Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Remains of Fallen Heritage

The Forgotten Legend of Udayagiri Fort
Known Fact about Udayagiri, Source Various.




The Udayagiri fort in Kanyakumari District in Tamil Nadu is located at a distance of 14 km from Nagercoil town in Kanyakumari District. It had been originally built in the 1600s, and then rebuilt later by Maharaja Marthanda Varma of Travancore in the 18th century.




Enclosing an area of about 90 acres (36 ha), with an isolated hill 260 feet (79 m) high, the fort contains an old foundry which was used for casting guns.The fort was rebuilt during the reign of Marthanda Varma, Venad King, during 1741-44 under the supervision of Eustachius De Lannoy, a flemish naval commander of the Dutch East India Company, who later served as the Chief of the Travancore Army.





In the early days, the fort was of strategic importance. Prisoners captured in the campaign against Tippu Sultan were confined in the fort for some time. In 1810, the East India Company's Army under Colonel Leger marched into the Travancore State through the Aramboly Pass to quell a rebellion under the leadership of Velu Thambi Dalavai.




In the later years, the English East India Company's troops were stationed there till the middle of the 19th century.The fort is situated on the Thiruvananthapuram-Nagercoil National highway at Puliyoorkurichi. This was the most important military barracks of the Travancore rulers, when Padmanabhapuram was their capital. The fort is built of massive granite blocks around an isolated hillock.




The tombs of the Dutch Admiral Eustachius De Lannoy, (in whose honour the fort was once called Dillanai Kottai De Lennoy's Fort), and of his wife and son could be seen inside a partly ruined chapel in the fort.





De Lannoy's Tomb at the Udayagiri Fort on the Kanyakumari-Trivandrum highway in Kanyakumari District.De Lannoy's body was buried within the fort and a chapel was built at his burial site . De Lannoy's tomb in the fort is marked out by a stone cross planted on the top, with the inscription in both Tamil and Latin. His wife and son were buried by his side.Recently, officials of the Department of Archaeology found an underground tunnel within the fort.




Presently, the fort has been turned into a bio-diversity park by the Tamilnadu forest department, with sites of historical importance, such as De Lannoy's tomb, remaining as protected archaeological sites under the Archaeological Department of India

Leia Mais…

Quotes of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam


  • You have to dream before your dreams can come true.
  • To succeed in your mission, you must have single-minded devotion to your goal.
  • Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended.
  • I was willing to accept what I couldn't change.
  • Man needs his difficulties because they are necessary to enjoy success.
  • Life is a difficult game. You can win it only by retaining your birthright to be a person.
  • If we are not free, no one will respect us.
  • Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work.
  • Do we not realize that self respect comes with self reliance?


  • Those who cannot work with their hearts achieve but a hollow, half-hearted success that breeds bitterness all around.
  • We must think and act like a nation of a billion people and not like that of a million people. Dream, dream, dream!
  • We should not give up and we should not allow the problem to defeat us.




  • Thinking is progress. Non-thinking is stagnation of the individual, organisation and the country. Thinking leads to action. Knowledge without action is useless and irrelevant. Knowledge with action, converts adversity into prosperity.
  • When you speak, speak the truth; perform when you promise; discharge your trust... Withhold your hands from striking, and from taking that which is unlawful and bad...
  • To line only for some unknown future is superficial.

Leia Mais…