Ponniyin Selvan by “Kalki” Krishnamurthy, Macmillan India, ~1800 pages.
Who should be the king? This was the question that members and enemies of the Chozha dynasty were asking each other in 10th century Tamil Nadu. The incidents around this episode form the plot for R. Krishnamurthy’s (pen name: Kalki) epic novel Ponniyin Selvan. This novel was first published in serial form in the Tamil weekly magazine Kalki from 1950 – 1954. Though Krishnamurthy wrote a large number of short stories, it was as a novelist that he gained fame. He was also the first significant historical novelist in Tamil, and his other works include Parthiban Kanavu and Sivagamiyin Sabatham.
Parantaka Chozha was succeeded by his second son Kandaraditha as the first son Rajaditha had died in a battle. On the death of Kandaraditha, his son Maduranthaka was a child, so Kandaraditha’s brother Arinjaya ascended the throne. After Arinjaya’s death, his son Parantaka II, Sundara Chozha, was coronated. He had two sons, Aditha Karikalan and Arulmozhi Varman, and a daughter Kundavai.
When the story starts, the emperor Sundara Chola is ill and bedridden. Aditha Karikalan was the general of the Northern Command and lived in Kanchi. Arulmozhi Varman (who would be famous later as Rajaraja Chola I) was in Sri Lanka in battle. Their sister Kundavai Piratti lived in Chola royal household at Pazhayari.
A rumor starts that there is a conspiracy against Sundara Chozhar and his sons. One person who gets a glimpse of the Pandya conspirators is a warrior of the Vana clan Vallavarayan Vandiyathevan. So even though the book is titled Ponniyin Selvan, the hero of the book is Vandiyathevan, a friend of Adhitha Karikalan.
Through Vandiyathevan, we meet most of the characters in the novel, such as Arulmozhi Varman, the prince whom all the people loved, and Periya Pazhavetturayar, the chancellor who married Nandini. During his youth, Aditha Karikalan fell in love with Nandini. However, she turned vengeful after Aditha Karikalan killed Veerapadyan (who was either Nandini’s father or brother) and vowed to destroy the Chozha dynasty. We also meet Kundavai Devi, who, after hearing the news of the conspiracy, sends Vandiyathevan to Sri Lanka to give a message to Arulmozhi Varman to come back immediately.
The most delightful character in the book is Brahmarayar’s spy Azhwarkadiyan Nambi, a Vaishnavite who roams around the country, challenging Saivaites for debates. He collects information for the Prime Minister and is always around Vandiyathevan, rescuing him during trouble.
There are some lovely women like Vanathi, the Kodumbalur princess in love with Arulmozhi; Poonkuzhali, the boat woman who rows the future king to Lanka; Mandakini, the hard-of-hearing stepmother, and Rakkammal, the wife of a boatman who supports the Pandya conspirators. But, most memorable among these is Nandini, who has the power to make influence any man.
With the help of a boat girl, Vandiyathevan reaches Sri Lanka, meets Ponniyin Selvan, and becomes his close friend. In Lanka, Ponniyin Selvan realizes that his father had spent some time on an island near Lanka and had been with a girl born deaf and dumb. He meets her and learns from her drawing that he has two children. Who are those children, and do they have the right to the throne? Later one day in Thirupurambayam forest, Vandiyathevan sees Nandini and the Pandya conspirators place a small boy on a throne and take a vow in front of him. Who is this boy, and what right does he have to the throne? This is the kind of suspense that is maintained throughout the novel.
While returning from Lanka, Ponniyin Selvan is caught in a cyclone and goes missing. Rumor spreads that he is dead, but he survives and stays at Choodamani Vihara, a Buddhist monastery in Nagapattinam. Then slowly, the dispersed family starts assembling. Meanwhile, the conspirators choose one day in which the king and his sons will be assassinated.
Will the conspirators succeed in killing Sundara Chozha and crowning Madhuranthaka as the king, or will Ponniyin Selvan be the king? But then, it is not that simple either. All the people in the novel have long histories of interaction, and everything is not as black and white as it seems. New revelations and relations are being established all the time. And even when you think you can predict what will happen, new surprises pop up.
Even though this is a work of fiction loosely based on historical facts, some incidents are left without closure, such as the question of who murdered Aditha Karikalan. Various people confess to doing it, but even in the end, a doubt remains.
The three strengths of Kalki are plot, characters, and dialogue. There is not even one dull moment in this 1800-page book. Suspense is maintained throughout the novel, and when you think you understand his techniques, the characters reveal that they are not who you think they are. Even the last book is a page-turner due to the unexpected turn of events. For a novel of this size, there are many characters like spies, magicians, warriors, soothsayers, and Buddhists. Since the book is this big, we get to know each of them very well. The dialogue between the characters is very poetic, which looks odd in English. I am sure it would have sounded beautiful in Tamil.
There are a couple of points of irritation also. First, the author, for some reason, decides to pop into the novel and give some commentary, sometimes a detail about history or rationalization of events. This intervention broke the flow, and I felt it would have been more appropriate as an appendix or a separate article. At the same time, other details are glossed over. For example, in the book, Vandiyathevan goes to Sri Lanka in a boat rowed by the boatwoman Poonkuzhali. There is very less detail about the type of boat or how they were able to navigate the ocean.
This was originally published in Tamil, but thanks to the translation by C.V.Karthik Narayanan, non-Tamil reading people like me can enjoy this classic work. People who can read Tamil have certified that this translation is excellent. Though this book is quite lengthy (6 books, each of about 300 pages), it is a page-turner. This was my first Indian historical novel, giving a good idea of the Chola dynasty in a non-boring way.
(This is a review I wrote 16 years back, on my blog)