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The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c35.s2: Section II. The Pāṇḍya, Chera, or Kerala, and Satiyaputra Kingdoms

The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c35.s2

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Section II. The Pāṇḍya, Chera, or Kerala, and Satiyaputra Kingdoms

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The Pāṇḍya kingdom, approximately equivalent to the modern Madura and Tinnevelly Districts, with part of Trichinopoly and sometimes also of Travancore, is supposed to have been divided into five principalities, the chiefs of which were known as the ‘five Pāṇḍyas’. Details as to the jurisdiction of the several chiefs are unknown, and the evidence for the existence of ‘the five kings’ is of doubtful value.¹

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¹ See Sewell in *Ind. Ant.*, Aug. 1915, vol. xliv, p. 176. He holds that the monarch was always single and that the belief in the ‘Five Kings’ grew out of the legend of the Five Pāṇḍavas.

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As early as the time of Pliny, in the first century after Christ, the capital was Madura or Kūdal; but there is reason to believe that in still more ancient days Korkai was the chief place of the kingdom, and there is some evidence that a place called South Mañalūr on the east side of the Madura District had been the capital of Pāṇḍya chiefs in prehistoric times.² All native traditions indicate Korkai or Kolkai, the Greek Κόλχοι, as the cradle of South Indian civilization, and the home of the mythical three brothers who were supposed to have founded the Pāṇḍya, Chera, and Chola kingdoms. The city, now represented by an insignificant village on the bank of the Tāmraparni river¹ in Tinnevelly, was a great seaport in the days of its glory, and the head-quarters of the trade in pearls and conch-shells (*Turbinella rapa*), which constituted the special source of wealth enjoyed by the Pāṇḍya kings. Even when the royal court was established at Madura, the Crown Prince resided at Korkai in order to control the important revenue and commercial interests centred there. In the course of time the slow elevation of the coast² rendered Korkai inaccessible to ships, and the city gradually decayed, like the Cinque Ports in England.

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² Pliny, *Hist. Nat.*, Bk. vi, ch. 23 (26). He describes Becarē, the harbour on the Malabar coast, the Bakarai or Barkarē of Ptolemy (Bk. vii, ch. 1, 8), which is Vaikkarai, the landing-place for Kottayam; and adds that ‘there Pandion used to reign, dwelling at a great distance from the mart, in a town in the interior of the country, called Modura’. At the time he was writing Caelobothras (Keralaputra) was sovereign of the Malabar coast. The *Periplus* (ch. 54, 55) shows clearly that while Muziris belonged to the kingdom of Keralaputra, Bakarē, farther south, was included in the Pāṇḍya dominions; which, therefore, must have comprised the southern parts of the modern Travancore State. This tract was called Venāḍu or Ven. For identification of Becarē and many other places, see *The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago*, pp. 17-20. Pliny's work was published in A. D. 77, as is proved by the dedication to Titus, before his accession. The Periplus may be dated about A. D. 70, and Ptolemy about A. D. 140. For Mañalūr see *Ind. Ant.*, 1913, pp. 66, 72. North Mañalūr, of which the position is not known, is supposed to have been the earliest Choḷa capital.

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¹ The river was also called Porundam and Muḍigoṇḍaśōlapperāru (*Ep. Ind.* xi (1914), p. 295). It is mentioned in Rock Edicts ii and xiii of Asoka and in chap. xi of the Arthaśāstra of Kautilya. Caldwell (*Tinnevelly*, p. 5) points out the great commercial importance of the river. See also the author's article in *Ind. Ant.*, vol. xlvii (1918), p. 48.

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² The gradual elevation of the land is proved specifically by a piece of pottery resembling modern ware being found in grit stone at Kulasēkhara paṭṭanam, a mile from the seashore. Caldwell concludes that the grit stone which contains recent shells is of comparatively modern formation (*Hist. of Tinnevelly*, Madras, 1881, p. 5).

