The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c35.s2.44

c35.s2.44

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.