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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MAY, 1994
Nâvâyikku jam, but it has been wrongly read as Tirupparikkalama by some epigraphiste, as is evident from the label. An unpublished copper-leaf document of 1435 A.D., belonging to a temple near the above ship-ground, 'mentions a place Kaţittanam (=sea-place) close by Para vûr (paravai-ûr=sea-village) to the south-east of Quilon is a littoral village even now.
In central Travancore we have the sandy region known as Oņattukara comprising the taluks of Karunagappalli, Karttikappalliand Mavelikkara. On&ttukara seems to be a corrupt form of Oru-nâttukara, 23 salty region or briny land. Ochira in this same region is-briny bank (Op-chira) or salty pool by name, and Mavelikkara, ordinarily taken to mean the village of Mahabali of Puranic fame, may be the great tidal shore,' velj4 meaning tide. Going further north, we come across Katappra (=sea-place), now about 10 miles from the sea, Alanturutti (properly, Atan-turutti, Buddhist saint's island), Turuttikkate (island jungle) and Katuttânam (sea-site). This last name occurs in an unpublished copper-plate inscription belonging to the Tiruvalla-temple.
Further on there are Perunneyil (=great littoral village) and Trikkatittanam 26 (-blessed sea-site). The former name appears in its correct form, Peruneytalar, in several tenth or eleventh century stone inscriptions26 in the temple at that place. Then there are Katutturutti (=sea-island) and Ônanturutti (Onam-island) both north of Kottayam, well-known to antiquarians as the place where the far-famed Syrian Christian copper-plates and the two Persian crosses with Pahlavi inscriptions are deposited. Perunturutti (=great island) is about twelve miles west of Kottayam and on the western shore of the Vem bapad18 lake. This lake being geologically a part of the sea, there is no doubt that the sandy tracts (including Perun. turutti) between it and the sea on the west were once in the ocean. In the interior there is Katana te 29 (=sea-country) eight miles east of Katutturutti, which latter is now nearly eight miles from the eastern edge of the backwaters and about fourteen miles from the sea. Passing Ernakulam (Iranakulam, salty ground or tank. Cf. Skt. Irinan, salty ground) in Cochin we come to Paravûr, a sandy country. The name seems to be a hodification of Paravûr (differing in the first r)30 already mentioned as the name of a place near Quilon.
22 The reading published in Trav. Arch. Series, vol. III, part II, p. 216 is correct in this part, but faulty in several others.
23 This appears as Ofunate in the well-known Kottayam copper plate of the reign of Vira-Raghava and ag Otaņâte in Unnunili Sandesam, a Malayalam lyrical poem of 816 m... (1340-41 A.D.) denoted by the cryptogram Tangdimd forming the opening word of the poem.
24 Sanskrit veld, tide or sea-coast, Tamil velai and Malayalam odli as in veliyerram, tlood-tide and veliyi akkam, ebb-tide.
26 Trav. Arch. Series, II, Part I, pp. 33, 36, 40. 90 Tbid., pp. 34, 44.
27 This is the Carturto of Gouves and other Portuguese writers. The Sanskrit name for the place is Sindhud vipam (=sea-island) occurring in old works like Urrunfli-Sandlaam, (1340-41 A.D.).
38 Vembanad is the Tamilized and Anglicized mode of writing the Malayalam name Vempanate, the change of p and into band d denoting rocent Tamil influence, and the dropping of the final vowel e denoting English influence. It has an old form Vempalanate and a Sanskritizod form Bimball-ddah. It is this Vempanat. that, in the prosent writer's opinion, appears as Pimenta in Gouvea's Journada. Vempan Ate pronounced by the common people as Bommonato was, we may suppose, pronounced and written by Gouvea as Pimonata, which subsequently became Pimenta
» Katapato may also mean end-country, or inhabited place' (ndfe as opposed to kdfe, forost) at the castorn extremity (kata). One may legitimately object here that none of the place-namos containing kata, mentioned above (Katappra, Kaţittanam and Katutturutti) have any reference to Katal, the sea. Very well. But the geological evidence of oceanic formations at these places remains unahaken.
30 Three different sounds in Malayalam are represented by (in this paper) with diacritical marks. The first (r) is that oceurring in the Sanskrit worda Rama, raja, and in the English word caravan, and the second is the initial consonant (r) in the English words ram, royal, room, etc. The third ( with two dota below) is the sound "formed by the front part of the tongue preening against the foro-gum " and ropresented by t in the English words late, latter, cat, oto., Hlementary Phonetica (ante), p. 89. In phonetics is onlled the trillod rand ran untrilled one. Op. cit., pp. 73 and 74.