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Its commercial business was transferred to the new port, which was founded at Kāyal,³ 3 miles lower down the river, and continued for many centuries to be one of the greatest marts of the east. Here Marco Polo landed late in the thirteenth century, probably more than once, and was much impressed by the wealth and magnificence of both prince and people.¹ But the same process which had ruined Korkai caused the abandonment of Kāyal, and compelled the Portuguese to remove their trade to Tuticorin, where a sheltered roadstead, free from deposits of silt, offered superior convenience. The site of Kāyal is now occupied by the miserable huts of a few Muhammadan and native Christian fishermen.²

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³ This Kāyal is now Old Kāyal, and is not to be identified with Kāyal-paṭṭanam (Caldwell, *ibid.*, p. 38). For alteration in the eastern coast-line, see *The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago*, p. 236.

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¹ Medlycott, *India and the Apostle Thomas*, pp. 85 and 87. The first visit seems to have been made in 1288 and the second in 1293.

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² Bishop Caldwell, *Ind. Ant.*, vi, 80–3, 279.

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It is impossible to name a date for the abandonment of Korkai as a port, but the coins of that mint are supposed to extend up to about A. D. 700. The special crest or cognizance of the princes of Korkai was the battle-axe, often associated with the elephant. The kings of Madura adopted a fish, or a pair of fishes, as the family crest.³

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³ Loventhal, *The Coins of Tinnevelly* (Madras, 1888), p. 9.

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The capital of the country, as already mentioned, was at Madura in Pliny's time, but the kingdom had existed from much earlier days. The Pāndyas were known to the Sanskrit grammarian Kātyāyana, whose date probably is not later than the fourth century B. C. ;⁴ and in the same century, Megasthenes, the ambassador of Seleukos Nikator at the court of Chandragupta Maurya, was told strange tales about the southern realm, which was supposed to be under the regimen of women. He was informed that 'Herakles begat a daughter in India whom he called Pandaia. To her he assigned that portion of India which lies to the southward and extends to the sea, while he distributed the people subject to her rule into 365 villages, giving orders that one village each day should bring to the treasury the royal tribute, so that the queen might always have the assistance of those men whose turn it was to pay the tribute in coercing those who for the time being were defaulters in their payment.’ This female potentate was credited with having received from her hero father 500 elephants, 4,000 cavalry, and 130,000 infantry. She possessed a great treasure in the fishery for pearls, which, as Arrian observes, had been eagerly sought by the Greeks, and in his time were equally prized by the Romans.¹

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⁴ Bhandarkar, *Early History of the Dekkan*, 2nd ed., in *Bomb. Gaz.* (1896), vol. i, part i, p. 139. I accept the view of Professors Goldstücker and Bhandarkar concerning the antiquity of Pāṇini and Kātyāyana as necessarily resulting from the ascertained date of Patañjali, 150 B. C. In an essay, *Systems of Sanskrit Grammar*, published Poona, 1915, with the permission of the University of Bombay, Shripad Krishna Belvalkar, M.A., Ph.D., remarks (p. 18) that there is nothing in Pāṇini's Ashṭadyāyi inconsistent with his having flourished in the seventh century B. C. He believes in this early date, while admitting that none of the arguments are decisive when taken singly, and on p. 15 gives 700 to 600 B. C., 'as near an approximation to Pāṇini's time as, in our present state of knowledge, or rather want of knowledge, we are likely to get.'

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¹ Megasthenes, Fragm. I, lvi B, lviii, in Schwanbeck’s text and McCrindle’s translation; Arrian, *Indika*, ch. viii. The story may have been suggested by distorted reports of the Malabar system of succession through females. Mr. F. Fawcett informs me that at the present day the Laccadive islands are administered by the women while the men are at sea.

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We hear of a mission sent by ‘King Pandion’ to Augustus Caesar in 20 B. C.;² and both the author of the *Periplus of the Erythraean Sea* (*c.* A. D. 80) and Ptolemy the geographer (*c.* A. D. 140) were well informed concerning the names and positions of the marts and ports of the Pāndya country. Caracalla’s massacre at Alexandria in A. D. 215 checked, or perhaps put an end to, the direct Roman trade between Southern India and Egypt,³ so that for long ages the history of the Pāndya realm is hidden from our eyes.

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² Strabo, Bk. xv, ch. 4, 73; Merivale, *History of the Romans under the Empire*, iv, 118, 175.

