History of Tiruchirappalli

Tiruchirappalli and its surroundings are believed to have been inhabited as early as the stone ages. According to V. Kanakasabhai, a race of Nagas inhabited the region before the rise of the Early Cholas.

Sir William Larke, Director of the British Iron and Steel Federation, says -

The centre of origin is variously placed in India, where there are historical traditions and remains indicating a highly developed iron culture. Hyderabad and Trichinopoly are considered by many to have been the centres of production of wootz..... This steel was noted for centuries, being carried by merchants from India to Damascus and Toledo.." Sir William gives the date of this origin of the Iron Age as 1400 to 1500 B.C.E",^[1]

The Early Cholas

Under the Early Cholas, Tiruchirappalli became an important administrative and cultural centre.

In 1310, the Pandya king, Maravarman Kulasekara Pandyan I was murdered by his son Sundara Pandya who ascended the throne.^[3] But he was overthrown shortly afterwards by Vira Pandya, an illegitimate son of Maravarman Kulasekhara I.^[3] Sundara Pandya sought refuge in the court of Delhi and invited the Muslim general Malik Kafur to invade the kingdom offering him all assistance possible.^[3]

Malik Kafur invaded the Pandya kingdom in 1311.^[4] Muslim annals describe it as the campaign against 'the country of the yellow-faced Bir'.^[4] Vira Pandya was defeated at Kannanur and the temple of Srirangam was ransacked.^[4] According to a popular legend, the idol of Ranganatha was captured and taken by the victors to Delhi where a young daughter of the sultan Alauddin Khalji grew fond of the idol and used it as a plaything thereby saving it from apparent destruction.^[4] A group of devotees of the temple, meanwhile, travelled all the way to Delhi and managed, in the absence of the princess, to persuade the sultan to grant the idol to them.^[4] The princess grew distraught on discovering that the idol had vanished and led a search party to recover it. However, the devotees had crossed Tirupathi by the time. On getting to know of the search party sent after them, three of the most ardent devotees of the god volunteered to take the idol to a cave in the middle of a sparsely-inhabited jungle and guard it there. The idol is believed to have remained in the cave for more than fifty-nine years, until Kampanna Udaiyar's conquest of Srirangam in 1371, when the sole-surviving member of the trio, now in his eighties, conveyed information about the idol to the authorities in Srirangam through the jungle tribes he lived with.^[4] Meanwhile, a substitute idol had been installed in the Srirangam temple in 1311 and worship to this idol was continued after the Muslim army withdrew. When the forces of the sultanate invaded again in 1327, the replacement idol had to be moved to safety. The idol was, therefore, moved to Madurai and across the Western Ghats to Travancore, finally ending up at Tirupathi. When in 1371, Kampanna began to renovate the temple, there were two idols of the god. The actual was, therefore, determined with some difficulty and reinstated with due ceremony and a small chamber was built in the temple to the Surathani or the Muslim princess who is worshipped as "Thulukkachi Nachiyar".^[4] The idol of the goddess buried under a bilva tree within the complex was also recovered and reinstated.^[4]

Late Medieval Period

The

The Vijayanagar Empire ruled the region from 1378 till the 1530s. Its rule was characterised by the revival of Hinduism and reconstruction of temples and monuments destroyed by the Muslim rulers. The province of Madurai was created and ruled by a viceroy or Nayak appointed by the Vijayanagar kings.

Tiruchirappalli under Nayak rule

When the

In 1616, Muttu Virappa Nayak moved the capital from

The Carnatic general

In 1736, Chanda Sahib returned to Tiruchi and in violation of the 1734 treaty, proceeded to make himself master of the kingdom. Humiliated, Meenakshi committed suicide by consuming poison. Chanda Sahib was given the title "Nawab of Tiruchirappalli" and ruled the state from 1736 till 1741, when he was defeated and captured by the Marathas and taken prisoner. Chanda Sahib remained prisoner from 1741 to 1749, when he managed to escape from their clutches. The Maratha general Murari Rao ruled Tiruchirappalli from 1741 to 1743, when the Nizam of Hyderabad invaded Tiruchirappalli and bribed Murari Rao to hand over the city.

Second Carnatic War

In 1749,

British rule

Suspecting the Carnatic ruler,

The Great Southern of India Railway Company was established in 1853 with its headquarters at Tiruchirappalli.[12] In 1859, the company constructed its first railway line connecting Tiruchirappalli and Nagapattinam.^[12] The company was merged with the Carnatic Railway Company in 1874 to form the South Indian Railway Company. The South Indian Railway Company moved one of its principal workshops from Nagapattinam to Tiruchirappalli establishing the Golden Rock Railway Workshop in 1928. The company was eventually liquidated in 1944 and its assets taken over by the Government of India.

Tiruchirappalli played an important part in the

In January 1948, there was a massive strike in Trichy Mills where over 350 workers struck work in response to the retrenchment of 178 of their colleagues by the management.[13] Strikes, along with the peasant rebellion in Tanjore, boosted support for the Communist Party of India and K. Ananda Nambiar, a union leader represented Tiruchi in both the Madras legislature as well as the Lok Sabha. In the late 1970s, the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. G. Ramachandran planned to move the administrative headquarters of the state to Tiruchi but the move was later shelved by successive governments.^[14]

Notes