Arcot

Arcot lies on the southern bank of the Palar in northern Tamil Nadu, where a low passage crosses between the Coromandel coast and the Deccan interior. The Tamil name Ārkāḍu refers to a forest of fig trees, preserving the appearance of a riverbank once denser than the surrounding fields.

The town rose to political importance under the Nawabs of the Carnatic in the late seventeenth century. From 1692 their court made Arcot a centre for revenue, cavalry and diplomacy between the Mughal Deccan, Hyderabad and the Tamil country. Its position on roads to Madras and the interior also drew merchants dealing in cloth, grain and livestock.

During the Carnatic Wars of the eighteenth century, Arcot became a strategic prize because its fort controlled the passage toward Madras. The 1751 siege and Robert Clive’s defence made the town known in British Indian history. Local rulers nevertheless preserved their own court, religious foundations, weaving settlements and land relationships between coastal merchants and inland villages.