South Malabar refers to a geographical area of the southwestern coast of India covering some parts of the present-day Kerala state. South Malabar covers the regions included in present-day Kozhikode and Thamarassery taluk of Kozhikode district, Wayanad district excluding Mananthavady taluk, the whole area of Malappuram district, Chavakkad (including Guruvayur) taluk of Thrissur district, and Palakkad district, excluding parts of Chittur taluk. The Fort Kochi region of Kochi city also historically belongs to South Malabar. The term South Malabar refers to the region of the erstwhile Malabar District south to the river Korapuzha, and north to the Thrissur Chavakkad region
Unlike most of Thrissur district, which was historically part of Cochin state; Guruvayur formed part of the erstwhile Malabar district.
Under British rule, South Malabar's chief importance lay in producing coconut, pepper, and tiles.Pamela Nightingale, ‘Jonathan Duncan (bap. 1756, d. 1811)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2009 Old administrative records of the erstwhile Madras Presidency recorded that the most remarkable plantation owned by the government in the Madras Presidency was the teak plantation at Nilambur, planted in 1844. South Malabar held importance as one of the two districts in the Madras Presidency that lay on the western Malabar Coast, thus accessing the marine route through the Arabian Sea via its ports at Beypore and Fort Kochi. The first railway line of Kerala, from Tirur to Beypore, was laid for it.
Kozhikode is the capital and largest city of the whole of Malabar, followed by Palakkad. The South Malabar region is bounded by North Malabar (Korapuzha) to north, the hilly region of Nilgiris and Palakkad Gap which connects Coimbatore to east, Cochin to south, and Arabian Sea to west. The historical regions of Nediyiruppu Swaroopam, Eranad, Valluvanad, Parappanad, Kavalappara, Vettathunadu, the Nilambur Kingdom, Nedungadis, and Palakkad, are all included in South Malabar. The longest three rivers of Malabar region, namely the Bharathappuzha, Chaliyar, and Kadalundi Rivers, flow through South Malabar.
Etymology Until the arrival of British, the term Malabar was used in foreign trade circles as a general name for Kerala. Earlier, the term Malabar had been used to also include Tulu Nadu and Kanyakumari, which lie contiguous to Kerala on the southwestern coast of India. The people of Malabar were known as Malabars. The term Malabar is still often used to denote the entire southwestern coast of India.
In the 6th century, Arab sailors called Kerala as Male. The first element of the name, however, was already attested in Cosmas Indicopleustes' Topography, which mentions a pepper emporium called "Male", which clearly gave its name to Malabar (). The name Malabar is thought to come from the Dravidian word ()C. A. Innes and F. B. Evans, Malabar and Anjengo, volume 1, Madras District Gazetteers (Madras: Government Press, 1915), p. 2.M. T. Narayanan, Agrarian Relations in Late Medieval Malabar (New Delhi: Northern Book Centre, 2003), xvi–xvii. and the Persian word ().
Historically, Arab writers variously called this place Malibar, Manibar, Mulibar, and Munibar. Al-Biruni (973–1048) must have been the first writer to call this state Malabar. Authors such as Ibn Khordadbeh and Al-Baladhuri mention Malabar ports in their works.Mohammad, K.M. "Arab relations with Malabar Coast from 9th to 16th centuries" Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. Vol. 60 (1999), pp. 226–34.
History
Ancient era The ancient port of Tyndis, which was located on the northern side of Muziris, as mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, was somewhere near Kozhikode. Its exact location is a matter of dispute. The suggested locations are Ponnani, Tanur, Beypore–Chaliyam–Kadalundi–Vallikkunnu, and Koyilandy. Tyndis was a major center of trade, next only to Muziris, with the Chera dynasty and the Roman Empire.Coastal Histories: Society and Ecology in Pre-modern India, Yogesh Sharma, Primus Books 2010 The region around Coimbatore was ruled by the Cheras during Sangam period between 1st and the 4th centuries CE and served as the eastern entrance to the Palakkad Gap, the principal inland trade route between the Malabar Coast and Coromandel Coast.
