Marthanda Varma

In a series of battles, Marthanda Varma annexed the kingdoms of Attingal, Quilon, and Kayamkulam. He started his campaign against the Kottarakara and other allies of the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch Governor Van Imhoff met Varma to protest against his policy towards their allies and the meeting served to aggravate the situation. In 1741 AD, the Dutch installed a princess of the Elayadathu Swarupam as the rule of Kottarakara in defiance to the demands of Marthanda Varma. The Travancore army inflicted a crushing defeat upon the combined Kottarakara-Dutch armies and annexed the kingdom, forcing the Dutch to retreat to Cochin. Following this, Marthanda Varma captured all of the Dutch forts in the area.

                               Links with Indus valley civilization

From 3000 BC onwards Kerala had trade relations by sea with the Indus Valley people. The caves contain drawings that range over periods from as early as 5000 BC to 1000 BC. Recently the youngest group of paintings were in the news for a possible connection to the Indus Valley Civilization.^[7][8][9]
Historian M.R. Raghava Varier of the Kerala state archaeology department identified a sign “a man with jar cup” that is the most distinct motif of the Indus valley civilization.^[10] The finding made in 2009 September indicates that the Harappan civilization was active in the region. Interestingly, the “a man with jar cup” symbol from Edakkal seems to be more similar to the Indus motif than those already known from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
Mr. Varier said “The discovery of the symbols are akin to that of the Harappan civilisation having predominantly Dravidian culture and testimony to the fact that cultural diffusion could take place. It is wrong to presume that the Indus culture disappeared into thin air.” The scholar of Indus and the Tamil Brahmi scripts, Mr. Iravatham Mahadevan said the findings were very significant called it a "major discovery".