Sadras is a fortress town located on

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Coromandel Coast The Coromandel Coast is a coastal region along the southeastern front of the Indian peninsula. Its delimitations are numerous, but generally admitted to be bounded by the Krishna River, Krishna river River mouth, mouth to the north, the Bay of B ...

Chengalpattu district Chengalpattu District is one of the 38 List of districts of Tamil Nadu, districts of Tamil Nadu, in India. The district headquarters is located at Chengalpattu. Chengalpattu district came into existence on 29 November 2019 when it was carved out ...

, 70 km south of

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

in Tamil Nadu state. ''Sadras'' is the anglicised form of the ancient town of ''Sadurangapattinam''.

History and etymology

An inscription found in Sadras dated to 1359 mention this place as Rajanarayanan Pattinam after a

Sambuvaraya The Sambuvarayar chieftains once ruled the Tondaimandalam region of South India. Among them was ''Edirili Chola Sambhuvaraya'', a vassal under Rajadhiraja Chola II and Kulotunga Chola III, who ruled the northern part of Tondaimandalam, now compr ...

chieftain. There is a temple to

Vishnu Vishnu (; , , ), also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the Hindu deities, principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism, and the god of preservation ( ...

here, and because of it later the city was known as Sadiravasagan Pattinam. This later changed into Sadurangapattinam, shortly known as Sadirai. Later the

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

called it Sadras.

Dutch fort

Modern Sadras was established as part of

Dutch Coromandel Coromandel was a governorate of the Dutch East India Company on the coasts of the Coromandel region from 1610, until the company's liquidation in 1798. Dutch presence in the region began with the capture of Pulicat from the Portuguese in Goa and ...

in the seventeenth century, which was even before center for weaving superfine

muslin Muslin () is a cotton fabric of plain weave. It is made in a wide range of weights from delicate sheers to coarse sheeting. It is commonly believed that it gets its name from the city of Mosul, Iraq. Muslin was produced in different regions o ...

cloth for export besides pearl and edible oil. The magnificent Sadras Fort, built for commercial purposes by the Dutch, is a vast compound enclosing a huge granary, stables, and structures used to mount elephants. Unfortunately, only one of these structures survives. The fortress was raided by the British in 1818 and came under the control of the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

. It is now maintained by the

Archaeological Survey of India The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is an Indian government agency that is responsible for archaeological research and the conservation and preservation of cultural historical monuments in the country. It was founded in 1861 by Alexander ...

in efforts to contain further dilapidation. In 2003, a major restoration of the damaged fort was carried out leading to many archaeological findings. The first battle between British East India Company and the Dutch started here as Battle of Sadras. The fort includes a cemetery with many beautifully decorated graves that date to between 1620 and 1769. Sadras fort Coat of Arms4

Location

In recent times, Sadras has found mention due to its proximity to the atomic power plant (Madras Atomic Power Station) and the atomic research centre (Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research –

IGCAR Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) is one of India's premier nuclear research centres. It is the second largest establishment of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), next to Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), located at Ka ...

) both located at nearby

Kalpakkam Kalpakkam is a township in Tamil Nadu, India, situated on the Coromandel Coast 70 kilometres south of Chennai. A conglomerate of two villages (Puduppattinam and Sadurangappatinam) and a DAE township, it is about from Thiruvanmiyur and f ...

. The village of Sadras is sandwiched between the power plant and its township. There are two bridges connecting Kalpakkam and Sadras.

Gallery

The Sadras fort also contains picturesque tombs. Sadras fort cemetery1.JPG Sadras fort Coat of Arms at Graveyard.jpg Sadras fort Coat of Arms at graveyard.jpg Sadras fort Coat of Arms.jpg Sadras fort Coat of Arms2.jpg Sadras fort Coat of Arms3.jpg Sadras fort cementry5.JPG SADRAS-Fort_-_Chambers.jpg SADRAS-Dutch_Cemetry.jpg SADRAS-Passage_near_cemetry.jpg

References

External links

About sadras
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{{Authority control Cities and towns in Chengalpattu district Forts in Tamil Nadu Coromandel Coast Dutch Coromandel Populated coastal places in India