Thanjai is the Chozha royal city where access to the court, the fort, and the throne becomes a measure of political loyalty and personal estrangement. The narrative gives little attention to its physical appearance; instead, the city gathers the consequences of concealed truths and contested authority. Aniruddhar once returned there with a false report of Mandhakini’s death, while Vandhiyathevan later entered its fort under Nandhini’s protection. By the time Aditha Karikalan is summoned to Kadambur, his absence from Thanjai has become a wound within the royal family and a source of political uncertainty.

Royal Seat and Hidden History

Aniruddhar’s account places Thanjai at the end of a long chain of events beginning twenty-five years earlier. Ordered by the Chakravarthy to pursue the mute woman later known as Mandhakini, he reached Kodikkarai and heard that she had leapt from the lighthouse into the sea. Witnesses believed she had died. In fact, a fisherman rescued her, and Aniruddhar recognized her when the fisherman’s boat came ashore. He bribed the man to take her to Ilankai and keep her there, then returned to Thanjai and told the Chakravarthy that she was dead.

The location matters because Aniruddhar’s deception was delivered to the ruler in the royal city, where a private act of concealment could shape the sovereign’s understanding of the past. Aniruddhar says he acted with the intention of doing the Chakravarthy good, but later regrets the unforeseen consequences. His account also links Thanjai to the wider royal history of Mandhakini: after Sundara Chozhar’s coronation as crown prince, he left for the warfront at Madurai, while Aniruddhar travelled to Kasi. Returning after several years, Aniruddhar eventually heard in Pazhaiyarai that Mandhakini had given birth to twins in Sembian Maadevi’s garden and had sometimes returned secretly to see them. The information he withheld from the Chakravarthy thus belonged to a history that reached back into the royal household.

The Fort and Its Unequal Access

Thanjai’s fort is not merely a boundary around the royal city; it is a place where entry depends on whose authority a visitor can invoke. Nandhini reminds Vandhiyathevan that, when he asked for help entering the fort, she offered her own signet ring. He used it to enter the women’s quarters at night, then left the fort without telling her, despite promising to return after meeting Kundhavai in Pazhaiyarai. Nandhini presents these actions as breaches of trust; Vandhiyathevan admits them, but argues that his service to Aditha Karikalan required him to act as he did.

The exchange makes the fort’s thresholds personal as well as political. Nandhini had used her position to provide access, and the ring made that access possible. Vandhiyathevan’s subsequent departure transformed her assistance into a grievance: the issue is not simply that he entered a restricted part of the fort, but that he left without acknowledging the person who had enabled him to do so. In Nandhini’s account, his conduct tests whether loyalty to the crown prince excuses obligations to others.

Absence from the Court

Thanjai also defines what Aditha Karikalan refuses to do. Nandhini tells him that for three years he has not visited the city or sought an audience with his ailing father. She says his absence hurts Sundara Chozhar most, and reports that someone has told the Chakravarthy that her presence is the reason his son stays away. Aditha accepts that she is indeed the reason he has not set foot in Thanjai. The city therefore becomes the space from which their unresolved history keeps him apart, even as his absence deepens his father’s distress.

Nandhini offers to leave the city so that Aditha can return with ceremony, ascend his father’s throne, and wear the crown. He rejects the implied restoration: he says he no longer desires either throne or crown and would accept Madhuranthaka Thevar’s accession. His response separates physical access to Thanjai from political ambition. Returning to the royal city would not, in his account, mean claiming its highest office; the possibility of Madhuranthaka’s rule remains part of the succession debate even as Aditha withdraws from it.

Political and Narrative Significance

Across these episodes, Thanjai is a centre of authority, but not a place where knowledge or allegiance is secure. The Chakravarthy receives a false account of Mandhakini’s fate there; the fort admits Vandhiyathevan through Nandhini’s ring; and the king’s own son stays away from the city while the question of succession remains open. Each instance turns proximity to the court into a charged choice: to report, to enter, to leave, or to refuse to return.

The contrast with Kadambur sharpens that role. Nandhini’s invitation brings Aditha Karikalan away from the city he has avoided, while her proposed departure from Thanjai offers a way for him to come back. Yet he does not treat his return as a route to power. Thanjai thus holds together the family’s private rupture and the kingdom’s public uncertainty: the ruler remains there, the heir is absent, and the throne can be discussed as a possibility even by the prince who says he no longer wants it.