Aniruddhar’s confession about Mandhakini

Aniruddhar’s confession to Kundhavai overturns the reported death of Mandhakini: she survived her leap into the sea, and he knowingly hid that truth from Sundara Chozhar. What began as an attempt to spare his friend pain became a long-kept secret with consequences Aniruddhar had never anticipated, linking Mandhakini’s disappearance to the children she later saved and to the grief still consuming the king.

The concealed survival

Aniruddhar explains that, twenty-five years earlier, Sundara Chozhar had ordered him to find Mandhakini, the karaiyar woman. Aniruddhar obeyed and hurried to Kodikkarai with several men. There, he heard from witnesses that she had leapt from the lighthouse into the sea. Thyaga Vidanga Karaiyar recounted what had happened while visibly shaken, and Aniruddhar passed that account on to his friend.

The report, however, was incomplete. Mandhakini had entered the sea, but she had survived. A fisherman rescued her and brought his boat ashore some distance from Kodikkarai. Aniruddhar saw the boat land and recognized her in it. Instead of telling Sundara Chozhar, he paid the fisherman an exceptionally large sum to take Mandhakini to Ilankai and keep her there. The decisive concealment was not an innocent mistake about what witnesses had seen: Aniruddhar had personally recognized her after the rescue and then deliberately arranged her removal.

Back in Thanjai, he told Sundara Chozhar that Mandhakini was dead. Aniruddhar describes that lie as an offense committed in the belief that it would benefit the king. He says he did not foresee the terrible consequences that would follow. His confession thus distinguishes his intention from his action without erasing the harm done: he meant to protect a friend, but withheld the fact that Mandhakini was alive and beyond the king’s reach.

What Aniruddhar learned later

Aniruddhar’s secret did not end with his return. After Sundara Chozhar became crown prince, the prince left for the warfront at Madurai, while Aniruddhar went to Kasi. He spent several years studying sacred texts before returning. In Pazhaiyarai, he encountered the father of Eesana Siva Battar speaking privately with Mandhakini. That meeting made clear that she had not remained permanently in Ilankai and that the account Aniruddhar had given the king had concealed a life continuing elsewhere.

The man disclosed that Mandhakini had stayed for several days in the royal garden of Sembian Maadevi and given birth to twins there. She had abandoned the children, but sometimes returned without anyone knowing to see them. Aniruddhar asked what had become of the twins; the man refused to tell him, saying that their fate was a secret belonging to Sembian Maadevi alone. Aniruddhar chose not to press the matter. His silence therefore persisted even after he learned that Mandhakini had become a mother and was secretly revisiting the children.

One detail sharpened his suspicions about the royal family. Aniruddhar had heard the familiar account that the Kaveri River itself had saved the young Arulmozhi Varman when he fell into it. He came to suspect that Mandhakini, not the river, had rescued the child. The possibility connected the woman he had hidden from Sundara Chozhar to the king’s own family, but Aniruddhar still lacked confirmation when he first formed that conclusion.

Kundhavai’s response and the king’s grief

Kundhavai hears the confession as an explanation of how the false death report began, and she distinguishes Aniruddhar’s motive from the deception itself. She recognizes that he had sought Sundara Chozhar’s happiness, even as the consequences of his choice proved far more serious than he expected. Her response does not undo the concealment; it places the act within the friendship and concern that had prompted it.

The truth also reaches into the present crisis. Arulmozhi Varman has met Mandhakini in Ilankai and independently identified her as his rescuer. Meanwhile, Sundara Chozhar’s memories of Mandhakini and his belief that she died in the ocean have become entangled with his fear that she is now taking revenge on his children. In the storm of the previous night, his terror and grief intensified; he blamed Mandhakini for Arulmozhi’s supposed drowning and feared that Adithan would be next. Unable to comfort him, Kundhavai ultimately told her father that Arulmozhi was safe in the Buddhist monastery at Nagapattinam.

Aniruddhar’s account gives Kundhavai a history behind the king’s anguish: the death he mourned had been falsely reported, the woman he believed lost had survived, and his own trusted friend had helped keep her survival from him. It also makes clear that the old secret has outlasted its original purpose. Aniruddhar’s intended act of consolation became a source of uncertainty and pain, while Mandhakini’s hidden movements and her connection to the royal children continued to shape events long after he first sent her away.