Pliny the Elder (1st century CE) stated that the port of Tyndis was located at the northwestern border of Keprobotos (Chera dynasty).Gurukkal, R., & Whittaker, D. (2001). In search of Muziris. Journal of Roman Archaeology, 14, 334-350. The North Malabar region, which lies north of the port at Tyndis, was ruled by the kingdom of Ezhimala during the Sangam period.A. Shreedhara Menon, A Survey of Kerala History According to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a region known as Limyrike began at Naura and Tyndis. However, Ptolemy mentions only Tyndis as the Limyrike's starting point. The region probably ended at Kanyakumari; it thus roughly corresponds to the present-day Malabar Coast. The value of Rome's annual trade with the region was estimated at 50,000,000 sesterces.According to Pliny the Elder, goods from India were sold in the Empire at 100 times their original purchase price. See Pliny the Elder mentioned that Limyrike was prone by pirates.Bostock, John (1855). "26 (Voyages to India)". Pliny the Elder, The Natural History. London: Taylor and Francis. Cosmas Indicopleustes mentioned that the Limyrike was a source of peppers.Indicopleustes, Cosmas (1897). Christian Topography. 11. United Kingdom: The Tertullian Project. pp. 358–373.Das, Santosh Kumar (2006). The Economic History of Ancient India. Genesis Publishing Pvt Ltd. p. 301.
Early Middle Ages During the early Middle Ages, South Malabar was home to numerous political realms, including the kingdoms of Cochin, Parappanad, Vettathunadu (Tanur), Valluvanad, Nilambur, Nedungadi, and Palakkad.
The Kurumathur inscription found near Areekode dates back to 871 CE.Veluthat, Kesavan (1 June 2018). "History and historiography in constituting a region: The case of Kerala". Studies in People's History. 5 (1): 13–31. Three inscriptions written in Old Malayalam dating from 932 CE were found in Triprangode (near Tirunavaya), Kottakkal, and Chaliyar, and mention the name of Goda Ravi of the Chera dynasty.Narayanan, M. G. S. Perumals of Kerala: Brahmin Oligarchy and Ritual Monarchy Perumāḷs of Kerala. Thrissur (Kerala): CosmoBooks, 2013. 438-42. Of these, the Triprangode inscription describes the agreement of Thavanur.
Several inscriptions written in Old Malayalam dating from the 10th century have found in Sukapuram near Edappal, which was one of the 64 old Nambudiri villages of Kerala. Descriptions about the rulers of the Eranad and Valluvanad regions can be seen in the Jewish copper plates of Bhaskara Ravi Varman (around 1000 CE) and Viraraghava copper plates of Veera Raghava Chakravarthy (around 1225 CE). At the Muchundi Mosque in Kozhikode, a 13th-century granite inscription written in a mixture of Old Malayalam and Arabic mentions a donation by the king to the mosque.M. G. S. Narayanan. "Kozhikkodinte Katha". Malayalam/Essays. Mathrubhumi Books. Second Edition (2017)
Eranad was ruled by a Samanthan Nair clan known as Eradis, similar to the Vellodis of neighbouring Valluvanad and Nedungadis of Nedunganad (Ottapalam). The rulers of Valluvanad were known by the title Eralppad or Eradi. The ruler of Eranad later became the Zamorin of Calicut by annexing the port town of Calicut from Polanad, a vassal to Kolathunadu.
Rise of Kozhikode
The Zamorin of Kozhikode (Calicut) was the most powerful ruler of South Malabar during the Middle Ages. Under its rule, Kozhikode was the largest city on Malabar Coast, and South Malabar emerged as one of the leading centres of maritime trade on the Indian subcontinent. This continued until the 18th century. The port at Kozhikode was the gateway to the South Indian coast for Arabs, who had a monopoly on foreign trade, and later the Portuguese, Dutch, and British.
