Malayadhwaja Pandya

According to a legend found in the Tamil text Tiruvilaiyatarpuranam, king Pandya and his wife performed a yajna to Lord Shiva seeking a son for succession. However, a 3-year-old girl emerges from the yajna who has three breasts. Shiva appears as a divine voice and says that the parents should treat her like a son. When she meets her husband, she will lose the third middle breast. They follow the advice and name the girl Thaadagai . They teach her all forms of Indian martial arts and governance that were required of a Kshatriya king. She matures into an unbeatable warrior. As time passes, King Malayadhwaja Pandya dies and Thaadagai is crowned as his successor. She is renamed Meenakshi by sage Agastya during her crowning ceremony. She marries Sundareswarar. Yama , the god of time and death , is said to have brought King Malayadhwaja to witness and bless his daughter's marriage from the heavens. [1][2]

King Malayadhwaja appears repeatedly in the Mahabharata. His father, Kulashekara Pandya is portrayed as slain by Lord Krishna and his country invaded. To avenge his father's death, Prince Malayadhwaja obtains weapons from Bhishma, Drona, Balarama, and Kripacharya. Prince Malayadadhwaja is said to become, in weapons, the equal of Rukmi , Karna, Arjuna and Achyuta. He then desired to destroy the city of Dwarka, Krishna's capital and to subjugate the whole world. Sage Agastya and Varuna, however, counselled him against that decision and granted him his father's kingdom and made him king. He was present during the Swayamvara of Draupadi and brought jars of Sandalwood and Agarwood perfumes and jars of gold for Yudhishthira's Rajasuya. During the Kurukshetra War, he led the Pandava and is mentioned as a powerful charioteer and warrior. He was slain by the Kaurava's Ashwatthama.