Samayapuram
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Samayapuram
Village in the District and taluk of Trichinopoly, Madras, situated in 10 56' N. and 78 4$' E., on the high road about 8 miles north of Trichinopoly city. Population (1901), 1,213. Adjoin- ing it on the south is the village of Kannanur (population, 2,026). The ground covered by the two villages is of much historical interest. It is called Samiavaram in Orme's History and Kannanur in ancient stone inscriptions.
In 1752, when the French army under Law had retreated from the south of the Cauvery to the island of Srirangam, Major Lawrence, at Clive's suggestion, determined to divide his army into two divisions, and to send one of them to the north of Trichinopoly, with the view of getting possession of the enemy's posts in that part of the country and intercepting any reinforcements which might be sent from Pondicherry. This expedition was entrusted to Clive, who on April 7 took possession of the village of Samayapuram. There are two temples in this village and in Kannanur about a quarter of a mile apart : namely, the Bhojeswara shrine on the west, and the Mariamman temple on the east, of the old high road leading to Madras, which then ran a few hundred yards to the east of the present road.
The Europeans and sepoys were placed inside these buildings, while the Marathas and Tanjore troops encamped outside. A detachment sent by Dupleix from Pondicherry under D'Auteuil reached Uttattur on April 14 ; and, in order to intercept this body while on the march, Clive advanced from Samayapuram towards Uttattur, on which D'Auteuil, who had already started for Trichinopoly, retraced his steps to the latter village. Clive then fell back on his former position. Law, who was commanding at Snrangam, heard of Clive's departure but not of his return, and determined to surprise and cut off whatever force might have been left behind by him. With this object he dispatched a force of 80 Europeans (of whom 40 were English deserters) and 200 sepoys.
In the skirmish which ensued, and which is graphically described by Orme, Clive had more than one narrow escape. The French force arrived near the English camp in Samaya- puram about midnight; and the English deserters persuaded the native sentries that they had been sent by Major Lawrence to reinforce Clive, and with all their following were allowed to enter the camp.
They reached unchallenged the smaller of the two temples. When challenged there, they answered by a volley and entered the building, putting to the sword every person they met. Give, who had been sleeping in a neighbouring resthouse, thought the firing was that of his own men who had taken some false alarm, and fetched 200 of the European troops from the other temple. On regaining the smaller shrine, he found a large body of sepoys firing at random. Still mis- taking them for his own troops he went among them, ordering the firing to cease, upbraiding some for their supposed panic and even striking others. One of the French sepoys recognized that he was English, and attacked and wounded him in two places with his sword and then ran away to the temple.
Clive, furious at this supposed insolence on the part of one of his own men, pursued him to the gate and there, to his great surprise, was accosted by six Frenchmen. With characteristic composure he told the Frenchmen that he had come to offer them terms, and that if they did not accept them he would surround them with his whole force and give them no quarter. Three of the Frenchmen ran into the pagoda to carry the intelligence, while the other three surrendered and followed Clive towards the resthouse, whither he now hastened with the intention of attacking the sepoys there, whom he now knew to be enemies ; but they had already discovered the danger of their situation and marched orT. Clive then stormed the temple where he had been challenged by the six Frenchmen \ but the English deserters fought desperately and killed an officer and fifteen men of dive's force, and the attack was accordingly ordered to cease. At daybreak the officer com- manding the French, seeing the danger of his situation, made a sally at the head of his men ; but he was received with a heavy fire which killed him and the twelve others who first came out of the gateway.
The rest ran back into the temple. Clive then advanced into the porch of the gate to parley with the enemy and, weak with loss of blood and fatigue, stood with his back to the wall of the porch leaning forward on the shoulders of two sergeants. The officer of the English deserters conducted himself with great insolence, told Give in abusive language that he would shoot him, raised his musket and fired. The ball missed Clive, but the two sergeants fell mortally wounded. The Frenchmen, who had hitherto defended the temple with the English deserters, thought it necessary to disavow an outrage which would probably exclude them from any pretensions to quarter, and immediately surrendered.
It appears from an inscription in the Jambukeswaram temple on Srirangam island that the Bhojeswara temple in Samayapuram was founded by a Hoysala Ballala king ; and Kannanur is itself identified as the site of Vil^ramapura, the Hoysala capital in the Chola country in the thirteenth century. The name Bhojeswara is considered to be a corruption of the original Poysaleswara (or Hoysaleswara), which owes its origin to a confusion between the long-forgotten Hoysala king and the better-known king Bhoja of the Paramaras in Central India, who never had any connexion with this country. In the Jambukeswaram inscription king Vlra Someswara mentions '[the image of] the Lord Poysaleswara which we have set up in Kannanur, alias Vikramapuram ' ; and the south wall of the Kannanur temple bears an inscription of the Hoysala king Vira Ramanatha Deva (son of Someswara) in which the temple is called Poysaleswara, 'the Iswara [temple] of the Poysala [king],' There is also a copperplate edict of Vira Someswara in the Bangalore Museum which was issued on March i, A.D. 1253, the day of an eclipse of the sun, 'while [the king] was residing in the great capital named Vikramapura, which had been built in order to amuse his mind in the Chola country, which he had conquered by the power of his arm.'
