The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagara, Vol. I v1.c13.226

v1.c13.226

We hear no more of Visvanatha’s expeditions against the Paravas and the Portuguese of the Coromandel Coast. From this we may conclude that Coutinho finally paid the price agreed upon, and that perhaps even the Paravas consented to pay him the catch of two days’ fishing, as demanded. Moreover at the end of the same year the Portuguese Viceroy, Dom Constantino de Braganca, built a fortress on the opposite island of Manar, to which the inhabitants of Punney Kayal were transferred, in order to secure them against the incursions of Visvanatha Nayaka ². The Madura ruler vainly tried to impede the realization of the Viceroy’s scheme ³. In 1597, Fr. Nicolao Pimenta visited this new settlement: “We passed that Cape (of Rameswaram)”, he writes to Fr. General C. Aquaviva, “and came to Talemanare at the entrance of the Ile Manare, and having visited the Churches in the Island, passed the River and went by land to the Pearle-fishing” ⁴. At the end of the century the fortress built in Manar was in a ruinous state. It was restored and fortified again through the diligence of the Jesuits working among the Christian Paravas of the Fishery Coast ⁵. The Dutch traveller John Nieuhoff, who passed through Manar in 1662, says that “this city as well as its castle call’d Ragu acknowledge the Portuguese for its founders, the castle being built for their better security against the attempts of the Naik or Nayk, lord of the circumjacent country” ⁶.