Chanda Sahib

Chanda Sahib sought the investiture of the Mughal Emperor Ahmad Shah Bahadur by declaring himself Nawab of Tinnevelly and gathered his own army of 3500 men and even received 400 French infantry from Dupleix.

Vijaya Ranga Chokkanatha died in 1731 and was succeeded by his widow Meenakshi as Queen-Regent on behalf of a young boy she had adopted as her dead husband's heir.

In 1734 — about the time, in fact, that Meenakshi and Vangaru Tirumala were fighting for the crown — the then-Nawab of Arcot sent an expedition to exact tribute and submission from the kingdoms of the Deep South [citation needed].

Meenakshi, alarmed at the turn affairs now had taken, had little difficulty in persuading that facile politician to accept her tribute of 100,000 silver and gold coins to declare her duly entitled to the throne[citation needed].

He was honorably admitted into the Trichinopoly fort and Vangaru Tirumala — apparently with the good will of the queen, who, did not seem to have wished him any harm and allowed him to venture into Madurai, to rule over that region and Tinnevelly [citation needed].

Two years later in 1736 he returned, again was admitted into the Trichinopoly fort, and proceeded to instate himself the Nawab of the Carnatic and received recognition by the Mughal Emperor Ahmad Shah Bahadur.

Chanda Sahib eventually marched against Vangaru Tirumala, who still ruled in the south, defeated him at Ammaya Nayakkanur and Dindigul, drove him to take refuge in Sivaganga, and occupied the southern provinces of the Madurai Nayak.

But family loyalties prevented a rupture and Chanda Sahib was left undisturbed, while he strengthened the fortifications of Trichinopoly and appointed his two brothers as governors of the strongholds of Dindigul and Madurai.

These Marathas of Tanjore also were encouraged to attempt reprisals by the Nizam of Hyderabad, who — jealous of the increasing power of the Nawab and careless of the loyalty due to co-religionists — gladly would have seen his dangerous subordinate brought to the ground.

Early in 1740 the Marathas appeared in the south with a vast army, and defeated and killed Dost Ali Khan in the pass of Damalcheruvu, now in Chittoor district.

[4] With the Nawab of Arcot greatly weakened Chanda Sahib was captured and imprisoned by the Marathas in the siege of Tiruchirappalli (1741) led by general Raghuji Bhonsle under the orders of Chhattrapati Shahu.