Ponniyin Selvan Varalaatru Peravai

i came across this on the net, anyone can add to this legend??


Pazhayanaur, a village as ancient and as good a sacred place as
Thiruvalangad, is situated at a distance of about 1.5 kilometres from
Thiruvalangadu village. The contribution of Pazhayanur to the great
tradition and glory of Tamils is unique. It was here that seventy
Tamil Vellalars together sacrificed their lives to uphold a spoken
work of honour. The opinion of the scholars is that nowhere could they
come across such a unique incident involving the sacrifice of so many
lives at an appointed hour. The details of this incident are as
described below :
Once a murder, who killed his wife, reached pazhayanur in the evening
of a particular day, closely followed by the spirit of the murdered
wife (named Neeli). It is said that the ghost assumed the form of a
woman with a child and waited for an opportune moment to seek revenge.
This ghost made an appeal to the people of Pazhayanur to prevent the
traveler, her husband, from deserting her. Protesting strongly against
this, the man tried to convince that the woman was nothing but a
ghost. Not convinced by his plea, the 70 people prevailed upon the
traveler, ordered him to stay overnight with the woman, who claimed to
his his wife. When the traveler protested this on the ground that he
might be harmed by the woman, they pledged the word of honour that all
of them would lay down their lives if, by change, any harm should
befall him in the night by his wife. But, the next morning to their
utter shock, they could find only the dead body of the man murdered in
revenge, by the woman who made good her escape by then. There was of
course none to insist to keep their pledge, yet, the 69 of the 70
Vellalars undoubtedly thought that they had erred. To make the error
in judgement, the 69 Vellalars of Pazhayanur lit fire and sacrificed
their lives plunging into it. The other Vellala who was away in his
field work in the early hours of the morning, when learnt this
incident, killed himself at once with the plough shard. The Chera, the
Cola and the Pandya, the great Tamil Kings, who, on hearing this
incident and the sacrificial fire was still burning without dying
visited Pazhayanur to pay homage to the noble martyrs of truth and
justice.
The early Tamil literature has reference to this incident. Devaram of
Thirugnansambandar, of the 7th Century A.D., and Sekkizhar's
Thiruthondar Puranam popularly known as Periapuranam, carry references
to this incident. We have to hear in mind that Sekkizhar, who was the
Prime Minister of Kulothunga Chola-II (A.D. 1137- 1150) wrote his
monumental work after consulting official documents and making
exhaustive reference to other records, practice and tradition. The
great Saiva scholar Umapathy Sivachariar (A.D. 1313) also refers to
this incident in his Sekkizhar Puranam.