page_title: Pandara Vanniyan
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Pandara Vanniyan / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Statue of Pandara Vanniyan
context_page_description: Pandara Vanniyan was a Tamil Vanniar who ruled in Vanni Nadu in 18th century AD. He is referred to by some as the last Tamil king in Sri Lanka, who also rose to revolt against the British Ceylon empire and Dutch Ceylon empire, who died battling the British colonial rule on the island. He was officially declared a National Hero of Sri Lanka in 1982.
context_section_description: Pandara Vanniyan was declared a national hero by the Prime Minister, Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1982 and a statue of him was opened with much fanfare in Vavuniya at the main junction on the A-9 Highway, where the Jaffna and Kandy (and Colombo) road meets the road to Mannar. The Pandara Vanniyan Memorial Day falls on 25 August each year.
  Present-day Tamils and Sinhalese of North Central and North Western provinces in Sri Lanka, which were once part of Vanni, revere Pandara Vanniyan highly. The Sinhalese are known to summon the protection of Vanni Bandara Deio when they pass through jungles.
  Tamil nationalists valourise Vanniyan as an epic hero, and his character has recently been appropriated and measured against Vellupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the now dismantled LTTE. Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi, an Indian politician and writer, in his novel 'Payum Puli Pandara Vanniyan' ('The Leaping Tiger Pandara Vanniyan' in English), uses Vanniyan to typify Tamil patriotism and transnationalism. According to Vijaya Ramaswamy in Historical Dictionary of the Tamils, "the course of the novel is ... connected to ... developments in Sri Lanka related to moves by the LTTE." The novel describes the mission of a friend of Veerapandiya Kattabomman (the last Poligar who resisted British rule in Tamil Nadu) to the Wanni jungles in Sri Lanka. His mission was to meet Pandara Vanniyan who was also resisting the British. This part of the novel echoes the meeting of V. Gopalsamy MP (popularly known as Vaiko) and Vellupillai Prabhakaran (leader of the defunct LTTE) in the dense jungles of Wanni."
  Pandara Vanniyan is also the subject of the eponymous play by Mullaimaṇi Ve Cuppiramaṇiyam, 'Pantara Vanniyan.' The play was awarded a prize by the Ceylon Art Council in 1964, and was published thereafter in 1970.
  On 10 August 2014, three statues of former Tamil kings including Pandara Vanniyan, Ellalan, and Pararaja Sekaran were installed by Jaffna Clock Tower.
caption: Statue of Pandara Vanniyan, unveiled 10 August 2014.
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