Arulmozhi Varman

Arulmozhi Varman is the younger Chozha prince whose supposed drowning turns his absence into a danger to the throne and a source of hope for the royal family. He survives the storm at sea and lives in concealment at a Buddhist viharam in Nagapattinam. Keeping him hidden protects him from immediate discovery, but also allows rival factions to make his presumed death serve their political aims. The evidence surrounding his parentage and childhood rescue points toward Mandhakini Devi, yet does not resolve every question about his birth.

Identity and Background

Arulmozhi Varman is Sundara Chozhar’s younger son and the younger brother of Aditha Karikalan and Kundhavai. His place in the royal family is clear in the characters’ language and loyalties; what remains uncertain is the precise connection between him and Mandhakini Devi. Kundhavai recalls that she once wondered whether Mandhakini was Arulmozhi’s adoptive mother, and whether the woman’s biological child might be someone else. She presents this as an unresolved suspicion, not established fact.

Aniruddhar’s account adds a related but still incomplete strand. Twenty-five years earlier, Mandhakini stayed for several days in Sembian Maadevi’s royal garden, where she gave birth to twins and left them behind. She later returned secretly to see the children, but Sembian Maadevi alone was said to know their fate. Aniruddhar suspected that Mandhakini had also saved Arulmozhi as a child when he fell into the Kaveri River. These facts place Arulmozhi close to Mandhakini’s history, but do not establish that he was one of the twins or identify his birth mother.

Survival and Concealment

After Arulmozhi’s ship journey to Ilankai, a violent storm and the confusion around his whereabouts give rise to reports that he has drowned. Kundhavai reveals to Aniruddhar that he is alive: Samudhra Rajan rescued him from the sea and brought him safely ashore. Arulmozhi is then living at the Buddhist viharam in Nagapattinam, where Kundhavai had gone to meet him. His survival is therefore not simply a rumor or a wishful inference; Kundhavai says she has visited him, and Poonguzhali later testifies before Sundara Chozhar that she rescued the prince and brought him to Nagapattinam.

Arulmozhi’s own actions during the voyage sharpen the contrast between public report and the account of witnesses. Sundara Chozhar is told that Arulmozhi was never aboard the Pazhuvettarayar ship. He travelled on a Pallava vessel and deliberately plunged into the rough sea, despite Parthibendra Pallava’s efforts to stop him, because he was trying to save someone from a burning ship. Poonguzhali confirms that she had seen him on an earlier voyage to Ilankai and that he had once addressed her as Samudhra Kumari. Her testimony links the prince’s known identity to the rescue that brought him ashore, countering the false version of his disappearance.

The Succession and the Threat to His Life

Aniruddhar advises that Arulmozhi remain out of public view until the question of succession is settled. If Madhuranthakan becomes king, the prince’s presence nearby could make the succession impossible to accept peacefully: Aniruddhar fears that the kingdom would become a battlefield and that bloodshed would follow. Concealment is thus a political calculation as well as a protective measure. He allows the court to postpone the consequences of Arulmozhi’s survival while the choice of successor remains unresolved. Aniruddhar even suggests that, if Sundara Chozhar wishes, Arulmozhi could travel to Thanjavur incognito.

That caution is warranted by the plans of the conspirators. Ravidasan’s ally reports that Arulmozhi is alive and hidden in Nagapattinam, and proposes sending Kramavithan to destroy him. The plot places the younger prince among several targets in a broader scheme against Sundara Chozhar and the Chozha dynasty. The conspirators regard his survival not as a reason to restore him openly to court, but as an obstacle to their plan that must be removed. They are willing, by contrast, to let Madhuranthakan live temporarily, since they expect the Pandiya child to come of age. Arulmozhi’s concealed location therefore becomes both refuge and vulnerability: it shields him from public political turmoil, but his enemies know where to look.

Family Ties and Conflicting Accounts

Arulmozhi’s absence weighs on Sundara Chozhar and shapes how his sister acts. Kundhavai initially withholds what she knows, but later tells Aniruddhar that concealing facts has caused devastation, and that she learned this especially through her decision to hide her brother at the Nagapattinam viharam. Her admission marks the secrecy around Arulmozhi as consequential, not merely tactical: the same measure intended to protect him has contributed to the family’s suffering and confusion.

Sundara Chozhar, meanwhile, hears contradictory accounts of his son’s fate. He has been told that Arulmozhi drowned, and his distress is intensified by the belief that Mandhakini’s ghost has taken revenge on him and drowned the prince. When Aniruddhar offers Poonguzhali’s testimony, the emperor is eager to hear from the woman who saved his son. Her account gives him a witness to the prince’s survival and to the circumstances at sea. The scene shows how an unconfirmed death can govern a family’s fears until direct testimony begins to displace rumor.

Narrative Role and Unresolved Questions

Arulmozhi is important in these passages both as a person in hiding and as the absent figure around whom competing versions of events gather. His reported drowning fuels the emperor’s grief, rumors blame the Pazhuvettarayar lords, and conspirators assume that the prince can still be found and killed. His survival changes the political stakes without immediately resolving them: Aniruddhar argues that it must remain concealed until the successor is decided, while Sundara Chozhar’s household needs the truth to end its uncertainty.

His connection to Mandhakini supplies a parallel mystery. Kundhavai wonders whether Mandhakini adopted him; Aniruddhar associates her with the rescue of the child who fell into the Kaveri; and his account places her birth to twins in Sembian Maadevi’s garden. Together these details invite a connection between Arulmozhi’s early life and Mandhakini, but the surviving evidence does not confirm that he was one of those twins. His position in the succession is politically urgent, while the full story of his origins remains unsettled.