YALPANA-VAIPAVA-MALAI: or The History of the Kingdom of Jaffna.
Translated from the Tamil by C. BRITTO, Colombo 1879. 
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This book which may have been written around 1736 during the Governorship of Jan Maccara, was translated from Tamil by C. Brito, and was first published in 1879. The work is looked upon as one of great authority among the Tamils of Jaffna. It has references to Don Manuel D’Anderado in what has come to be known as the ‘D’andrado Curse’. This story is depicted in a play known as the ‘Poothathampi Nadagam’. Don Manuel’s presence in Jaffna is also reported by Baldaeus in his book ‘A Description of Ceylon’.

Given below are the sections of the book which refer to Manuel D'andrado. The explanations in brackets have been introduced by me.

The Vaipavamalai (A Historical Garland) 
:– ‘The Dutch’  (Pages 52 – 53)

The first public act of the Ulanthesar  (Hollanders, Dutch) was to introduce the Irappiramathu-Saththiya-vetham  (The Reformed True Religion, Protestantism). In respect of the Civil Government, they appointed Puthaththampi, a Velalan (high caste Tamil), to be Muthali (Mudaliar)  for the revenue branch of the government, and Manuel Anthirasu  (Manuel D’Anderado) a man of the Kuru-kula  (Karava) caste, to be Muthali  for the writing branch. An intimacy sprung up between the two Muthalimar, and Anthirasu, being one day at Puthaththampi’s  house on an invitation to dinner, happened to have a sight of his host’s wife, a woman of transcendent beauty, and was inflamed with a violent passion for her. She was a sister of Kayilasc Vanniyan  and had inherited the haughty spirit and stern morality, by which her ancestors were distinguished among the nobility. She received Anthirasu’s  wicked proposal with indignation and displayed her resentment by subjecting his messenger to the ignominious punishment of being lashed with a broom. The spurned suitor meditated revenge and planned a diabolical one. He procured Puthaththampi’s  signature to a sheet of blank paper, pretending that it was to be filled up with an order for the removal of government timber from Kachchaiththurai.  But the paper was actually filled up with treasonable matters, couched in the form of a letter from Puthaththampi to the Parangkis  (Portuguese), offering to assist them to recover the kingdom if they would but make the attempt. A messenger, who was found carrying the letter, was seized and brought before the Governor. And witnesses were not wanting to fill up the details of the wicked farce. However, a strict investigation having been instituted, Puthaththampi’s  innocence was completely established. But the Governor of Yalpanam  (Jaffna), who was a friend of Anthirasu, allowed himself to be influenced by Anthirasu’s  arguments and entreaties, and Puthaththampi  was sentenced to death. The sentence was executed in a great hurry, before news could reach the governor’s brother, Puthaththampi’s  most powerful and intimate friend, who was then absent at Urkavat-turai  (Kayts), building the Kadat-koddai  (Fort Mammanheil) there. On the representation of Kayilaya-Vanniyan,  who went to Kolumpu  (Colombo) for the purpose, the governor of Yalpanam  and his friend, Anthirasu, were, in the month of Puraddasi (6^th month), in the year Vilampi (32^nd in a cycle of sixty), ordered to proceed to Kolumpu.  On their way thither, the former suffered ship-wreck and was drowned, the latter was crushed to death by a wild elephant.

 PUTHATHTHAMPI NADAKAM

Nadakam is drama. The distinction into comedies and tragedies does not obtain in Tamil. Generrally speaking in all dramatical compositions there are a birth, marriage and death. But there is no drama without a scene of the endurance of unmerited evil or a scene of female devotion. Nor is there one which ends without poetical justice being done to all parties.

The author of the present Nadakam is, as is stated in it, one Davidu, son of Juvan Costan of Mantotte. But he gives us neither  the date of his work: not that of the events which he dramatises. The latter date however is easily found. The Vines Taprobanea  says that Rev. Caldero  was decapitated in the year A.D. 1658 by the Dutch on a charge of his having concealed his knowledge of the treasonable correspondence which Don Lewis Puthaththampi had with the Portuguese. The year 1658 (June 21^st) was the date when the Dutch took the fortress of Jaffnapatanam from the Protuguese.

Puthththampi and his dramatist appear from this work to have been Saivites (followers of Siva) notwithstanding the Christian names they bore. For the dramatist invokes on his work the favour of the usual Hindu gods, and represents his hero as appealing to the same gods for succour in times of distress, while he carefully makes the Dutch characters sweat like Christians.

The events of the drama are as follows :-

The Dutch Viceroy of Colombo sent Anthony Amral as Governor of Jaffna and one Andirado (Manuel D’Anderado), a man of the Kurukula caste (Karava) as Amral’s Muthaliar. Amral appointed Puthaththampi, a Velalan (High Caste of the Tamil People) of the Kerala section, as second Muthaliar, and one Sinne Ulanthes as Captain of the Fort. Andirado made improper advances to Puthaththampi’s wife, which she not merely rejected, but subjected Andirado’s messengers to a degrading punishment. In order to avenge himself, Andirado had a letter framed purporting to have been written by Puthaththampi and Sinne Ulanthes and directed to Kirthi-singkan (Keerthi Sri Rajasinha) king of Kandi (Kandy), offering to betray the country to him. The letter was of course intercepted, and its bearer acted his part exactly as had been arranged. Puthaththampi was condemned on the strength of this letter and was, by the procurance of Andirado, executed without a moment’s respite. Sinne Ulanthes was then absent at Kayts building the sea-fortress. On his return he learnt the fate of Puthaththampi and, for fear of falling by an unjust sentence, committed suicide. But Puthaththampi’s brother-in-law Kayilayappillai, Vanniyan of Kachchaitturai, went to Colombo and made a representation to the Viceroy, upon which both Anthony Amral and Andirado were ordered to go to Colombo to defend themselves. On the way, Amral wilfully threw himself into the sea and was drowned, Andirado was killed by an elephant at Musali or Pandraththarthoppu. Puthaththampi left behind a widow, and a son named Sothi-Nathan. The widow committed suicide through grief.

The debate on the Vaipavamalai and the Nadakam version raged even in the 1940s as indicated by the following letters published in the newspapers. The events described in the these version has certain inaccuracies as clearly pointed out by the authors.

YALPANA - Karava pamphlets and letters.

 The Origin and Development of Simhala Nadagam 

Jaffna is given the credit of taking the lead in the production of Tamil drama in nadagam style (rf Tamil Literature, pp 363 ff.). One such, the Gna-nap-pallu  (spiritual pastoral) was written about the middle of the seventeenth century, on a Christian theme, under the guidance of a Jesuit Father, who lived in Jaffna between 1644 and 1650. The Puthathampi Nadakam, has for its theme the murder of Puthaththambi by the Dutch on a false charge. Since King Kirthi Sri Rajasimha (A.D. 1747 – 1781) is mentioned, it must have been written in the latter part of the eighteenth century (rf Yalpana-Vaipava-Malai, pp xxxiv – xxxv).