these passages. Its narrative presence is mediated by rumor, then by Malayaman’s warning and Aditha’s clarification. That arrangement keeps the marriage’s emotional associations uncertain while making its consequences immediate: it prompts suspicion about Aditha’s motives, forces him to explain his journey, and brings the memory of Veera Pandiyan’s death into the open. Malayaman finally recognizes that the account explains motives and events he had not understood, but concludes that no earthly power can defeat destiny. The marriage remains the subject of speculation; Aditha’s unresolved remorse is the fact that changes the meaning of his visit.