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³ *J. R. A. S.*, Oct., 1907, p. 954.

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The ancient Tamil literature, now being vigorously explored by many patriotic students in Southern India, mentions numerous kings by their clumsy names or titles, of whom some may be referred to an extremely early period. But the first Pāndya king who can be placed in a chronological position at all definite is Nedum-cheliyan, who lived in the second century of the Christian era, and was more or less contemporary with Nedumudi Killi, grandson of Karikāla Chola, with Chenkuttuvan, a powerful Chera king, and with Gajabāhu I of Ceylon. As is usually the case in Indian history, the key is obtained by the synchronism with a foreign prince. Although it cannot be said that the chronology of the early kings of Ceylon has been settled definitely, Professor Geiger's dating of the reign of Gajabāhu between A. D. 173 and 191 may be accepted as a close approximation to the truth.¹

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¹ K. G. Sankara Aiyar, in 'The Age of the Third Tamil Sangam' (*J. Mythic Soc.*, 1917) prefers A. D. 154–76—anyhow the second half of the second century A. C. The same author puts the third Sangam about the same time, which seems reasonable. dated Tiruvallava in the third century (*Folk Songs of Southern India*, p. 217). See *Ancient India*, by S. K. Aiyangar, ch. xiv; 'The Augustan Age of Tamil Literature'; Dr. J. Lazarus on the *Kural* in *Tam. Ant.*, vol. ii (1913), pp. 53–72, and various other papers in vol. i of the same periodical.

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The most remarkable characteristic of the Pāndya state in those times was the maintenance at Madura of a flourishing literary academy or Sangam, the members of which produced much literature of the highest quality. The famous *Kural* of Tiruvalluva—which lives in the hearts of the Tamil people—may be assigned to a time a little before or after A. D. 100. The interesting 'Epic of the Anklet' and the 'Jewel-belt' are a century or so later. It is impossible at present to write out a 'connected relation' of the story of the Pāndya kings during the early centuries of the Christian era, and the reader must be content with these few observations.²

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² *The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago*, pp. 80, 81, 88. Gover

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When Hiuen Tsang visited Southern India, in A. D. 640, he spent a considerable time, doubtless including the 'rest' during the rainy season, at Kānchī (Conjeeveram), then the capital of the Pallava king Narasimhavarman, the most considerable potentate in the South at that period. The pilgrim did not personally visit the Pāndya country farther south, and was content to record notes from descriptions supplied by his Buddhist friends at Kānchī. He gives the name of Malakūta, or Malakotta, to the country, but fails to indicate the name or position of the capital, which presumably was Madura, and is silent on the subject of the mode of government. It is probable that the Pāndya Rāja at that time was a tributary of the powerful Pallava king of Kānchī. In Malakūta Buddhism was almost extinct, the ancient monasteries being mostly in ruins. Temples of the Hindu gods were numbered by hundreds, and the nude (Digambara) Jains were present in multitudes. The inhabitants were reputed to care little for learning, and to be wholly immersed in commercial pursuits, especially the pearl trade.¹

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¹ Beal, ii, 228–30; Watters, ii, 228–33. See remarks by Hultzsch, *Ind. Ant.*, xviii, 242. What has happened to the ruins of the Hindu and Buddhist buildings anterior to the seventh century? It seems tolerably certain that some of them were converted at a later date to Brahmanical use. This is clearly the case with the Buddhist apsidal chaitya hall at Chazarla in Guntūr District, converted into a Saiva temple of late Pallava style (*A. S. Ann. Rep. S. Circle, 1917–18*, p. 35). See ‘Bouddha Vestiges in Kānchīpura’, by T. A. Gopinatha Rao, M.A., Trivandrum (*Ind. Ant.*, 1915, pp. 127–9) with plates. In twelve hours the author discovered five images of Buddha, two being inside the Kamākshi Temple, which probably occupies the site of a Buddhist Tārā temple, the image inside at A being 7′ 10″, including pedestal, which is not likely to have been moved far. All five images are of considerable size. See also Wilson in Introduction to Mackenzie Coll. (ed. 1882), p. 40.

