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Pazhayanur (Tiruttani Taluk)
Honour Suicides of 70 Vellala Pillais
http://tiruvallur.nic.in/places/pazhayanur.htm
Pazhayanaur, a village as ancient and as good a sacred place as
Thiruvalangad, is situated at a distance of about 1.5 kilometres
from Thiruvalangadu village. The contribution of Pazhayanur to the
great tradition and glory of Tamils is unique. It was here that
seventy Tamil Vellalars together sacrificed their lives to
uphold a spoken work of honour. The opinion of the scholars is that
nowherecould they come across such a unique incident involving the
sacrifice of so many lives at an appointed hour. The details of this
incident are as described below:
Once a murder, who killed his wife, reached pazhayanur in the
evening of a particular day, closely followed by the spirit of the
murdered wife (named Neeli). It is said that the ghost assumed the
form of a woman with a child and waited for an opportune moment to
seek revenge. This ghost made an appeal to the people of Pazhayanur
to prevent the traveler, her husband, from deserting her. Protesting
strongly against this, the man tried to convince that the woman was
nothing but a ghost. Not convinced by his plea, the 70 people
prevailed upon the traveler, ordered him to stay overnight with the
woman, who claimed to his his
wife. When the traveler protested this on the ground that he might
be harmed by the woman, they pledged the word of honour that all of
them would lay down their lives if, by change, any harm should
befall him in the night by his wife. But, the next morning to their
utter shock, they could find only the dead body of the man murdered
in revenge, by the woman who made good her escape by then. There was
of course none to insist to keep their pledge, yet, the 69 of the 70
Vellalars undoubtedly thought that they had erred. To make the error
in judgement, the 69 Vellalars of Pazhayanur lit fire and
sacrificed their lives plunging into it. The other Vellala who was
away in his field work in the early hours of the morning, when
learnt this incident, killed himself at once with the plough shard.
The Chera, the Cola and the Pandya, the great Tamil Kings, who, on
hearing this incident and the sacrificial fire was still burning
without dying visited Pazhayanur to pay homage to the noble martyrs
of truth and justice. The early Tamil literature has reference to
this incident. Devaram of Thirugnansambandar, of the 7th Century
A.D., and Sekkizhar's Thiruthondar Puranam popularly known as
Periapuranam, carry references to this incident. We have to hear in
mind that Sekkizhar, who was the Prime Minister of Kulothunga
Chola-II (A.D. 1137- 1150) wrote his monumental work after
consulting official documents and making exhaustive reference to
other records, practice and tradition. The great Saiva scholar
Umapathy Sivachariar (A.D. 1313) also refers to this incident in his
Sekkizhar Puranam. |