'ஆதித்த கரிகாலனைக் கொன்றது யார்?' - My Tamil book released by Swasam Publications

The Tamil version of my historical non-fiction on the death of the Chola King Aditya Karikala is published by Swasam Publishers in Chennai. 

The death of Aditya Karikala was the central theme of the movie 'Ponniyin Selvan' written by Kalki. Since there is a huge mix of facts and fiction in the story by Kalki and in the movie, I researched the Chola history of that period and brought out the facts about Aditya Karikala and his death. 

In the course of unraveling the mystery, I found a lot of discrepancies in the until-now recorded history of the Chola-s of that period which made me work on them and bring them out in this book. This was necessary to establish the motive for the murder of Aditya Karikala. He was killed for decapitating Veera Pandya, the Pandyan king. His anger against Veera Pandya was triggered by Veera Pandya killing one of his immediate ancestors. Who was that ancestor? The book provides the authenticated answer for that.

The book begins with a major issue believed by many scholars including Nilakanta Sastri which became the basis of the story of Ponniyin Selvan by Kalki. This issue centered around Madhurantakan who became the Chola king after the death of Aditya Karikala. Did Madhurantaka conspire to kill Aditya? How could he ascend the throne when Arulmozhi Varman (Rajaraja Chola) or Aditya's son were the rightful heirs to the throne? 

These questions are answered in this book which gives a clarity about the middle chola genealogy and also helps in finding out the undocumented kings in the lineage.

The book can be bought from Swasam Publications through this LINK