Velakkara Regiment

The Velakkara Regiment is identified as the Chakravarthy’s regiment and as a force bound, in its tradition of service, to protect the Emperor and his sons. Its presence in Thanjavur is more than ceremonial: its troops enter a city already strained by political tension, become involved in a confrontation with Pazhuvoor soldiers, and illustrate how military loyalty can be tested when disputes over the royal family spill into the streets.

Identity and Royal Duty

The regiment is explicitly associated with the Chakravarthy. Its protective obligation is recalled by Periya Pazhuvettarayar, who says that he once headed the Velakkara Regiment and swore a solemn oath to guard the Emperor and his sons, even at the cost of his own life. This statement records Periya Pazhuvettarayar’s former command, not his position at the time of the later street events; it nevertheless places the regiment within a tradition of personal allegiance to the royal household.

That duty becomes especially charged amid the kingdom’s succession crisis. The Emperor’s sons and their political standing are subjects of open dispute, while the regiment’s remembered oath defines loyalty in direct, personal terms: the ruler and his sons are those whom a soldier has pledged to defend. The text does not identify the regiment as taking a position in every succession dispute, or assign it all military actions undertaken in the Emperor’s name. Its significance instead lies in the tension between the clear protective ideal attached to it and the volatile conditions in which royal forces must act.

Arrival in Thanjavur

When Mandhakini Devi, Poonguzhali, and Azhwarkkadiyaan reach the fort, the Chakravarthy’s Velakkara Regiment is making an impressive entrance. The three let the troops pass. Mandhakini watches them closely, and a large crowd surges in behind them, overwhelming the sentries’ efforts to stop people entering. The regiment’s passage thus becomes the immediate setting for a change in the balance of the scene: a controlled military arrival is followed by an unruly influx of civilians.

Poonguzhali and Azhwarkkadiyaan had intended to take Mandhakini through a secret passage to the chief minister’s palace. Instead, she follows the crowd through the gates, despite her companions’ expectation that she would avoid such a press of people. As bystanders remark on her resemblance to Pazhuvoor Ilaiya Rani, the two companions try to shield her by pushing through the crowd in front of her. Their efforts draw hostile attention and, in turn, the attention of the regiment’s rear ranks. The soldiers surround Mandhakini, forcing the crowd apart and separating her from Poonguzhali and Azhwarkkadiyaan. The intervention is framed as a response to apparent harassment of a woman, but it also leaves Mandhakini isolated from the people who brought her there.

From Protection to Confrontation

A Velakkara soldier approaches Mandhakini and asks who she is and whether anyone has been harassing her, offering to punish anyone responsible. Mandhakini gives no information. Other bystanders then comment on her resemblance to Pazhuvoor Ilaiya Rani and criticize the perceived arrogance of the Pazhuvoor group. Because the exchange takes place near Chinna Pazhuvettarayar’s palace, his men arrive and take offense at the insult to their clan.

When a Pazhuvoor soldier demands to know who made the disparaging remark, a Velakkara warrior openly accepts responsibility. The exchange turns from an argument about the treatment and appearance of one woman into a contest between armed groups over insult and honor. A further accusation—that the Velakkara men are being blamed because the prince has drowned and that their actions have brought storms upon the kingdom—sharpens the political edge of the dispute. The source does not establish that the regiment caused the prince’s disappearance or the storms; it shows the accusation being used in the heat of the confrontation.

The two groups then fall upon one another. Their supporters shout rival declarations of allegiance, invoking the Pazhuvoor patrons on one side and Sundara Chozhar on the other, alongside support for other powerful houses. In this moment, the regiment’s royal association is made publicly visible, but the clash is not simply a formal contest between the Crown and its opponents: it grows out of a crowded street, a remark about the Pazhuvoor clan, and an exchange in which soldiers answer challenges from members of another household’s force.

Intervention and Political Significance

Chinna Pazhuvettarayar rides into the street, and his appearance quiets the disorder. The public scatters. The Velakkara Regiment marches onward with what dignity its members can muster, while Pazhuvoor soldiers gather around their commander to voice their grievances. The troops’ departure does not resolve the immediate problem for Poonguzhali and Azhwarkkadiyaan: when they regroup beside the road, Mandhakini has vanished, and their search nearby fails to find her.

The incident is later reported to Sundara Chozhar as an argument between new arrivals to the city and the Velakkara Regiment that nearly became a massacre, halted just in time by Chinna Pazhuvettarayar’s intervention. This account stresses the risk that a local confrontation could have expanded into a wider riot, while the scene itself shows the chain of escalation: mass entry, suspicion around Mandhakini, insults exchanged between groups, and violence followed by an intervention that disperses the crowd. The regiment is therefore depicted both as a royal force entering a disorderly setting and as one participant in a conflict that exposes the fragility of public order. Its protective duty remains part of its identity, but in Thanjavur that duty unfolds amid competing loyalties and political resentment, where even an effort to intervene around a single woman can become entangled with the kingdom’s larger divisions.