The Zamorin, who originally ruled Eranad from Nediyiruppu, developed the port at Kozhikode and relocated there for its maritime trade. In the 14th century, Kozhikode conquered larger parts of central Kerala after seizing the Tirunavaya region from the Kingdom of Valluvanad, which was under control of the Kingdom of Cochin. The Kingdom of Cochin was originally headquartered at Perumpadappu; however, due to the annexation, the kingdom was forced to shift its capital () further south, first to Kodungallur and then to Kochi. In the 15th century, Cochin was reduced to a vassal state of Kozhikode, thus leading to the emergence of Kozhikode as the most powerful kingdom in the medieval Malabar Coast.
At the peak of their reign, the Zamorins of Kozhikode ruled over a region from Kollam (Quilon) in the south to Panthalayini Kollam (Koyilandy) in the north.Varier, M. R. Raghava. "Documents of Investiture Ceremonies" in K. K. N. Kurup, Edit., "India's Naval Traditions". Northern Book Centre, New Delhi, 1997K. V. Krishna Iyer, Zamorins of Calicut: From the earliest times to AD 1806. Calicut: Norman Printing Bureau, 1938. Ibn Battuta (1342–1347), who visited Kozhikode six times, gives the earliest glimpses of life in the city—he described Kozhikode as "one of the great ports of the district of Malabar" where "merchants of all parts of the world are found". The king of this place, he says, "shaves his chin just as the Haidari Fakeers of Rome do... The greater part of the Muslim merchants of this place are so wealthy that one of them can purchase the whole freightage of such vessels put here and fit-out others like them". The Chinese sailor Ma Huan (1403), as part of the Imperial Chinese fleet under Zheng He,Ma Huan: Ying Yai Sheng Lan, The Overall Survey of the Ocean's Shores, translated by J.V.G. Mills, 1970 Hakluyt Society, reprint 1997 White Lotus Press. described the city as a great emporium of trade frequented by merchants from around the world. He noted the 20 or 30 mosques built to cater to the religious needs of the Muslims, the unique system of calculation by the merchants using their fingers and toes (followed to this day), and the matrilineal system of succession. Abdur Razzak (1442–43), Niccolò de' Conti (1445), Afanasy Nikitin (1468–74), Ludovico di Varthema (1503–1508), and Duarte Barbosa witnessed the city as one of the major international trading centres on the Indian subcontinent.Varthema, Ludovico di, The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema, A.D.1503–08, translated from the original 1510 Italian ed. by John Winter Jones, Hakluyt Society, LondonGangadharan. M., The Land of Malabar: The Book of Barbosa (2000), Vol II, M.G University, Kottayam.
The Portuguese arrived at Kappad, Kozhikode, in 1498 during the Age of Discovery, thus opening a direct sea route from Europe to South Asia.DC Books, Kottayam (2007), A. Sreedhara Menon, A Survey of Kerala History The Kunjali Marakkars, who were the naval chiefs of the Zamorin of Kozhikode, are credited with organizing the first naval defense of the Indian coast. In 1664, the municipality of Fort Kochi was established by Dutch Malabar, making it the first municipality on the Indian subcontinent; it was later dissolved when Dutch authority weakened in the 18th century. Under British Raj, Kozhikode acted as the headquarters of Malabar District; the port held the superior economic and political position in medieval Kerala coast, while Kannur, Kollam, and Kochi were commercially important secondary ports, where the traders from various parts of the world would gather.The Portuguese, Indian Ocean and European Bridgeheads 1500–1800. Festschrift in Honour of Prof. K. S. Mathew (2001). Edited by: Pius Malekandathil and T. Jamal Mohammed. Fundacoa Oriente. Institute for Research in Social Sciences and Humanities of MESHAR (Kerala)