Marthanda Varma

Anizham Thirunal Marthanda Varma (Malayalam: അനിഴം തിരുനാൾ മാർത്താണ്ഡവർമ്മ; 1706 – 7 July 1758), was the founding monarch of the southern Indian Kingdom of Travancore (previously Venadu) from 1729 until his death in 1758. He was succeeded by Rama Varma ("Dharma Raja") (1758–98). Marthanda Varma is renowned for having defeated the Dutch East India Company forces at the Battle of Colachel in 1741. He also dismantled the Nair-Brahmin administrative setup of Ettuveetil Pillamar and the Ettara Yogam council. The Pillamars and Yogakkars aligned with the Quilon royal family of Kulashekara Perumal, did not accept the southern branches of the Venadu royal family as the legitimate rulers of Venadu, Southern Travancore (Thiruvananthapuram and Kanyakumari). These branches of the Venadu royal family traced their patrilineal origin to the Chera dynasty and are maternally related to the Kolathiri of the Mushika dynasty and the Ay royal lineage. The Yogakkars and Pillamars were always against the Royal Family to which Marthanda Varma belonged. This alliance was decisively put to an end by Marthanda Varma and he then took the full power as the king. He then adopted a European mode of discipline for his army and expanded his kingdom northward (to what became the modern state of Travancore). He built a sizeable standing army of about 50,000 Nair men, as part of designing an "elaborate and well-organised" war machine, with the role of the Travancore army and fortified the northern boundary of his kingdom (Travancore Lines). His alliance in 1757 with the ruler of Kochi (Cochin), against the northern Kingdom of Calicut, enabled the kingdom of Kochi to survive. Travancore under Marthanda Varma made a deliberate attempt to consolidate its power by the use of Indian Ocean trade. It was the policy of Marthanda Varma to offer assistance to Syrian Christian, Nazarene traders (as a...