Ravidasan’s infiltration of the Pazhuvettarayar treasure vault

Ravidasan’s infiltration of the Pazhuvettarayar treasure vault turns a storehouse of Chozha wealth into a concealed route for political violence. Under cover of an ordinary request for food and access, he gains the keys, brings Soman Saambavan underground, and discovers a passage with a view toward Sundara Chozhar’s sickbed. Unseen by either man, Mandhakini follows them through the vault and realizes that the people she loves are in immediate danger.

Access to the Vault

Ravidasan begins by demanding the key to the treasure vault. The maid resists: Chinna Pazhuvettarayar has already warned her to report if the magician returns, and she fears the consequences of disobeying him. Ravidasan answers with confidence that his enemies are doomed, then displays his mistress’s signet ring. The ring helps turn the exchange toward compliance: the maid eventually leaves to arrange access, while Ravidasan waits with Soman Saambavan.

The delay gives the scene its cover of routine. Ravidasan asks for a large quantity of food, explaining that his last meal was two days earlier. When the maid returns, she brings both a collection of keys and a bundle of food. Ravidasan and his companion go to the vasantha mandapam and approach the path to the subterranean vault. He tries one key after another until the door opens onto complete darkness. Only then does he notice that he has failed to arrange a lamp or torch; the maid agrees to find one, though she warns that procuring a light in broad daylight could attract suspicion.

Before she returns, Ravidasan gives the food to Soman Saambavan, telling him it may be useful if he has to spend two or three days in the cavern. He instructs him to take up a spear and follow quietly. The intended delay is not merely a precaution against discovery: Ravidasan is preparing his accomplice to remain below ground while they learn the passages and await a later opportunity. As the pair set off, Mandhakini follows their swift steps without their knowledge.

The Hidden Route

At the vault entrance, Ravidasan makes Soman Saambavan move well inside rather than pause where his eyes are still adjusting to the darkness. He then retraces the corridor toward Nandhini Devi’s vasantha mandapam, positioning himself to watch the Pazhuvettarayars’ palace and hide in the vault if anyone arrives. Mandhakini slips into the vault while he is away from the entrance, keeping the pursuit alive without revealing herself.

When the maid returns, she bolts the door from outside; Ravidasan bolts it from within. He raises the torch and rejoins Soman Saambavan. Asked whether he has entered the vault before, Ravidasan says he has been there more than once and links his previous visits to the treasure the conspirators have accumulated. The vault is therefore not a newly discovered hiding place for him. He knows its contents and is now showing another conspirator how to move through it.

Ravidasan warns Soman Saambavan about a chamber filled with gems: the accumulation of a hundred years of Chozha supremacy, spread across the floor in heaps of navarathnams. He says the sight once momentarily swayed even his own resolve, and cautions his companion not to lose sight of their purpose. The warning gives the treasure a double significance. It is material proof of Chozha power, but its dazzling abundance can also distract the men who intend to destroy that power. Soman Saambavan answers by recalling their shared oath of vengeance over Veera Pandiyan’s decapitated corpse.

An Assassination Timetable

The vault exploration is directed toward the Chozha palace, not toward the treasure alone. Ravidasan proposes to show Soman Saambavan the passage leading there first, and says that learning the vault’s layout may prove useful later. He forbids an immediate attempt on Sundara Chozhar, even if an opportunity appears. It is Tuesday, he explains; they must wait through Wednesday and Thursday, find out when the king is alone, and act on Friday night, when the pattamakishi makes a short pilgrimage to the Durga Parameswari shrine. Ravidasan presents that interval as essential to their plan: acting too soon, while she is beside the king, could ruin it.

As the men cross the vault, Soman Saambavan keeps darting nervous glances around him. They reach a massive wall with no visible door or path. Light flickers through a small window high above it. Ravidasan hands over the torch, climbs the sheer wall by gripping knobs and protrusions, looks through the window, and descends. The opening gives a view toward Sundara Chozhar’s sickbed and allows observation of movement in the surrounding rooms. Ravidasan then demonstrates a concealed mechanism: he presses a foot on a circular stone, grips a square block, and pushes until a passage creaks open beneath them.

Mandhakini’s Discovery

Ravidasan tells Soman Saambavan that only Periya Pazhuvettarayar and Pazhuvoor Ilaiya Rani knew of this passage before them; now Soman Saambavan knows as well. The two descend, and the torchlight eventually disappears. The passage’s secrecy and its proximity to the king’s sickbed transform the vault from a refuge into a route that could bring the conspirators close to their intended target.

Mandhakini reaches the open entrance after the men have gone below. She peers into it and places a foot on a step, but withdraws rather than follow them into the passage. Instead, she climbs the wall by the route Ravidasan used and settles at the high window. From there she sees the garden along the wall and the palace complex beyond it. The view sharpens her understanding: her loved ones live within those walls, and the men moving through the hidden passage place them in grave peril.

The infiltration thus produces two opposed kinds of knowledge. Ravidasan and Soman Saambavan acquire access to a secret route and a timetable for reaching Sundara Chozhar when he is alone; Mandhakini, though she has not heard every conversation, discovers enough to recognize the danger. The passage is both an instrument of the conspiracy and the means by which an unseen witness comes close to uncovering it.