Gódávari/Gazetteer/Cocanada Taluk
COCANADA TALUK.
Cocanada lies on the coast north of the Gódávari, and all but the northern portion of it is included within the delta of that river. Over 86 per cent, of the soil is consequently alluvial, and most of it is irrigated. Statistics regarding these and other points will be found in the separate Appendix. The taluk is one of the most densely populated in the district and the average revenue payable on each holding is over Rs. 40, or higher than in any other.
Most of the taluk belongs to Pithápuram zamindari. It is well supplied with means of communication. The Madras Railway crosses the north of it, and a branch runs through the heart of it to its head-quarters, the busy sea-port of Cocanada. This town and the old port of Coringa are connected with the interior by good waterways. Roads are plentiful and, on the whole, good. Trade is consequently large, and many important firms are located at Cocanada, but industries are few. Rice-milling at Cocanada and sugar-refining at Samalkot are the only considerable undertakings, and the indigenous industries are of an elementary kind. Coarse weaving goes on at several places; chintzes are largely stamped at Gollapálaiyam, Cocanada and Samalkot; and metal vessels are made at Cocanada, Gollamámidáda and Peddáda. The taluk contains several temples of no small local reputation. These are referred to below.
Bhímavaram is now a portion of Samalkot, but it has a character of its own. The full name of the place as given in inscriptions is Chálukya Bhímavaram. Under the Mughals it appears to have been called Mrúthyujánagar.*[1] The Bhímésvara temple is locally famous both for its architectural beauty and for its sanctity. It possesses a huge lingam which is said to be similar to those in Drákshárámam (in the Rámachandrapuram taluk), Amarávati (or Amará-ráma) in the Guntúr district, Pálakollu (also called Kshíra-ráma) in the Kistna district and 'Kumará-ráma a place not identified. The story goes that the god Subrahmanya killed a demon named Tárakásura who was wearing a huge lingam round his neck, and that this was broken into five pieces, one of which fell at each of these villages. The place is sacred on this account, and a bath in the Bhímagundum tank in front of the temple is believed to confer holiness. There are a number of ancient inscriptions in both the Bhímésvara and Náráyanasvámi temples in the village. Thirty of these have been copied by the Government Epigraphist (Nos. 460 to 489 of 1893). Some others, mostly of a private nature, are given in one of the Mackenzie MSS.1[2] The most ancient is one among the former dated 1087 A.D. A few of them mention members of the Reddi dynasty. The Mackenzie MS. gives what purports to be a copy of a copper-plate grant of Kátama Véma Reddi to the Náráyanasvámi temple dated 1393 A.D.
Chollangi: Lies six miles south of Cocanada, near the coast, and on one of the traditional seven holy mouths of the Gódávari. It is the first place visited by those who are making the 'pilgrimage of the seven mouths.'2[3] The branch of the river which has its mouth here is said to have been brought down by the sage Tulya, and is accordingly called the Tulya-ságara-sangam. It is really nothing but the Tulya Bhága drain. The village is otherwise quite insignificant, and its population is only 577.
Cocanada, the head-quarters of the taluk and district, is a municipality of 48,096 inhabitants and one of the busiest sea-ports in the Presidency. It is situated on the western side of the Coringa bay, and is connected by a branch with the North-east line of the Madras Railway. Its trade has been referred to in some detail on pp. 113-7. It is the head-quarters of the Collector (the Judge resides at Rajahmundry), the District Forest Officer, Local Fund Engineer, Assistant Commissioner of Salt, Abkári and Customs, District Medical and Sanitary Officer, District Registrar, head-quarters Divisional Officer (either a Deputy Collector or an Assistant Collector) and Government Chaplain, and of the Port Officer in charge of the harbour and port. The minor officials stationed there are the tahsildar, district munsif and stationary sub-magistrate. The place is also the head-quarters of a company of the East Coast Rifle Volunteers, and contains a municipal hospital (founded 1856), a dispensary (founded 1888), a women and children's dispensary (founded 1895), two police-stations, a travellers' bungalow, a large private choultry, a private native rest-house, the Pithápuram Rája's college, an English lower secondary school for boys, and two English, and four vernacular, lower secondary schools for girls. Its medical and educational institutions have been referred to in Chapters IX and X respectively, and the doings of its municipal council in Chapter XIV. The salt factories in the suburb of Jagannáthapuram and Penugudúru are mentioned in Chapter XII. The town is situated in the Pithápuram zamindari.
