Silappadikaram is a story of a merchant named Kovalan, who lived in Puhar and fell in love with a courtesan named Madhavi, neglecting his wife Kannagi. Later according to the epic, Kovalan and Kannagi left Puhar and went to Madurai, where he was wrongly accused of theft by the court jeweller of the Pandya king. The king sentenced Kovalan to death. Kannagi who still loved him, was full of grief and anger at this injustice and destroyed the entire city of Madurai.