gara, about eight miles from the coast, is still known to the natives as Thoovak-kal or Vellaikal “the white rock.” Europeans have called it “the sacrifice rock,” because, when the Portuguese first settled at Calicut, the Kottakkal cruizers surprised a Portuguese vessel and sacrificed all their prisoners on that rock.[1] I am unable to identify Naura. It appears to have been a small village on the banks of the Aka’appula. Tundis is of course Thondi which was near the site of the modern Pallikkara about five miles north of Quilandy. Even to this day trading vessels from Arabia regularly visit old Kollam or Pantalayini Kollam[2], a village about three miles south of Thondi.
Between Tundis and Muziris, Ptolemy mentions two towns on the sea coast, Bramaara and Kalaikarias, and three inland, Naroulla, Kouba and Paloura. Bramagara may be identified with Brahmakulam, Kalaikarais was most probably Chalacoory, and Paloura is doubtless Pâlayur which is still a large and populous amshomn near Chowghat. Mouziris[3] may unhesitatingly be taken to represent Muchiri which, according to Tamil poets, was situated near the
- ↑ Malabar Manual, Vol. I, p. 356.
- ↑ This is the Pandarani of Portuguese writers, the Flandrina of Friar Odoric, the Fandreeah of Rowlaudson’s Tahafat-ul-mujahidin and the Fandarina of Ibn Batuta, Malabar Manual, Vol. 1, p. (72). “Tenor itself“ says Yule “may be Tyndis; it was an ancient city, the seat of a principality, and in the beginning of the 16th century had still much shipping and trade. Perhaps, however, a more probable site is a few miles further north Kadalundi, i. e., Kadaltundi, the raised ground by the sea standing on an inlet three or four miles south of Beypoor. It is now a port, but persons on the spot seem to think that it must formerly have been one and in communication with the backwater.” He adds in a note supplied by Dr. Burnell “The composition of Kadal and Tundi makes Kadalundi by Tamil rules” McCrindle’s Ptolemy, p. 50. With due reference to so great an authority as Dr. Burnell, I should however state that I am not aware of any rule of Tamil Grammar by which the words Kadal and Tundi can combine and form Kadalundi. The only objection to my identification of Tundis with Thondi near Pallikara will be that it is nearly 800 stadia from Muziris or Kadungollur and not 500 stadia as stated in the Periplus ; but the calculation of distances by sea voyages at this early period when navigators had no mechanical contrivances whatever to register the speed of vessels, cannot he expected to be correct.
- ↑ Muchiri is the Muyiri of Muyiri-kodu, which, says Yule “appears in one of the most ancient of Malabar inscriptions as the residence of the king of Kodungolur or Kranganur, and is admitted to be practically identical with that now extinct city.” It is to Kranganur he adds that all the Malabar traditions point as their oldest seaport of renown: to the Christians it was the landing place of St. Thomas the Apostle—McCrindle’s Ptolemy p. 51.
