Indian Antiquary Vol 31

SR No.: 032523
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 556
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 353

August; 1902.)
NOTES ON MALABAR AND ITS PLACE-NAMES.
349
Cape Comorin, yet Mr. Beal identifies Chimola (which the Chinese editor of Hiuen Tsiang remarks in a note is another name for Malakotta) with the Tamil Kamari, i. e., Cape Comorin.60 But we have to keep in mind that the coast line had extended at one time to a long distance further south of the present Cape. In the Chino-Japanese Map of Inilia the alternative name for Malayak dta is Hai-an-men, which suggests a connection with Ptolemy's country of the Aioi. Professor Wilson thinks that the Aioi may stand for the Sanskrit ahi, & serpent, the reference embodying no doubt the local tradition mentioned in the Kéraļotpatti, of the serpents driving the Brahmans out of Korala.
Mr. C. P. Brown, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 51 says that the Arabs and Africans, who first visited the West Coast of India, came to "Muabbar from beyond the sea." He conjectures that the name Malabar might be the product of a slight change or variation, perhaps nnconsciously made in transcribing the original name in the Syrian character. He proceeds to observe that the eastern shore of India was also visited by men "from beyond the sea," and the name Malabar has been wrongly applied to the Coromandel Coast also. Orme, the historian of India, calls the Tamil people inhabiting the Coromandel Coast the Malabars, and styles the Tamil language Malabarese. This mistake of using the name Malabar to mean part of the Coromandel Coast has led some to believe that the West Coast fell a prey to the irruption of the Muhammadans from the North under Malik Kafar (A. D. 1310). The name applied to the East Coast by Marco Polo and by Ibn Batuts about this time was Ma'abar, meaning literally “the passage," and it is not unlikely that this gave occasion to the belief of the Mahammadan conquest of Malabar under Malik Kafür. According to Rashida'ddin, Al-Biruni and others, Ma'abar extended from Quilon on the Western Coast to Nellore on the Eastern Coast, including both the Chola and Pandya kingdoms. Ritter places Ma'abar on the West Coast, and Lassen says that the name with Ibn Batuta signifies the southernmost part of the Malabar Const. But Col. Yule has noted the error into which both these learned scholars have fallen. Professor Kantsman of Munich thinks that the name appljes neither specially to the South-west Coast, nor to the South-east, but the whole southern spex of the peninsala. This again is erroneous. There is no evidence whatever to show that the term Ma'abar has ever been used to denote the whole southern apex of the peninsula. "All use of it that I have seen says Col. Yule, "is clear for its haing the South-eastern Coast, as Abulfeda precisely says, commencing from Cape Comorin."
To return to Mr. U. P. Brown and his theory regarding the derivation of the word Malabar. After referring to the supposed error in transcription, Mr. Brown continues that "the Tamils in those lands could not pronounce the ain or the letter B, and Maabar was softened into M&pille, the name borne by the descendants of Africans, who are now called Mâpillas." This derivation, to say the least, is curious! How the word underwent the last change it is difficult to understand. No slight change either by way of mispronunciation or verbal transformation can possibly distort Malabar into Mapilla.
The term Mapilla has an independent derivation of its own, quite unconnected with the word Malabar. It is indifferently used to denote both Christians and Muhammadans, though its signification is more strictly limited to Muhammadans in the Northern parts of Malabar. Some think that the word Måpilla is a contracted form of mahd (great) and pilla (child), an honorary title as among Nairs in Travancore. That the term pilla or pillay as an honorary title is not confined to Nairs only is evident from the Canadian Copper-plate wherein a
04 Ancient Geography of India, Vol. L p. 659, et seq. See also p. 552.
1 Vol. III. ** [By "Malabarn" early European travellers always meant the boating population along both the Malabar and Coromandel Consts. It was a sailors' error, and almost universal.-ED] Cathay, p. 919.
Ibid. Vol. I. p. 81, note. Soe Gildmeister, pp. 56 and 185.