Jagannáthapuram, which lies south of the harbour, is the only part of the place which possesses any historical interest.
It was the site of a Dutch Factory which, with Bimlipatam in Vizagapatam and Pálakollu in Kistna, were 'represented to be held under Fermans granted by the Nizam and confirmed by the Mogul or Emperor of Delhi, bearing various dates from A.D. 1628 to A.D. 1713 and by a Cowle granted by Hajee Houssun in A.D. 1734 and A.D. 1752 by Jaffur Ally Khan. The two last mentioned persons were Naibs or deputies of the Nizam in the Circars. The Dutch are stated to have first occupied these factories about the year A.D. 1628.'1[4] Their factory included the dependent villages of Gollapálem and Gundavaram and they had a mint, at which were made the coins issued from Bimlipatam.2[5]
In 1781 war broke out between the English and the Dutch, and the settlements of the latter on the Coromandel coast were seized. Jagannáthapuram was in that year 'a place of some consequence. The factory house, fortified I believe,3[6] and all the public buildings were demolished in that year.'4[7]
In 1784 peace was declared, and their factories were handed back to the Dutch in the following year. During the wars of the French Revolution (1789-95) the settlements were again captured by the English, but were once more handed back in 1818 by a convention of 1814. They were finally made over to the English Company in 1825, with the other Dutch possessions in India, under the operation of a treaty of 1824 between Holland and England.
The Dutch factory played a small part in the campaign of 1758-59 by which the Northern Circars were taken by the English from the French. French officers wounded at the battle of Condore were permitted to go to Jagannáthapuram on parole. In 1759 a small force of Frenchmen landed at Cocanada to intrigue with Jagapati Rázu at Samalkot; but, as has been mentioned in Chapter II, they were driven by the English to take refuge, in the Dutch fort, and their surrender was enforced under protest from the Dutch. The first impetus to the town of Cocanada was given by the silting up of Coringa bay and the consequent decline of Coringa as a port and dockyard. Cocanada gradually took its place. A second impulse was given during the American Civil War (l86l), when the town suddenly rose into great importance as a place of shipment for the cotton pressed at Guntúr.
Cocanada is the head-quarters of the Canadian Baptist Mission and contains a Roman Catholic church and convent. In the Protestant church is perhaps the finest organ in the Presidency outside Madras City. It was built from private subscriptions, of which a large portion was given by Messrs. Simson Bros., about twenty years ago. A cemetery near the Collector's house contains some old European tombs, the earliest of which is dated 1825 and a list of which is in the Collector's office. In the Jagannáthapuram cemetery are many more graves, the oldest of which is a monument to a Dutch family the members of which were buried between 1775 and 1778, From the latter of these years up to 1859 the churchyard does not seem to have been used, but from that year onwards the burials have been numerous.
Of the industrial concerns in the town, the Local Fund workshops (near the Collector's office) have been referred to in Chapter VI. The town also contains three rice mills and five printing presses. Of the latter, only two (one called the Sujana Ranjani press and one managed by Messrs. Hall, Wilson & Co.) are of any importance. The latter prints general matter and the former Telugu books, and a weekly newspaper and a monthly magazine called respectively the Ravi and Sávitri. In another press a monthly magazine called Sarasvati is printed. There are also about a dozen native factories which each employ several handpresses for making castor oil.
The vernacular name of the town, Kákináda, is supposed to have some connection with the phenomenal number of crows which live in it. A merchant recently opened his rice godowns to trap these marauding birds, and then, closing the doors, had the intruders killed. No fewer than 978 were accounted for in one morning in this way, but without sensible diminution of the nuisance.
Coringa (vernacular Kórangi) : Nearly ten miles south of Cocanada. Population 4,258. It contains a travellers' bungalow, a native rest-house, a police-station and the offices of a deputy tahsildar who is also a sub-registrar. It was once one of the greatest ports and ship-building centres on this coast; but, owing to the silting up of the channel which leads to it, it is now of no commercial importance. Coringa appears in Pliny's pages as the name of a cape, but the village is now several miles from the sea. It was for long the residence of British merchants, but little now remains to call them to mind. There are a few old tombs in the graveyard — some dating back to l8l6*[8] — and portions of a few bungalows survive. One forms the present deputy tahsildar's office. Two others, one of which must have been a fine building, belonged to a certain Mr. Graham, whose name is still well known. The latest date in the churchyard is 1857, and apparently English merchants did not live in the place long after that.
