The Battle of Manacaud took place at

Manacaud Manacaud is a locality in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, India. This place is situated between Kamaleswaram and Attakulangara on East Fort - Kovalam - Vizhinjam Road. The United Arab Emirates embassy is also situated in Manacaud. L ...

near

Thiruvananthapuram Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...

in 1680 between the forces of the Kingdom of Venad and the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

Prelude

The Kingdom of Venad was going through a political turmoil. Dissensions broke out between the reigning queen Umayamma and the

feudatory A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain. W ...

chiefs called

Ettuveetil Pillamar The Ettuveetil Pillamar (Lords of the Eight Houses) were nobles from eight ruling Houses in erstwhile Travancore in present-day Kerala state, South India. They were associated with the Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram and the Ettara ...

. Taking advantage of this state of affairs in Venad, a commander under the Mughal Emperor

Aurangazeb Muhi al-Din Muhammad (; – 3 March 1707), commonly known as ( fa, , lit=Ornament of the Throne) and by his regnal title Alamgir ( fa, , translit=ʿĀlamgīr, lit=Conqueror of the World), was the sixth emperor of the Mughal Empire, ruling ...

, wandering in the southern part of the peninsular India, with a number of horsemen, invaded the unprotected southern part of Venad. Mughal commander's forces reached

without facing any resistance at all and encamped at

Umayamma Rani "Aswathi Thirunal" Umayamma, known as Queen Umayamma or Queen Ashure (Aswathi),Papers and articles. "Holding Kings to Ransom – Royal Women in Matrilineal Kerala": Manu S. Pillai (2015 (died 1698), was the regent queen of Venad, Venad (Venatu) ...

, finding it difficult to recover her kingdom from the Mughal

warlord A warlord is a person who exercises military, economic, and political control over a region in a country without a strong national government; largely because of coercive control over the armed forces. Warlords have existed throughout much of h ...

while her feudatories were animated by a spirit of disloyalty towards her government, invited her relative Kerala Varma of the

Kingdom of Kottayam Kottayam (Cotiote) is a former vassal feudal city-state in the erstwhile province of Malabar in present-day Kerala, in the Indian subcontinent. Kottayam (Cotiote) is famed for Pazhassi Raja, one of the principal leaders of the Wayanad Insurrect ...

to raise an army.

The battle

Kerala Varma raised a force armed with bows and arrows, slings, swords and lances. He personally led the army against the Mughal forces and attacked them unexpectedly at

. As the Mughals didn't have a sufficient force, all their horse men having been scattered about between

Varkala Varkala, is a major coastal municipality situated in the northern suburb of Trivandrum, capital city of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the headquarters of Varkala Taluk and important government institutions such as the taluk office, court ...

and

Thovalai Thovalai is a small village located in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India. The area is well known in India for its production of flowers, especially jasmine. The taluk was among several in Thiruvananthapuram district that with the passage of the ...

collecting the revenue, they were unable to make a stand and was obliged to retreat precipitately to

. Kerala Varma pursued him and the Mughal commander was reinforced by a party of horsemen from

and the other southern regions. He made a stand near the side of a hill at

Thiruvattar Thiruvattar is a panchayat town in Kanyakumari district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. About the town This town is situated north-east of Marthandam and north-west of Nagercoil. The two main rivers Pahrali River and Kothai surround the vil ...

, and a severe battle ensued. While the jungles, and rocks with which the locality was covered, presented insuperable obstacles to the Mughul commander's cavalry and threw it into confusion. Archers and slingers continued their attack on the Mughals. While the conflict was going on, many of the horsemen were killed and, a nest of wasps, on one of the trees under which the commander was fighting on horseback, was disturbed by the throwing of a stone from one of the slings and the insects came down in swarms, and stung the Mughal commander on his face. The commander fell down. The fallen chief was soon killed by the archers and his army was thus defeated. Kerala Varma succeeded in securing around three hundred horses and about a hundred prisoners with many swords, lances and other weapons from the defeated army.

Aftermath

Venad Venad was a medieval kingdom lying between the Western Ghat mountains and the Arabian Sea on the south-western tip of India with its headquarters at the port city of Kollam/Quilon.Noburu Karashmia (ed.), A Concise History of South India: Is ...

regained the lands occupied by the Mughal chieftain. Kerala Varma organised a battalion of cavalry with the captured horses and brought all the rebellious

feudatories A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain. W ...

under his control. He then acted as the queen's principal counsellor and commander of the troops of Venad. Umayamma Rani elevated him to the position of

heir apparent An heir apparent, often shortened to heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person; a person who is first in the order of succession but can be displaced by the b ...

. Subsequently, misunderstandings arose between her and the heir apparent and it is believed that he was assassinated.

References

* ''History of Travancore from the Earliest Times'', pp 104–105, P. Shungoonny Menon (1878) {{coord missing, India

1680 in military history 1680 in India

Prelude

The battle

Aftermath

See also

References