How Kalki Krishnamurthy used a royal murder to write the intriguing Ponniyin Selvan

India was a newly independent country in the early ’50s when Kalki was writing Ponniyin Selvan, and there was great interest in telling stories that would evoke a sense of cultural pride and contribute to nation-building. Though the Cholas were long gone, they had left an indelible mark on the state’s geography and its sociocultural fabric. The Kallanai dam that the Cholas built in the 2nd century AD, for instance, is still in use. The magnificent Thanjavur temple, now a Unesco World Heritage site, was built under Raja Raja Chola 1’s (Arulmozhi Varman) reign, and he is also credited with expanding the Tamil empire beyond the southern region and across the ocean, capturing parts of Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

That said, Ponniyin Selvan isn’t only about glorifying the Cholas despite the novel dedicating several glowing and uncritical paragraphs to the battle valour and architectural skills of the dynasty. It is a surprisingly human story where the royals are presented as ordinary mortals with moral dilemmas, world weariness and contemporary angst. The Machiavellian manoeuvres within its pages would rival any modern-day coalition and resort politics.

After Chola king Parantaka 1’s death in 955 AD, his oldest surviving son Gandaradhitya became the next king. But though he had a son, Uttama Chola (also known as Madurantakan), the throne passed on to his younger brother, Arinjaya, because Uttama was a small boy at the time of his father’s death. After Arinjaya, the throne went to his son Sundara Chola, and it was expected that either Aditha Karikalan or Arulmozhi Varman would succeed him. But that did not happen.

Crown prince Aditha Karikalan was assassinated — and to this date, there are various theories put forth about who was involved and how they were punished. The only surviving written record of the murder is at the Udayarkudi Anantheeswarar Temple in Chidambaram. It mentions three brothers as Karikalan’s killers — Soman, Ravidasan and Parameswaran. The inscription also mentions that their lands as well as the lands belonging to their relatives were confiscated by the Cholas as punishment.

But over the years, the scanty information in the inscription has fuelled plenty of speculation on what actually happened, including the theory that Uttama Chola had a hand in the murder of Aditha Karikalan. This particular theory arose out of the belief that Uttama Chola did not investigate Karikalan’s murder in his reign, and that it was only when Arulmozhi Varman succeeded him that the killers were prosecuted. If so, it is natural to wonder how Arulmozhi allowed his uncle to become king when he’d killed his older brother. Did he and his sister Kundhavai, also play a role in killing Karikalan? Later interpretations disagree with this theory, and say that the confiscation of the land happened in Uttama Chola’s reign, much before Arulmozhi Varman sat on the throne, and that there was no foul play involving the Chola family.

Kalki’s novel draws on these conspiracy theories to flesh out a juicy story with a villain who never existed — Nandini. In Ponniyin Selvan, Nandini and Madurantakan/Uttama Chola are twins who are unaware of their parentage. Madurantakan is brought up as Gandaradhitya and Sembiyan Madevi’s son while Nandini is adopted by a priestly family and grows up with the royal children. Later, she is made to leave the palace because the Chola family frowns upon the deepening bond between her and Aditha Karikalan.

Historical records attest to the fact that it was Aditha Karikalan who killed the Pandya King Veerapandiyan. This isn’t surprising since the Cholas and Pandyas were bitter rivals, but Kalki brings in the duality of love and war, beauty and pain, into the rather straightforward and all too common motive. He inserts the imaginary Nandini into the equation, forging a connection between her and Veerapandiyan (he is certainly her lover and most likely her father, too). In a dramatic incident, Karikalan discovers Nandini nursing Veerpandiyan, the enemy he’d wounded in battle, and beheads him in a fit of rage and jealousy.

The incident haunts him so much that he is unable to move past his guilt. Kalki creates a tragic figure out of Karikalan — a man who can no longer tell the difference between love and hate. Nandini, who is already bitter about how the Chola family had treated her, is even more incensed by Karikalan’s act and swears to kill him. It is she who plots his murder along with the Pandyas who are thirsting for revenge over the killing of their king, and she uses Madurantakan as a puppet in the game. But Nandini is ultimately defeated — and the Madurantakan who succeeds the throne isn’t the same Madurantakan who is her twin. Ah, what a twist!

Going into the details of how this unfolds would be too big a spoiler for those who haven’t read the novel and are waiting to watch the sequel, but it is enough to say that Kalki comes up with a superbly imaginative answer to the questions raised by the conspiracy theories. It also propels Arulmozhi Varman or Raja Raja 1 as the pinnacle of sacrifice and fairness in the hearts of the Tamil people.

There might be more fiction than history in Kalki’s historical fiction, but it is due to his masterly control over plot and characterisation that Ponniyin Selvan continues to sell close to 100,000 copies every year. When Ratnam’s first film in the series came out in September 2022, many elderly people who’d not been to the theatre in years, went to catch the film because of their love for the novel. Many young people newly discovered the novel, and drew comparisons with later-day series like A Game of Thrones. It remains to be seen if Ratnam’s sequel will stay true to the events of the novel. Will it retain the same ambiguity about Karikalan’s death? What of Nandini’s parentage? A couple more weeks, and we will know how Kalki’s astute vision translates to the big screen.