The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c35.s2.5

c35.s2.5

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.