It seems, besides the Pallavas, Cholas and Pandyas there were lot of 'kuRunila mannarkaL' ruling TN during various periods of time, sometimes independently, sometimes under the big empires. Can the historians of the group enlighten us upon such known 'kuRunila mannarkaL' and their boundaries? Because, during various periods such kings pop into lime-light and then vanish. Like 'kochenganan' who arrests Raja Raja III, Ganga kings who figure frequently in various periods of Pallava and Chola rule and kings like Puthukottai Thondaimans late in history, who seem to rise from nowhere(atleast for laymen like me)
Well, in PS in the Kadambur conspiracy meet, kalki mentions a lot of such kings. Don't remember their names. Can somebody find and post it?
Karthik, i till now believed "Kotchengannan" was a chola king "kotchengat chozhan".. what is the interesting topic of arrest of rajarajan III about? elucidate please
Well, my knowledge of this comes from the novel 'Kayal vizhi' by Akilan. (which was made into MGR starrer movie 'Madhuraiyai meetta sundhara pandiyan')
Well, after losing out to Sundarapandiyan, Raja Raja III(son of Kulothunga III, final king of Chola empire) will try to escape somewhere to the north. But while he is running, 'Kochenganaan' and petty king will capture him and put him in prison. I think he will later hand over him to Sundara Pandian and Sundara Pandiyan will allow Raja raja III to rule Chola nadu as a part of Pandya empire. But after his death Chola dynasty comes to an end. There is no mention of a Chola king after Raja Raja III. (Though, during Krishna Deva Raya's rule a 'Veera chOzan' captures pAndiya nAdu being ruled by a Chandrasekara pAndian. And Krishna deva raya sends an army under NAgama nAyakkar to punish Veera chOzan)
All these I am writing from what I vaguely remember of 'Kayal Vizhi' and 'Vetrithirunagar', both by Akilan. Now I am not even sure if the king is 'Kochenganan'. Heavy weights :), please correct and elaborate.
karthik, by the by can u remember whether the film "Maduraiyay meeta sundara pandian" talks about he life of one sundara pandian who came to power with the help of Malik kafur?
because the Kafur conquests were discussed in the forum and neither gokul nor kamalakannan were able to confirm the identity because they have not seen the film of MGR.moreover there were more than one sundara pandian it seems with an addendum before the name sundara pandian like " Jatavarman,manavarman " etc. etc...
First of all, very sorry for floundering on the name of the 'Kochenganan'. The king who arrested Raja Raja III was 'Kopperunjingan'.
I don't remember the movie much either, apart from MGR playing Sundara Pandiyan and Nambiar playing Raja Raja III, though I remember the book.
This is the info on Pandya kings. I got this from some pages that I downloaded long ago from koodal.com. But they are no longer available in koodal.com
Well, our Maduraiyai meetta Sundara Pandiyan is the second king in the list: Maravarman Sundara-pandya I 1216-35
Malik Kafur's Invasion took place in 1310, it seems. The below list does not mention, who was ruling during 1310. May be they could be the son's of 'Maravarmann Kulasekhara I 1268-1308'.
Again in Sandilyan's Rajamuthirai there are two brothers Sundarapandiyan and Veerapandiyan. I don't know what their period of rule was, but its neither of the above two.
>Can the historians of > the group enlighten us upon such known 'kuRunila mannarkaL' and >their boundaries?
This question cannot be answered in a mail - not even in an article if we have to do proper justification. Because there were so many of them - each having their own genealogy, history, big kings small kings etc. The reason why we do not know much about them is that their history has not been properly researched. The initial focus was too much on pallava - chola - pandiyas and very little time was spent on these races. Hence, stalwarts like Neelakanda sastri or Dr.Mu.Raasamanickanar could not concentrate on these kings - hoping that future would take care of them. A generation or two later till now, we find that only a very small group of people are involved in original research in topics like this. Probably the attraction towords knowing our past was great during pre-post 1947 period... Amidst all these, there are still a few excellent research work available on the kurunila mannargal :
* Dr.Kalaikkovan has researched extensively about pazhuvoor mannargal and has come out with 2 books - with authentic geneaology of that race.
* Dr.Natana kaasinathan has written about Mutharaiyars
* Someone posted interesting material on Irruku velir(kodumbalur clan - Bhoodhi vikrama kesari etc) (Manikantan I believe) a long time ago. Good material is available on pudukkottai.org
* Agathiyam contains lot of material on sethupathis, marudhu brothers and many other kings belonging to period later that 1500AD
* Sambuvaraiyar, kongu adhiyamans, vaanars, malaiyamans....the list goes on and on, but not much material available on them as far as I know. And even the available info is scattered...
same is the case about the powerful merchantile groups of ancient tamilnadu...will post something about them ...
Dr.Se.Rasu (HOD of Dept of Inscriptions, Tamil University, Thanjavur) did lots of researches on Kongu kings ruled kongu nadu (Coimbatore and Erode districts) and Theeran Chinnamalai. He wrote more than 10 books on these citrarasarkal.