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An inscription furnishes a list of Pāṇḍya kings who reigned from about the middle of the eighth to the beginning of the tenth century, but they are little more than names. Arikesarin, who lived in the eighth century, is said to have defeated the Pallavas, and there is reason to believe that the accession of Varaguṇavarman, who was defeated by the Pallava, Aparājita, at the battle of Sri Purambiya, may be assigned to the definite date A. D. 862–3.² During this period the Chola kingdom, ground between the Pallava and the Pāṇḍya millstones, was weak and unimportant, and the business of resisting Pallava aggression seems to have devolved chiefly on the Pāṇḍyas. The defeat of Nandivarman by Vikramāditya Chalukya, in A. D. 740, had greatly weakened the Pallava power, which was still further reduced by the victories of Āditya Chola at the close of the ninth century.³ From the beginning of the tenth century the Pāṇḍya kings were constrained to acknowledge the ever-growing power of the Cholas. Whether independent or tributary, the Pāṇḍya dynasty continued to exist throughout the ages, and its conflicts with neighbouring powers are noticed in inscriptions from time to time, but few of the events recorded are deserving of remembrance.¹

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² *Progress Report, Epigraphy, 1906–7*, in *Madras G.O., Public*, No. 503, June 27, 1907, pp. 62–70. That report by the late Rai Bahadur V. Venkayya Avargal gives a summary of the few known facts about the early Pāṇḍya kings, as ascertained to date. Additions have been made by T. A. Gopinatha Rao in the *Travancore Archaeol. Series*, especially No. 7 (1911).

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³ *Progress Report, Epigraphy, 1905–6*, in *Madras G.O., Public*, No. 492, July 2, 1906, paras. 10, 16. ‘The Chōḷa king who extended his sovereignty over the Tōṇḍaināḍu was, as we know from other sources, Rāja Kēsarivarman Āditya, the first. He allied himself with the Pāṇḍya king, Varaguṇa Pāṇḍya, and uprooted the Pallava dynasty, and extended his dominions over the whole of the Tōṇḍaināḍu. Therefore, Āditya ought to have lived about the second half of the ninth century, for we know Varaguṇa Pāṇḍya reigned from A. D. 862–3 upwards’ (*Travancore Archaeol. Series*, vol. ii, p. 77). Jouveau-Dubreuil (*Pallavas*, p. 66) dates Varaguṇa's accession about A. D. 854.

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¹ The Pāṇḍyas could never be completely subdued. They continued in a state of chronic revolt against the Choḷa yoke during the whole period of Choḷa supremacy. For about fifty years in the eleventh century Choḷa-Pāṇḍya kings governed the Pāṇḍya country, i. e. Choḷa princes acting apparently as viceroys under the Choḷa suzerain at Tanjore. The first Choḷa-Pāṇḍya was the son of Rājendra-Choḷa I (A. D. 1011–44). Two others are recorded, and there are inscriptions of two out of the three (K. V. Subrahmanya Aiyar, *Ep. Ind.*, xi (1914), p. 293). For further details, see *Epigraphy (G.O.*, No. 1035, Home (Education), Aug. 10, 1917, pp. 106, 107.

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The Pāṇḍya state, in common with the other kingdoms of the South, undoubtedly was reduced to a condition of tributary dependence by the Chola king, Rājarāja the Great, about the year 994, and continued to be more or less under Chola control for nearly two centuries; although, of course, the local administration remained in the hands of the native Rājas, and the relations of the two states varied from time to time. Some revival of the Pāṇḍya power took place in the first half of the thirteenth century.

