South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c9.s2.7.2

c9.s2.7.2

These three names are obviously Paṭṭaṇam, Mēlai Paṭṭaṇam, and Kāyal or Kāyal Paṭṭaṇam in the language of the locality. Kāyal, according to Marco Polo, was the premier port, whereto came all merchants from the east as well as the west, and from all over India, for purposes of trade. The other two stand in some geographical relation with this one. The words would stand, the port and the upper port, the term paṭṭinam meaning port. I believe the port on what is the island now is called Ramēśvara Paṭṭinam, sometimes also Paṭṭinam merely, but at the time of Marco Polo there was another great port on the inner side of the Gulf of Mannar, the ruins of which are now known as Periya Paṭṭaṇam. In the wars of Parākrama Bāhu in favour of one of the Pāṇḍyan princes, and against his brother, he is supposed to have taken on the mainland and in the peninsula, a village called Kundukāla and having fortified it with three circuits of walls and twelve gates, called it Parākrama-paṭṭaṇam, equi-distant from either sea. A little way to the south and on the coast lie the vast ruins of a city called Periya Paṭṭaṇam (large port or city) in the Ramnad Zamindari, already referred to above, where till recently people picked up coins and antiquities of sorts, and I am informed, a considerable portion of the ground plan of the city could still be traced at low water.