An interesting account of the town as it was in its busiest days was given by Mr. Topping, an astronomer in the service of the Madras Government, who visited it in 1789. He deplored in particular the want of police, which he said were badly needed owing to the number of ships — English, French, Dutch and Portuguese — that anchored in the road and the many disorderly people that landed from them. 'Nothing is more common,' he said, 'than night broils and frays among people under the influence of intoxication. Frequent thefts and even attempts to assassinate happened during my short stay, which induced me to apply for a guard of sepoys, to protect myself and the Company's property from violence and rapine.' A curious contrast, this, to the quiet country village of to-day!
It appears that the present town of Coringa, which is on the east of the river, was 'built' about 1759 by Mr. Westcot, a resident of Injaram; while what is known as 'old Coringa,' on the western bank, is older than this.†[9]The bulk of the inhabitants and the deputy tahsildar live in the former, but there are a few good houses in the latter. The village suffered severely from the hurricane of 1839, and has twice (in 1787 and 1832) been nearly swept away by tidal waves. The old village was also damaged by the tidal wave of 1706.
The place is indeed a shadow of its former self. Its seaborne trade was valued in 1877-78 at Rs. 8,22,000, and in 1880-81 at Rs. 3,20,000; but by 1884-85 it had fallen to Rs. 33,000; and since 1898-99 it has ceased altogether.
Moreover the neighbouring village of Tállarévu has now monopolised the ship-building that was formerly the pride of Coringa. In l802 Mr. Ebenezer Roebuck, a private gentleman residing at Coringa, constructed at a great cost a dock near the old town capacious enough to receive any ship of the Royal Navy not drawing more than fourteen feet. H.M.S. Albatross and other ships were repaired in this. It was 155 feet long, and its breadth was 51 feet at the bottom, and 76 feet at the top. The masonry at the bottom was five feet thick. It used to be pumped dry, after a ship had been admitted, by two steam engines in a few hours. Now it is choked to the level of the ground with earth, and nothing is to be seen of it but the tops of the brick walls surrounding it. No one seems to remember its being used. Till quite recently, however, ships were repaired in mud docks at old Coringa.
The silting up of the port has progressed very rapidly in recent years. Between 1806 and 1861 the anchorage for big ships had to be moved five or six miles to the north. At the beginning of the last century a frigate drawing thirteen and a half feet was got over the bar; and a report to Government written in 1805 records the opinion that 'any ship not drawing more than twelve and a half feet of water may easily enter the mouth of the river in two springs at any time of the year.' Nowadays, however, it is only with great difficulty that a ship drawing six feet can be got over the bar, and it takes a month to warp a vessel of that size up the river.
Coringa is of some religious importance, since the neighbouring village of Masakapalli is one of the places at which pilgrims bathe when performing the sapta-ságara-yátrá or 'pilgrimage of the seven mouths,' already referred to. The river Coringa is said to have been brought to the sea by the sage Atri, and the bathing place is called the Átréya-ságara- sangam. It is also believed that the demon Máricha, who was sent by Rávana in the form of a golden deer to Ráma, when he and Síta were at Parnasála, was killed by Ráma at this place. Ráma is supposed to have founded the Siva temple of Korangésvarasvámi.
Gollapalaiyam (eight miles south-south-west of Cocanada, population 1,817) is of interest as the home of the cloth-painting described in Chapter VI. Some seventy households are also engaged in the stamping and dyeing of chintzes, and a little weaving of fair quality is carried on. There are some Jain remains in the neighbouring village of Áriyavattam.1[10]
Injaram : A zamindari village near Yanam, fifteen miles south by west of Cocanada. Population 2,042. A factory, an offshoot of the settlement at Vizagapatam, was founded there by the East India Company in 1708, was soon afterwards abandoned, but was re-established in 1722. It was captured by the French under Bussy in 1757—the garrison numbered only twenty men and no resistance was offered—but it was ceded by the Nizam to the English in 1759 after the battle of Condore. It continued as a mercantile establishment of the East India Company till 1829. Its two great qualifications as a factory were that it was situated near one of the principal mouths of the Gódávari and that very good cloth was made there. Indeed Captain Hamilton, who visited India at the beginning of the eighteenth century, stated that it produced the best and finest longcloth in all India. With the abolition of the Company's factory the prosperity of Injaram declined. It has now no sea-borne trade whatever. No traces, it is said, exist of the European settlement.