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When Hiuen Tsang, the Chinese pilgrim, visited Southern India in A. D. 640, Digambara Jains and Jain temples were numerous in both the Pallava realm (Dravida) and the Pāṇḍya kingdom (Malakoṭṭa).² His account does not offer the slightest indication of religious persecution. We must hold, therefore, that the persecution which certainly occurred about that time was subsequent to the pilgrim's visit. It is well established that king Kūna, Sundara, or Neḍumāran Pāṇḍya, who had been brought up as a Jain and was married to a Chola princess, was converted about the middle of the seventh century, by his consort and the famous saint Tirujñānasambandar, to the faith of Siva, which was warmly supported by the Chola dynasty. King Sundara displayed even more than the proverbial zeal of a convert, and persecuted his late co-religionists, who refused to apostatize, with the most savage cruelty, inflicting on no less than eight thousand innocent persons a horrible death by impalement. Certain unpublished sculptures on the walls of a temple at Trivatūr (Tiruvattūr) in Arcot record these executions, and are regarded as confirmation of the tradition.¹ The position of the Jain religion in the South was much shaken by the persecution, which evidently was a reality, although possibly exaggerated.

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² Hultzsch, *Ind. Ant.*, xviii, 240.

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¹ The date of Tirujñānāsambandar and Kūna Pāṇḍya was settled by Hultzsch in 1894–5 (*Ep. Ind.*, iii, 277). See also *Tam. Ant.*, vol. i (1909), No. 3, p. 65. The approximate date thus determined is one of the most important fixed points in the early political and literary history of the South. The event took place at Madura, where it is celebrated as 'the impalement of the Jains' on the 7th day of the *mahōtsava* of Siva, and is treated as an *utsava* (T. A. Gopinatha Rao, *Elements of Hindu Iconography*, 1914, Introd., p. 55). The persecution is described in the 62nd and 63rd *Tiruvalliadal* (*Wilson, Mackenzie MSS.* 2nd ed., Calcutta, 1828, p. 41). The story is repeated in Rodriguez (*The Hindu Pantheon*, Madras, 1841–5), illustrated by a plate depicting the horrid tortures of the victims; also by Gribble in *Calc. Rev.*, 1875, p. 70; and by Elliot, *Coins of Southern India* (1885), p. 126. The Pāṇḍya king is named Neḍumāraṇ in the *Periyapurāna* (*Ind. Ant.*, xxii, 63). All the southern kings had many names and titles, which cause much confusion. For the sculptures, see Sewell, *Lists*, vol. i, p. 167.

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Wars between the Pāṇḍya kings and the rulers of Ceylon frequently occurred. The most notable incident in this protracted conflict was the invasion of the Pāṇḍya territory, in or about A. D. 1166, by a powerful force under the command of two generals in the service of Parākrama-bāhu, the ambitious king of Ceylon. Two detailed accounts of this event, written from different points of view, are extant. The story, as told in the island chronicle, the *Mahāvaṁśa*, naturally represents the victorious career of the invaders as unbroken by defeat; but the rival account, preserved in a long Chola inscription at Arpakkam near Kāñchī, which is the more trustworthy record, proves that the invading army, having gained considerable success at first, ultimately was obliged to retire in consequence of the vigorous resistance of a coalition of the southern princes. The occasion of the Sinhalese intervention was a disputed succession to the Pāṇḍya throne of Madura, contested by claimants bearing the oft-recurring names of Vīra and Sundara.² This recurrence of names is one of the difficulties which hinder the reconstruction of the dynastic framework of Pāṇḍya history.

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² Full details will be found in the article appended to *Madras* *G. O., Public*, Nos. 922, 923, dated Aug. 19, 1899, pp. 8–14. See also Hultzsch, ‘Contributions to Singhalese Chronology’ (*J. R. A. S.*, 1913, pp. 517–31).

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Prof. Kielhorn has succeeded in working out the dates of seventeen Pāṇḍya rājas who ruled a territory more or less extensive during the long period between A. D. 1100 and 1567, but the list of names is believed to be incomplete, and most of the princes were merely local chiefs of slight importance.¹ By far the most powerful of the mediaeval Pāṇḍya Rājas was Jaṭāvarman Sundara I, who reigned from A. D. 1251 to at least 1271, and made himself master of the whole eastern coast from Nellore to Cape Comorin. Some of his coins can be identified.² The partial Muhammadan conquest effected by Malik Kāfūr and other leaders in A. D. 1310 and subsequent years, did not destroy the local dynasties, although it marks a change in political conditions which has been taken as the limit of this history.

