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AUGUST, 1902.]
NOTES ON MALABAR AND ITS PLACE-NAMES.
343
The Rev. Mr. Foulkes contends that Chêra and Kerala denote the same country, the term Kerala being but the Canarese dialectical form of the word Chere. He points to & general concurrence of the authorities that Chêra and Kerala are synonymous names notwithstanding the difficulty caused by the supposed identity of Kongu and Chera.36 Dr. Rottler's Tamil Dictionary has under the word 'Keralan' "The king Chê ran who reigned on the Malabar Coast." "I have no doubt," says Dr. Caldwell, that the name Chêra and Kerala were originally one and the same, and it is certain that they are always regarded as synonymous in Native Tamil and Malayalam lists." Dr. Gundert has, in his Malayalam Dictionary, under the word Koram “Chêra - Malabar, Canarese pronunciation of Chēram," and under the word Keralam " Chêran - the country between Gökarņam and Kumari''; the word Kerala was known under various forms, such as Söram, Cheram, etc.
The Chora or Korala kingdom at one time loomed large on the map of Southern India. According to Dr. Burnell, from the 3rd to the 7th century appears to have been the most flourishing period in the modern history of the kingdom. It then extended over the present Mysore, Coimbatore, Toņdinad, South Malabar and Cochin. It formed one of the great triarchy of ancient Hindu kingdoms in the extreme south of India and had already acquired a name before the 3rd century B. C. Professor Dowson describes it at a later period as extending to the Mysore frontier in the north, the District of Salem in the east, and the Travancore Coast up to Calicut in the north-west. Its capital was at Karar. Dr. Caldwell is disposed to identify Karûr with the Karoura of Ptolemy, which he says occupies the same site as the present important town of the same Datue in the Coimbatore District, situated on the left bank of the Amaravatt, a tributary of the Kaveri. The authority of the learned Bishop is high indeed. Bat there are some noteworthy considerations which induce us to shift the locality of Ptolemy's Karoura, the capital of Chêra or Kerala, to an altogether different place. Early Tamil records point to Vadji, as the capital of the Chêra Kingdom, and according to the Tamil Metrical Dictionary, Tivakaram, the modern name of Vánji is Karur. Ancient Tamil works describe Vaõji as being situated west of the Western Ghậts. In the Periya Puranam Važji is mentioned as the capital of the Chêra King, and it is indeed significant that it was also known as Makotai (or Kodungallar). In the Syriar. Copper-plate of Bhaskara Ravi Varma (about the 8th century A. D.) Kodungallar is called Maktaipattanam, and this is generally accepted to have been the capital of the Chêramaa Perumaļs. The Rev. William Taylor, in the preface to his Translation of Tamil Historioal Manuscripts, assares us that the Sera Metropolis was no other than Tiru Vañji, the capital of the Chêradeánm. Thus early records, known traditions and old inscriptions all point to Tiruvanchi or Tiruvanchikulam (rendered into Brf Vanji Kovilakam or abode or palace of the prosperous Vañji King) lying adjacent to Cranganore, ag the capital of the early rulers of Chera or Kerala.
I have already shown that Oranganore has been identified with the Musiris of Pliny, Arrian and Ptolemy. Pliny, who died in A. D. 79, and who seems to have written his work two years before his death, says that "Calobothras was reigning there (Muziris) when I committed this to writing." But by the middle of the 2nd century A. D., when Ptolemy wrote, Chera must have either changed its capital, or constituted one more seat of Government. For Ptolemy, as we have observed, names Karoura as the capital of Limurike. It may indeed be that there were two capitals, the Northern and the Southern: the capital for the interior and the capital for the coast; or Calobothras or Kerabothras must have removed his capital from Muziris on the coast to Karoura in the interior, for it will be found that Ptolemy names the latter as one of the interior cities of Limurike. Still it need not be that Kerabotbras removed his capital so far into the interior as Karûr in the Coimbatore District. If Tiravañchika ļam is not itself Karár, the capital of Chêra, as being situated on the coast, a more likely site than the Karor of the Coimbatore District is Tirukkarar in North Travancore, gow a deserted village situated at the foot of the Gbats,
26 District Manual of Salem, Vol. I.
