Travancore’s conquest of Kayamkulam

01Marthanda Varma’s wars

Marthanda Varma came to the throne of the small state of Venad in 1729 and spent his reign turning it into Travancore, the strongest kingdom of southern Kerala. He crushed the feudal lords of his own country, and then moved against the neighbouring rajas, many of them allied with the Dutch. Kayamkulam, the old kingdom of Odanad on the coast north of Kollam, fought him for years. A treaty in 1742 left it as a tributary, but the raja soon turned to the Dutch and to Kochi again.

02Kayamkulam falls

In 1746 Marthanda Varma sent his able Brahmin minister and general, the Dalawa Ramayyan, against Kayamkulam. The Travancore army, now drilled in European fashion by the captured Dutch officer Eustachius De Lannoy, overcame the Kayamkulam forces, and the raja fled to the north. The kingdom was annexed. Within a few years Ambalappuzha, Thekkumkur and Vadakkumkur followed. In 1750 Marthanda Varma dedicated the whole kingdom to Shri Padmanabha in the Thrippadidanam and ruled thereafter as Padmanabha Dasa, the servant of the deity.

Dynasty · 1729–1949 CEKings of TravancoreMarthanda Varma built Travancore out of the small Venad kingdom in the 1730s and 1740s, beat the Dutch at Kolachel in 1741, and in 1750 gave the whole kingdom to Shri Padmanabha. His successors ruled as the deity’s servants until Travancore joined India.Read →