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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[AUGUST, 1902.
8 miles from Kodamangalam and 28 miles east by north of Cochin. The remains of an old temple and the walls of some old buildings are still to be found there. The people there still point to . plot of ground, as the place, from which Paraku-Rama is said to have taken his final farewell of the Nambaris. It is further significant that, in the Keralotpatti, Karur or Tirukkarar (the prefix Tiru simply means prosperous) is mentioned as the capital of one of the Cheraman Peramals and the tradition is still remembered by the people of the place.
The author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, as well as Ptolemy, mentions a district called Paralia on the West Coast of India, and Professor Wilson is of opinion that it is possible that it may be a wrong reading for Kerala or Keralia. This, however, is doubtful; for, after noticing the territory of the Pandyaus, Ptolemy mentions the country of the Batoi, which Professor McOrindle identifies with the district extending from the neighbourhood of Poiut Kalimere to the Southern mouth of the Kâvert, corresponding roughly with the present District of Tanjore, within which are placed Nikama, Thelkheir and Kouroula, identified by Yule with Negapatam, Nagor and Karikal. After this comes Paralia, specially so called, "The country of the Toringoi." Bishop Caldwell has identified the Toringoi with the northern portion of the Tamilian nation. This name," he says, "is Chola ir. Sanskrit, Chola in Telugu, but in Tarai) Sors or Chora. The accuracy with regard to the people is remarkable, for in Tami) they appear not only as 8oras, but also as Soragas and Soriyas, and even as Soringas. Their country also is called Soragam. The 'I' of the Tamil word Sora is a peculiar sound not contained in Telugu, in which it is gonerally represented by d' or 'l'. The transliteration of this letters' sems to show that then, as now, the use of this peculiar I was a dialectical peculiarity of Tamil. Paralis, the learned Bishop points out, is the Greek word for coust. Professor McCrindle thinks that, as a Greek word, Paralia designated generally any maritime district. It could not, therefore, have been the Greek mode of writing a native name; for Ptolemy mentions several Paraliss. The coast indicated by this name included Ptolemy's country of the Aloi, i, e., South Travancore and that of Karai, South Tinnevelly. In the Periplus, Paralis commenced at what was called the Pyrrahos or "the Red Cliffs," south of Quilon, and included not only Cape Comorin but also Kolkhoi. It belonged to the King Pandyan. Dr. Vincent conjectures that the king of Madura bad extended his power from the eastern to the western side of the Peninsula and was master of Malabar, when the Greco-Egyptian fleets first visited the Coast. He also thinks it likely that the power of Påndyan had been supersóded in Malabar between the age of the Periplus and Ptolemy, for the latter makes tht Aioi next to Limarike on the south and takes no notice of Pandyan till he bes passed Cape Comorin.
With regard to the word Paralia, it is interesting to note that both Burne!l and Yule agree in identifying it with Purali, whioh is an old name for Travancore. Yule says that "tiis Paralia is, no doubt, Parali, an old name for Travancore, from which the Rajs has a title " Para
ken. lord of Parali. Dr. Gundert also points this out in his Malaydļam Dictionary, under the word Puraliban. That the title was tsed to denote the Rajas of Travancore is also evident from the well-known metrical translation of the Valmiki Ramayana into Malayalam by Raja Kerala Varma, 88 also from the equally well-known philosophical poem Var Agyachandródaya by the same author.
For about two centuries after Ptolemy we have no authentic record of the mention of Kerala. But towards the latter end of the 4th century A. D. we see it referred to in the famous Gupta Inscription on the Allahabad Lag of Aboka. It is there recorded that Samudra Gupta captured and then liberated, among other Rajas, Mantarája of Kerala in the region of the South. Whether this is the product of the imagination of an Oriental Court panegyrist, or whether Samudra Gapta found it feasible to advance so far south as Malabar or not, it is significant that one of the Chéramin Perumals, who ruled over Malabar subsequently, went by the name of Sthanu Ravi Grupta. Mr. Venkiah, however, questions the correctness of the reading of the term “Gupta" occurring in the second of the Syrian Copper-plates.
