Poonguzhali’s audience with Sundara Chozhar turns the uncertain fate of Arulmozhi Varman into a witnessed account: the prince survived the sea, and Poonguzhali helped bring him to safety. Her explanation also reveals why she kept him beyond the reach of Pazhuvettarayar’s men. The encounter is more than a report of rescue. It takes place amid public disorder and the emperor’s growing suspicion that even his daughter Kundhavai has withheld the truth from him.

Disorder before the audience

Poonguzhali reached the fort with her aunt, Mandhakini, and Azhwarkkadiyaan as crowds were pressing through the gates. Aniruddhar’s Velakkara Regiment was entering, and the trio stood aside to let the soldiers pass. Although Azhwarkkadiyaan proposed using a secret passage to reach the chief minister’s palace, Mandhakini instead followed the crowd inside. People began noticing her resemblance to Pazhuvoor Ilaiya Rani, and Poonguzhali and Azhwarkkadiyaan tried to shield her from their attention. Soldiers from the rear of the regiment then surrounded Mandhakini, separating her from her niece and escort.

The separation gave way to a street confrontation. Accusations that the prince had been drowned, and that the kingdom’s storms were the fault of its rulers, provoked a Pazhuvoor soldier into attacking one of the speakers. The two groups fell upon each other, each shouting support for its own patrons and political allies. Chinna Pazhuvettarayar’s arrival on horseback brought the disorder to an immediate halt: the public scattered, the Velakkara Regiment continued on, and Pazhuvoor soldiers gathered around their commander. In the resulting confusion, Poonguzhali and Azhwarkkadiyaan discovered that Mandhakini had vanished. Their search nearby found no trace of her.

The emperor hears the report

By the time Aniruddhar presented Poonguzhali to Sundara Chozhar, the emperor had already heard competing accounts of the prince’s disappearance. He had been told that Arulmozhi Varman travelled on a Pallava ship, jumped into the sea to save someone from a burning vessel, and escaped the efforts of Parthibendra Pallava to restrain him. Sundara Chozhar’s anger at what he took to be a conspiracy had extended to Kundhavai: he believed that she, too, had kept him in the dark. Aniruddhar resisted this suspicion, insisting that the emperor should not believe his daughter had schemed against him. He confirmed that the woman who had rescued the prince was waiting nearby and brought Poonguzhali into the chamber.

At first, Sundara Chozhar wondered whether she could speak, since Mandhakini was mute. Aniruddhar answered that Poonguzhali was capable of speech, though the emperor’s presence had momentarily silenced her. Sundara Chozhar then asked directly whether she had saved Arulmozhi Varman from the sea. Poonguzhali confirmed that she had, but her hesitant reply also reflected the charged atmosphere: the rescue was being discussed as though it might be treated as a crime. The emperor answered with bleak laughter and questioned whether his subjects imagined that he wished his own son dead. His distress made clear that the story surrounding the prince had become inseparable from the public’s view of the emperor himself.

The journey to Naagai and the withheld truth

Prompted by Aniruddhar’s questions, Poonguzhali recounted her part in events, beginning with ferrying Vandhiyathevan to Ilankai and continuing through her escort of the prince to Naagai. She confirmed that she had encountered Arulmozhi Varman more than once when he travelled to Ilankai with his men; on one occasion he addressed her as Samudhra Kumari. Her account thus supplied personal, witnessed detail to support the claim that the prince was alive. It also described a chain of assistance, rather than a single moment of rescue: she had carried Vandhiyathevan to Ilankai and later helped escort the prince onward.

Sundara Chozhar thanked her for her service to the Chozha clan, then asked why she had taken the prince to Naagai instead of bringing him to the emperor. Poonguzhali explained that Arulmozhi Varman was suffering from a severe fever and was barely conscious. She and her companions had learned that the Buddhist Viharam at Naagai had skilled physicians who could care for him. Because of his condition, he could travel only by boat; a horse or another land vehicle would have been beyond his strength. Her explanation makes the detour a response to his immediate need for treatment, not an unexplained decision to keep him away from court.

The emperor also asked why she had not informed Pazhuvettarayar, who was at Kodikkarai when these events occurred. Poonguzhali replied that the whole country knew him as an enemy of the prince, and that she could not bring herself to hand Arulmozhi Varman over to his men. Her answer placed the rescue within the kingdom’s political division: the practical choice about where to take a sick prince was also a choice about whom she trusted not to endanger him. Sundara Chozhar’s response returned to the painful belief that the world saw him, too, as an enemy of his sons. Poonguzhali had set out to explain the prince’s route, but her testimony also confronted the emperor with the distrust surrounding his household.

Her account was not complete. Although Aniruddhar had established that she and Azhwarkkadiyaan had witnessed events in Ilankai, Poonguzhali said nothing about Mandhakini, following Aniruddhar’s warning. This omission matters within the audience: the rescued prince’s whereabouts are disclosed, while another truth connected to the journey remains guarded. The report therefore relieves one uncertainty without making every secret in the chamber available for discussion.

The audience closes

Sundara Chozhar regretted the further hardship the storm might have caused at Naagai and worried about what Arulmozhi Varman had endured. The exchange was then brought to a close when Kundhavai and Vanathi entered the chamber. The Maharani reminded Aniruddhar that physicians had ordered the emperor not to be overtaxed, and suggested that Poonguzhali sing for him instead. Aniruddhar offered to have his disciple join her. Poonguzhali sang a Thevaram hymn, while Azhwarkkadiyaan sang a devotional verse.

The ending shifts the encounter from testimony to music without undoing what has been established. Poonguzhali’s account confirms that Arulmozhi Varman survived and gives a concrete reason for taking him to the Buddhist Viharam at Naagai rather than to court. Her refusal to deliver him to Pazhuvettarayar’s men also makes the kingdom’s political mistrust explicit. Yet the audience leaves the emperor’s deeper anxiety unresolved: he has heard proof of his son’s survival, but the suspicions and silences surrounding his family remain.