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¹ ‘Supplement to the List of Inscriptions of Southern India,’ in *Ep. Ind.* viii, App. ii, p. 24. In the second half of the sixteenth century the Pāṇḍyas ‘became more or less Polygars, and had to wait, like vassals, on the proud Telugu Kartas’ (‘The History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura,’ *Ind. Ant.*, 1915, p. 39).

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² *Ind. Ant.*, 1911, pp. 137, 138.

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The earliest reference to the Kerala or Chera kingdom is that made in the edicts of Asoka under the name of Keralaputra, which was known in slightly corrupted forms to both Pliny and the author of the *Periplus* as still used in their time, the first century after Christ. The ancient Tamil literature, dating approximately from the same period, or a little later, proves that the Chera kingdom comprised five *nādus* or districts, namely : (1) Pooli, ‘the sandy,’ extending from Agalappula to the mouth of the Ponāni river, about 10° 50′ N. lat. ; (2) Kudam, ‘the western,’ extending from the Ponāni to the southernmost mouth of the Periyar river near Ernakulam, about 10° N. lat. ; (3) Kuddam, ‘the land of lakes,’ about Kottayam and Quilon ; (4) Ven,³ from below Quilon nearly to Cape Comorin ; and (5) Karkā, ‘the rocky,’ the hill country to the east of No. 2. Pliny’s Cottonara or Kottanara, the pepper coast, corresponds with No. 3.

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³ The *Periplus* and Pliny assign the southern province or district to the kingdom of Pāṇḍya. No doubt the Pāṇḍyas always did their best to obtain control of some ports on the western coast, and sometimes succeeded in securing their object.

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In the early centuries of the Christian era, two of the principal ports at which the trade in pepper and other rarities was carried on were Muziris, the modern Cranganore, at the mouth of the Periyar, and Bakarei, or Vaikkarai, the landing-place for Kottayam. With a favourable south-east monsoon, the voyage from Arabia to Muziris occupied forty days during July and August, and traders were able to return in December or January after transacting their business.

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These notices, recorded by the Greek and Roman authors, concerning the extent and methods of commerce are no doubt extremely interesting, but they give little help towards the reconstruction of the political history of Kerala. In fact, next to nothing is known on that subject until Kerala was forced into contact with the aggressive Chola power in the tenth century, from which time the Chola inscriptions throw some sidelights on the history of the western kingdom.

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The most ancient Chera capital is said to have been Vanji, Vanchi, or Karūr, now represented by the deserted village Tiru-Karūr, high up the Periyar, about 28 miles ENE. of Cochin. Tiruvanji-kalam, near the mouth of the Periyar, was a later capital. Some writers have erroneously believed Karūr in Coimbatore to have been the Chera capital, but there is no doubt that that opinion is mistaken.¹

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¹ *The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago*, p. 15 ; *Ind. Ant.*, xvii, 259 ; xxxi, 343 ; *Ep. Ind.*, iv, 294 ; *S. I. Inscr.*, vol. iii, part i, p. 30. A few names of early Chera kings have been ascertained: *e. g.* Sthānu Ravi was contemporary and friendly with Āditya Choḷa, the father of Parāntaka I (‘Epigraphy,’ p. 61, in *Madras G. O., Public*, No. 919, July 29, 1912). Three inscriptions of Sthānu Ravi have been published and discussed. He made the famous grants to the Syrian Christians of Koṭṭayam, the only Christian documents of the pre-Portuguese period. The inscriptions are about 40 or 50 years later than the date of the Kollam Era, A. D. 825, which perhaps marks the foundation of Ko am (Quilon) by Sapīr Ēśō, who built the church at Quilon.

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In the earliest times of which we have any knowledge the Kongu country, comprising Coimbatore and the southern part of Salem, is believed to have been distinct from Kerala, whereas in later days both Kerala proper and the Kongu country seem to have been comprised in a single kingdom ;

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and subsequently again the Kongu country alone was known as the Chera kingdom, while Kerala was separate. Apparently it is not possible at present to assign these changes to definite dates. Kerala itself has not always formed a single kingdom, and it now comprises the British District of Malabar, as well as the native states of Cochin and Travancore.