Injaram is the head-quarters of a small zamindari estate containing three villages and paying a peshkash of Rs. 2,832. It was part of the old Peddápuram zamindari and was acquired by sale by the present holders' family in 1845.
Nílapalli: An old sea-port near Yanam, on the eastern bank of the Coringa river where it joins the Gautami Gódávari. Its population is 3,936 and it contains a vernacular lower secondary school for girls. The Company established a factory here in 1751, but it was captured by Bussy in 1757. A quantity of good cloth was formerly manufactured in the neighbourhood, and a considerable sea-borne trade existed; but now the place is of little importance commercially and has no sea-borne trade at all. In it are the remains of several old bungalows once occupied by English merchants, and four English tombs ranging in date from 1807 to 1865.
Its hamlet of Georgepet, which was clearly so named by Englishmen, contains a large mill belonging to the Coringa Rice Mills Company, where about one hundred men are employed and which is in charge of two European superintendents. The rice is sent in boats to be shipped from Cocanada. The mill is said to have been started by a French engineer from Káraikkál in 1854. Before that time the buildings are said to have been used as an indigo factory.
Nílapalli is the only remaining village of the old Nílapalli proprietary mutta (created in 1802-03) which formerly contained nine other villages and paid a peshkash of Rs. 6,300. The peshkash is now only Rs. 480.
Samalkot (vernacular Chámárlakóta): Seven miles north of Cocanada, and the junction between the branch line from that place and the North-east line of the Madras Railway. It is connected by canal with both Rajahmundry and Cocanada. Its population was 16,015 in 1901. It contains a police-station, a small market, a travellers' bungalow and a fine private choultry near the railway-station. Its educational institutions comprise the Canadian Baptist Mission seminary,1[11] vernacular lower secondary school for girls and a Sanskrit school. The town is a union, and comprises the villages of Bhímavaram and Jaggammagáripéta.
Samalkot is included in the Pithápuram estate, was the original residence of the family of sirdars who founded that property, was apparently the first capital of the zamindari, was deserted in favour of Pithápuram for a time, but became the capital once more in the eighteenth century. Its fort was the scene of some exciting by-play in the great drama enacted by the English, French and Muhammadans in 1759, and seems to have more than once changed hands. Further particulars will be found in the account of Pithápuram below. In the latter half of the eighteenth century the place was made a sanitarium for the British troops in the district. Barracks were built in 1/86, and it was at that time ' the principal garrison of the English in the Circarof Rajahmundry.'2[12] The fort was demolished in 1838 and the place was abandoned as a military station in 1868. Owing however to the Rampa disturbances of 1879, two companies under a British officer were afterwards stationed there, and they were only withdrawn in 1893. Samalkot is now of some commercial importance owing to the establishment within it, in 1899, of the large sugar-refinery and distillery which is described in Chapter VI. A large number of Dévángas in the town weave plain cotton cloths, and a few make cotton cloths with lace borders. A little chintz-stamping and dyeing, and manufacture of kas-kas tattis also goes on. A Government experimental agricultural farm 3[13] was started in the place in 1902 and has recently been made into a permanent institution.
Sarpavaram (snake town) lies 4¼ miles north of Cocanada and contains 1,681 inhabitants. It is locally famous for its sanctity. The temple is known by the name of Nárada Kshétram after the rishi Nárada, who is supposed to have founded it. This sage was turned into a woman by Vishnu and married a Pithápuram Rája who was killed in battle with all his children. Thereupon Vishnu pitied him and turned him back into a man. Both transformations were effected by bathing in tanks at Sarpavaram, the former in the Nárada Gundam, the latter in the Muktika Sarasu tank. To bathe in the Nárada Gundam is considered a holy act. The name of the town is locally said to be derived from the fact that it was in this place that, as the Mahábhárata relates, Paríkshit the son of Arjuna was bitten by a snake and died. His son performed the sarpa yágam (serpent sacrifice) to effect the destruction of all those reptiles, but one snake was spared by Indra's mercy.
