Elayadathu

Elayadathu was a small principality of southern Kerala, based at Kottarakkara east of Kollam. Its ruling house was a branch of the Venad dynasty, related to the rulers of Travancore.

In the seventeenth century Prince Kottarakkara Thampuran composed Ramanattam plays, from which Kathakali developed. Travancore's Marthanda Varma captured the chief, who died in confinement in 1739. The Dutch governor van Imhoff restored a claimant princess in 1741, but Marthanda Varma defeated the combined Kottarakkara and Dutch forces and annexed the principality; the queen fled to Cochin.