I feel aabathudhavigal are much more dedicated in a sense that they were ready for anything (i mean anything) to restore back the power for pandyanadu. But from PS, what we could foresee is "kaikkoappadai" are less sensible because they are more crude, brutal and they were ready to sacrifice their life - moment they see danger to their boss - the king; whether they would have been as cunning as "aabathudahavigal" to ingress into enemy's close links.
aabathudhavigal are more like CIA kaikkolappadai are more like Commando force.
are the aabathudahavikal the pandyan equivalent of the chola velakkaarapadai?
perhaps the objectives are same.
(but in ps , velakara padai sacrifice themselves after the king is killed inspite of their protection the abathudavikaL go after the killer with the objective of revenge.)
can sri, sps or swetha give more info on these guardian troops?
The discussion started with abaththudavigal and therinja kaikolap padai, now velakkarap padai is also into the picture!
I think velakkarap padai and abaththudavigal are the same. They are the bodyguards(meikappalar) of the royal people, esp the king, crown prince etc.
ippo ulla black cats, SPG, Z security ellarukkum ivanga than munnodi!
therinja kaikkolap padai is altogether a different category. They are a regiment of the Chozha army. ithila niraiya divisions irukku. valangaip padai, idangaip padai-nu niraiya irukku.
I think Dr.Jaybee, SPS, Dr.Sridhar and our Varalaru team will have better knowledge about all these.
BTW, I don't think we can ditstinguish by telling velakkarap padai will commit suicide and abaththudavigal are more keen on revenge! ivangaloda ore kurikkol is protection. They may kill/attack while trying to protect the king. If they fail in their mission, they are supposed to kill themselves. They commit harakiri(navakantam).
If am right, Kalki describes this when he introduces the Velakkarap padai's procession and their flag. Ravidasan & co, should have committed harakiri as abaththudavigal of the Pandya king. They have no business of taking revenge. PS kathaikkaga Kalki ippadi ezhuthinarnu than ninaikkiren. He had to fit Ravidasan in the novel, and made him a Pandya bodyguard!
Does anyone think separation of the armed forces as "left hand" and "right hand" was a starter of rating people as higher class/lower class, based on their caste of birth?
Why would somebody divide the military as "left hand" and "right hand" ?
I think the this is related to the flank formations in the armies rather than anything to do with class/caste system. All armies used this formation and used their flanks to attack the opposite flank of the opposite army. i.e the left flank will attack the right flank of the army. By identifying the flanks as kais, it shows that our kings are good generals who knows enough about fighting with big armies. It would be interesting to know how the wars were fought in the takkolam or thirupirambium with the flank formations with huge armies. There are lot of info available about the wars by the great Roman Generals to Napoleon available in net. Now the warfare is totally different from the days of the yore..
if we take kalkis word caste also played a role in sections of the army. in the rameshwaram episode he talks to representatives of the kaikolar vaguppu
famous warriors of those days,they were chosen to be the agaparivara padai.kalki says they are the weaver caste of his time. kalki also brings in local politics and says there was a scarcity of thread for this section which was causing distress.