The temple is a plain building of no beauty. A late Rája of Pithápuram built its gópuram at a great cost. Eight inscriptions in it (Nos. 452-59 of 1893) have been copied by the Government Epigraphist. The oldest of these, on a pillar in the mantapam in front of it, is in Tamil and is dated in the 46th year of Kulóttunga Chóla Déva — apparently Kulóttunga I (A.D. 1070-1118)— or 1116 A.D. One, dated A.D. 1414, is a record of Véma Reddi, and several others of the early part of the thirteenth century are grants of a Vishnuvardhana Mahárája, who is probably the same person as the local chieftain Mallapa III.
Tállaréu : Two miles south of Coringa on the east bank of the river of that name. This village, like so many on this river, appears to have once been an important trading centre. It is now only interesting as the scene of a small indigenous ship-building industry.
Yanam (French, Yanaon) is a small French Settlement which is entirely surrounded by British territory. It is situated about twelve miles from the mouth of the Gautami Gódávari, at the point where the Coringa river branches off from the main stream. The Settlement extends along the banks of these rivers for seven or eight miles, and its area is returned at 2,258 acres. Besides Yanam, it includes the four hamlets of Adivipálem, Kánakalapéta, Mettakúru, and Kursammapéta. Its population in 1901 was 5,005 against 5,327 in 1891. The town contains a few handsome European buildings, including a fine church: and there is a spacious walled parade on the south side facing the Gódávari.
Yanam is a comparatively modern town, and was not in existence in 1706. The French established a factory there about 1750, and the place was formally ceded to them in 1752. It shared the vicissitudes of their other possessions on this coast; and from 1793 onwards, save for a short period in 1802-03, was in the occupation of the English till the treaties of 1815 restored it to its former owners. It was then finally handed back in 1817. In 1839 the town was laid waste by a hurricane which was accompanied by an inundation of the sea.
Subject to the control of the Governor of the French Possessions at Pondicherry, Yanam is administered by an official called the Administrateur who is assisted by a local elective Council of six members. The Administrateur is the head of the magistracy and police and president of the criminal court. Local affairs are managed by a communal council, also elective, of twelve members. Two free schools, one for boys and the other for girls, having an attendance of 202 and 248 respectively, are maintained in the town. The area of cultivated land in the Settlement in 1903 was 664 hectares or about 1,000 acres. Land is held in absolute ownership subject to the payment of an assessment of Rs. 37-8 per candy (about 4½ acres) for cultivated land, and Rs. 5 for pasture land. Water is supplied free of cost from the British canal which passes through Yanam. Little trade is now carried on at the place, and in 1903 the exports were valued at only Rs. 22,300 and the imports at Rs. 53,625. The sea-borne trade is carried northwards down the Coringa river into the Cocanada bay, as the mouth of the Gautami Gódávari is much silted up.
The special arrangements connected with customs and salt which are necessitated by the existence of the Settlement are referred to in Chapter XII above.
- ↑ * Mackenzie MSS., Local Records, i, pp. 496-98,
- ↑ 1 Local Records, ii, 213-30.
- ↑ 2 See Chapter I, p. 6.
- ↑ 1 Hodgson's report on the Dutch Settlements, quoted in Mr. Rea's Monumental remains of the Dutch East India Co. (Madras, 1897), 52.
- ↑ 2 Mr. Rea's book, 65, 66.
- ↑ 3 Apparently by rude ramparts of earth, Pinkerton's Collection of Travels, xi, 303.
- ↑ 4 Hodgson's report.
- ↑ * See the list in the Collector's office.
- ↑ † Selections from the Records of the Madras Government (Madras, 1855), xix, p. 24.
- ↑ 1 For others, see Chapter III. p. 39.
- ↑ 1 See Chapter III, p. 41.
- ↑ 2 Grant's Political Survey of the 'Northern Circars appended to the Fifth Report of the Select Committee on the affairs of the East India Co., 1812 (Madras reprint, 1883), p. 215.
- ↑ 3 See Chapter IV, p. 75.