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Tamil literature represents, as already observed (*ante*, p. 452), that Chenkuttuvan, an exceptionally powerful Chera king, was contemporary more or less with Nedum-cheliyan, the Pāndya, and Nedumudi Killi Chola, the grandson of Karikāla, as well as with Gajabāhu I of Ceylon. The authentic political history of the Chera or Kerala kingdom, therefore, like that of the other Tamil monarchies, cannot at present be carried back farther than the first two centuries of the Christian era. Even about the events of that period very little is recorded.

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A learned writer, the late Mr. P. Sundaram Pillai, who was a native of Travancore, rightly claimed that his country possesses claims to exceptional interest, and may be regarded as an epitome of India. Having never been affected seriously by the Muhammadan conquest, it 'plays in Indian anthropology the part of a happy and undisturbed fossiliferous stratum'. To vary the metaphor, the state may be regarded as a museum in which are preserved alive survivals of nearly all the ancient Indian peoples, religions, laws, customs, and manners. The old and new can be studied together within that limited area in a way which is not possible elsewhere. I have already invited attention (*ante*, p. 8) to the view that the scientific study of the history of Indian institutions should begin with the South, rather than with the North.

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The political history of Travancore was seriously investigated for the first time by the scholar named above, who collected over a hundred inscriptions, mostly recorded in the ancient Vatteluttu alphabet,¹ by the aid of which he was able to trace back the royal family to a. d. 1125, and to compile a nearly complete list of the Rājas for two centuries from that date.¹ The records published show that at the beginning of the twelfth century Travancore, or Southern Kerala, formed part of the Chola empire of Rājendra Chola-Kulottunga,² and to all appearance was well governed and administered. The details of the working of the ancient village associations or assemblies are especially interesting, and prove that the government was by no means a mere centralized autocracy. The village assemblies possessed considerable administrative and judicial powers, exercised under the supervision of the Crown officials.

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¹ According to M. M. Haraparshad Sāstrī, the Vatteluttu alphabet is the sole descendant of Kharoshṭhī (*J. B. & O. Res. Soc.*, vol. i, p. 58).

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¹ 'Some Early Sovereigns of Travancore,' *Ind. Ant.*, vol. xxiv (1895), pp. 249, 277, 305, 333; ibid., vol. xxvi, p. 109; 'Miscellaneous Travancore Inscriptions,' ibid., vol. xxvi, pp. 113, 141. Later information will be found in V. Nagam Aiya, *The Travancore State Manual*, 3 vols., Trivandrum, 1906, and in the *Travancore Archaeological Series*, commencing in 1910.

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² Kerala had been annexed at an earlier date by Rajendra-Choḷa I.

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The crest or cognizance of the Chera kings was a bow. Their coins are very rare, and only two late types, characterized by the bow device, are known. They are found in the Kongu country of Salem and Coimbatore, and I do not know any record of the coinage of Kerala, the Malabar coast.³

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³ *Ante*, plate of coins, fig 17; Tufnell, *Hints to Coin Collectors in Southern India* (Madras, 1889), p. 17.

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The above disjointed notes are all that I am in a position to offer as a contribution to the early history of the Chera or Kerala kingdom. One of the most important of the later Chera kings was Ravivarman, born in A. D. 1266-7 (Saka era, 1188), who conquered both the Pāṇḍyas and Cholas in 1299 and was crowned at Quilon in 1312. During the first quarter of the fourteenth century he seems to have been the leading power in South India and he played a prominent part in the organized resistance offered to Malik Kāfūr.⁴ The story of the Zamorins of Calicut falls outside of the limits of this work. Professor Kielhorn has compiled a list of the inscriptions of the later kings and chiefs of Kerala, being mostly those collected by Mr. Sundaram Pillai,⁵ but has not attempted to draw up a dynastic list.

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⁴ *See Ep. Ind.*, iv, 145 ff.

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⁵ *Ep. Ind.*, vol. vii, App. O, Nos. 939-66. The inscriptions generally are dated in the Kollam or Malabar era of A. D. 824-5, which marks the date of the foundation of Kollam or Quilon (*J. R. A. S.*, 1916, p. 156). Much further information will be found in the works above cited, but the details are not of general interest.

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