Indian Antiquary Vol 52

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 183

SOME DISCURSIVE COMMENTS ON BARBOSA
167
SOME DISCURSIVE COMMENTS ON BARBOSA. (48 edited by the late M. LONGWORTH DAMES.)
BY SIR RICHARD C. TEMPLE, BT.
(Continued from page 139.) I throw out these suggestions in the hope that someone will investigate further. That well-informed, and as far as quaint spelling is concerned, truly delightful volume, the Madras Manual of Administration, vol. III, 8.v. Cannanore, remarks: "The descendant of the old Cannanore Moplah Sultans, Ally Rajah, resides in the East of the Bay."
The following extract from Mr. H. E. A. Cotton's Castes and Customs in Malabar in the Proceedings of the East India Association (published in the Asiatic Quarterly Review, Jan. 1922, p. 245) seems to confirm tho suggestion that the term Ali Raja represents Ilaya Raja or Junior Raja :-" The chief secular potentate of the community is the Ali Raja of Cannanore in North Malabar. According to tradition, the first of the line was a Nayar at the Court of the Kollattiri Raja, who embraced Islam about the end of the eleventh century A.D. His successors became the hereditary ministers of the Kollattiri and attained a position of considerable power. At one time they were lords of the Laccadive Islands which contain a Moplah population, and possessed their own fleet. But they are now merely landowners. The succession goes in the female line, and the Waliya Bibi, or Senior Lady, was formerly an important personage. In 1824 she was regularly supplied with a guard of honour from the military station at Cannanore,' says Major H. Bevan in his Thirty Years in India, and was very strict in exacting this homage to her rank.'” In regard to the Kollattiri Rajas, Mr. Cotton writes : “This family, which is one of the most ancient and honourable in Malabar, is now represented by the Raja of Chirakkal. It is closely allied with the ruling house of Travancore, with which it observes 'community of pollution,' and ladies have been adopted from it to prevent that dynasty from extinction."
While describing the neighbourhood of Cannanore, Barbosa makes a remarkable slip in this version of his work, in talking of the cocoanut as "a great fruit which they call cocos," while the versions in Ramusio and of the Spaniards are more correct in saying " which they call tenga (Malayalam form) and we call-cochi (cocoas]." Barbosa is not often caught tripping like this (p. 90). On p. 92 he correctly describes the areca nut (Malayalam, adakka) under that name. The term poonac (Coco-nut oilcake) used in note 1, p. 90, wants investi. gation. The Sanskrit term is puíndga, and any South Indian similar term would be a borrowing. Has this been the case ?
At p. 36 is a note by Mr. Thorne to which I wish to draw attention. Barbosa is describ. ing the Srikovil or Great Temple of Calicut, and remarks “ without the church [read "temple ") is a stone of the height of a man." On this Mr. Thorne notes: "This is the mandapam, a stone platform with a tiled canopy, in front of the Srikovil, but within the four walls of the temple enclosure. Only Brahmans may use the mandapam, on which prayers are said by the worshippers." In editing Peter Mundy, vol. III, pt. i, pp. 75-6, who had remarked: “We lay ... in a Pagode. It seems they serve here [Bhatkal] to harbour passengers in their Couroes round aboutt (like to the Saraes aboutt Guzaratt) as well as For Devotion," my annotation to the passage was: "Mundy means that they rested in the open porch (mantapam) of a temple (koil) near Bhatkal, often used by travellers for that purpose." I made this note because I had so rested myself, notably, I recollect, at the Seven Pagodas, Mâvalivaram (Mahabalipuram). I see that the Madras Manual, above quoted, has : Mantapam (manda pa San.; mandef, Hind.)... any square or rectangular hall frith a flat roof supported by pillars, open at the sides ; particularly the porch (toranam) of a temple (coil [ków])." Mr. Thorne's note seems to indicate another senge of the term mandapammantapam in Malayalam.
• The Book of Duarte Barbosa, Translated from the Portuguese text, Arat published in 1312. Edited and annotated by M. L. Dames, Vol. I, 1918; Vol. II, 1921. London, Hakluyt Society.