I TRICHINOPOLY, a large town in the Carnatic portion of the Peninsula of India, in lat. 10° 90' 95" N., and long. 78° 44' 21" E. ; population, 84,449. Its Hindu name, Tri-Sira-pelly, or place of the three-headed, is from a tradition. Muhammadans call it Nathar-Nagar, from a holy man called Nutter. It is a British military cantonment, and gives its name to a revenue district in the Madras Presidency, lying between lat. 10° 37' and 11° 30' 30" N., and between long. 78° 12' and 79° 30' E. Area, 3515 square miles ; pop. according. to the census of 1881, 1,215,033 souls. The river Kaveri (Cauvery), and its branclt the Colerun, aro the most important rivers in Trichinopoly. These rivers almost rejoin each other about 10 miles east of Trichinopoly city.
The Cauvery river enters the district in the west ; it is 1200 yards wide. About 12 miles west of Triehinopoly it is intersected by the island of Srirangam, on which is a magnificent Hindu pagoda and the northern branch takes the name of the 'Colerun, which flows on to the sea near Porto Novo, the Cauvery branch flowing to the Tanjore district, which it waters. The irrigation is secured by two dams or anicuts, the upper at Srirangarn, 874 yards long, across the head of the Colerun, including two islands, erected in 1836 by Captain (Sir Arthur) Cotton ; and a lower dam across the same river, 60 miles farther to the eastward, which supplies the Veranum tank, and irrigates the Chellumbrum tuld Manargudi taluks of S. Arcot. The. grand anicut is an
ancient work constructed by a former sovereign of Tanjore. It secures the irrigation of Tanjore, and allows the surplus water to go to the Colerun.
Trichinopoly fortress was besieged in 1751-55 by Chanda Sahib and the French. Inside the fort is the Trichinopoly rock, a mass, of gneiss, which rises, like inany others in the district, abruptly out of the plain to a height of 273 feet above the level of the street at its foot. The ascent to this rock (Tayumanaswami-Malai) is partly by a covered stone staircase, and partly by steps cut in the rock itself. Upon it is a Siva temple, and at the top a small temple dedicated to Pillaiyar (Ganapati). Every year (August) a festival at this temple attracts a crowd of pilgrims. In 1849 (22d August), owing to some confusion in descending, a panic occurred, and at least 250 persons lost their lives in the crush. In 1871, in the population, there were 1,115,776 IIindus, 32,024 Musalmans, 50,822 Native Chris tians, 1400 European and Eumsian Christians, and 143 Jains. The most numerous Hindu castes are the Villalar (200,853) and the Vannian (398,410). Bmhinans number 31,428. The non Aryan races are numerous.