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OCTOBER, 1895.]
EARLY SOVEREIGNS OF TRAVANCORE.
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derive Kolikod from Kolidai-Kura, -"the suitable middle part of Malabar, - than to trace it to the popular and clever fiction that the territory was handed over to the Zamorin, to be measured out by the distance to which the crowing of the cock could be heard.66 However that be, if Koļidai-Kuru was ever "the suitable centre" of Vêņåd, as the name indicates, we have some means of determining the original extent of that ancient principality. Taking this village, or Padmanabhapuram, as the centre and Cape Comorin as a point in the circunference, Vêņad, as it originally stood, could not have embraced any territory further north of Trivandram. Bat the etymology of geographical names is not always a reliable guide to history.
VII. Bat whatever might have been the original extent of Vend, in the 4th Malabar century it did include Trivandram, its present capital. For in 865 M. E. we find Aditya Rama making a present of a drum to the temple of Krishna in Trivandram. The gift is recorded in a Sansksit álóka inscribed in old Malayalam characters on the northern wall of the inner shrine of the GOBAIA Krishna temple. With the exception of those at Mitranandapuram, this shrine appears to me to be the oldest in the Trivandram fort. In itself, it is a comparatively small bailding, standing in the middle of a rectangular outer temple, called the gośálá or cowshed, and the whole is situated in rather inconvenient contact with the north-western corner of the square formed by the corridors of the grand 'Sri-Bali-maņdapa of Sri-Padmanabha, the presiding deity of the place. Tradition, for the nonce realistic, points to a worn-out granite tub, still remaining close to the wall bearing the inscription, as a memento of the good old days when the poor folks of the village resorted to it to whet their knives and hatchets before proceeding to the jungles around to fell and fetch fuel. The explanation suits very well indeed the appearance of the time-honoured tub, and also what may be otherwise inferred 29 to the past of the locality. It would be bat an easy and pleasant exercise for historical imagination to picture, with the abundant evidences yet available, the real and original *cowsbed' and the patches of paddy lands and plantain topes by which it was then on all sides surrounded. But long before the date of this document, the primeval peace and solitade of the place must have been to a large extent broken. The Brahmaņa landlords of the north must have, centuries prior, planted a colony at Mitrânandapuram, as an outpost in their advance to the south. The Gosali itself was, at the period of the inscription, a shrine worthy of a royal visit, and I feel inclined to think that the visit itself was induced by that Brahmana colony for some political purpose or other yet further north. At any rate, I fancy, it is to some learned member of that body we owe the álóka, which to us commemorates the reign of Aditya Rama in 365 M. E. The verse may be thus translated :
7 Archaic MAlayalam 57 86. Sanskrit Verse.se
The Gobala Temple Inscription of Aditya Rama. " Hail! Prosperity! In Dhanus (Sagittarius) and when life was at its height, Aditya Rama, who is the bearer of the state umbrella of Kôda Martânda, the lord of Golamba, and who is further the soul of the earth, both prosperous and honoured, dedicated, after making due oblations, to the Lotus-eyed of the temple of the Cowshed, in the town of) Syanandora, a good dram made of silver, as huge as the Mandara mountain, and as lustrous as all the foam of the oceans gathered together."
Such is the literal rendering of the rather cleverly composed Sanskrit distich. But, as Indian scholars know, cleverness in Indian versification means, to a large extent, skill in the use
This fangiful derivation illustrates how traditions are invented in Southern India. It is but typical of what uniformly takes place with respect to most names of castes, villages, and customs. (Such intentions are not, how. ever, confined to 8. India, but are exceedingly commor in N. India, and are the rule in Burma.-ED.)
07 Many letters of arohaio MalayAlam diffor from the charsoters now in use, though the affinity between tho two sets is easy to discover.
* The metre of this one is Sragdhara.
