Palar Estuary

The Palar descends from the Nandi Hills across the Deccan and reaches the Bay of Bengal on the Coromandel Coast. Near its mouth lies Sadurangapattinam, later known to the Dutch as Sadras. An inscription of 1359 calls the place Rajanarayanan Pattinam after a Sambuvaraya chief. Its later name was associated with a temple to Vishnu, and the town became part of the succession of coastal settlements known to European merchants as they entered the trade of southern India.