History is akin to the flow of the waters; it traverses its path. We only look back and assume, the contours of evidence left by those flow of events. Somewhere before or maybe a few decades after the Christian era, Greek vessels set sail to coastal India taking advantage of the monsoonal winds that flow towards the southern coast. A secret, hitherto held by the Arabs but revealed to the Greeks by Hippalus. (Hippalus did not discover the monsoon winds as claimed by many Western literature. He just got hold of an Arab Secret) Monsoonal winds helped the masted vessels flow fast. As a result, hordes of high-mast wooden ships with multiple oars flowed with the wind with gold on board searching for the black gold and ivory traded by southern kingdoms.
On one of those vessels
traveled an unknown sailor who wrote about the circumnavigation of the Red Sea,
and the Persian Gulf, which was then called the Erythrean Sea. His work was
later known as the ‘’Periplus of Erythrean Sea and it described ports
and sea routes starting from Berenike (Egypt) to Taprobane (Sri
Lanka), He wrote about the markets of Damirica (konkan) and after reaching
the kingdom of Tyndis the land ruled by the Cerobothra (Cheras)
they berthed at a riverine port called Muziris beyond which is Colchi (Cochin)
and Komori (Kanyakumari). During the same period Pliny,
the elder was writing his Natural History at Rome lamenting at the women at
Rome for their desire for muslin from India and the consequent flow of Roman gold
to India. He too wrote about a riverine port called Muziris. Decades
later perhaps even a century ago, Claudius Ptolemy was writing “Geography” of
the region vividly mentioning the ports, kingdoms, and markets of Southern India
and mentioning a Port called Muziris. Long before that Megasthenes, the great ambassador
in the court of Chandragupta Maurya wrote about an emporium of trade ruled by the charmae
(read chera) inferred as Muziris. But before all that Sugreeva and his team is said to have passed a town called Murachipattanam on their journey to Lanka in search of Sita (Ramayana)
Soon later the travelling minstrels of the Sangam Era were singing melodies on the beautiful ships of yavanas (Greeks )embarking at muciri (Muziris), coming with gold and going away with pepper.
Sitting in front of the Marthoma Church at Azhikode near my hometown of Kodungalore in the Thrisoor District of Kerala ( St Thomas is believed to have arrived here which led to the emergence of Christianity in Kerala ) and looking at the fishermen and women in the vicinity cleaning their woven fishing nets in their hamlets, I was imagining about merchants and sailors unloading gold sacks and loading sacks of pepper into roman ships while waiting for the retreating monsoonal winds to sail back. Not that far away from my location at an estuary called Pattanam archaeologists from the Kerala Historical Society were digging hard in search of a port from a bygone era remnant of which they think lies somewhere beneath. Where was this port exactly?
The anecdote of the Muziris saga was first documented in a historical context by none other than Nilkanda Shastri in his magnum opus ‘’ History of South India" where Muziris was identified as a port in the Chera kingdom which traded with the Western world. Cheras had their capital in Mahodayapuram or present-day Kodungalore during a period named the Sangam period, referring to a time when the then eminent Tamil scholars assembled and prepared their choicest literature which was rendered like anthologies. The trinity of the Sangam period were the kingdoms of Chera, Chola, and Pandyas who ruled -both with matrimonial alliances and with mutual wars- in an area south of the Krishna River. Commerce in these kingdoms depended on fishing and sea-borne trade and thrived over what we today call a Blue Ocean Economy. Merchandise was carted through the Palghat pass of the Western Ghats to Muziris port in Malanadu (Kerala) for onward shipments which included ivory, rice, and woodwork. Spices abundant on the hill slopes prominent among them being the black pepper was the most demanded due to its culinary and curative use. As barter for this black gold, the yellow metal flowed into the coffers of merchants and kings
All prominent historians
in Kerala like Shri K P Padmanabha Menon, Rajan Gurukal, MGS Narayanan, and KM
Panikker to name a few, have all written about the genesis of this port in the annals
of Kerala’s ancient maritime history with consensus about the location of the
port being somewhere near the present Kodungalore where the Periyar
River flows into the Arabian Sea. There is also folklore in Kodungalore about a tsunami or flood that destroyed the city and its trade center sometime in the 13th century. However, excavations have only revealed materials like potteries from the 13th century in addition to a Portuguese trade Centre. Kerala
Historical Society through the Pattanam archaeological research project
is excavating the Pattanam area south of the present kodungalore for
clues on where the port was. This has also not prevented authorities from
planning for the Musiris heritage project with the firm assumption that the
port is indeed in and around Kodungalore
The prime hypothesis is that Musiris is indeed at the present Kodungalore, historians both amateurs and professionals did come up with alternate locations as well. As per SW Hunter, the Musiris could be anywhere from the current port of Goa to areas in central Kerala. Though a wild assumption. based on this, some historians have claimed that Muziris is the present Old Mangalore Port. Citing the unknown sailor’s account called the ’Periplus of Erythrean Sea about the location Tyndis (northern Kerala) they argue that Muziris is Mangalore. Some historians and academics argued this port was never on the western coast but on the eastern sea near the Kaveri River. However, a document discovered in 1985 called Muziris papyrus something like today's charter party agreement, proves beyond doubt that the place was factually on the western coast only.
In this context, a new argumentative assumption is now brought forward by Anto George a Kerala-based amateur historian through his book ‘’ Discovery of Muziris’ where he tries to establish a new antiquity to the ancient port. His book is based on the hypothesis that Munchirai near the banks of the west Tamraparni River near Kanyakumari is the real Muziris. Taking inference from Ptolemy’s Geography the book makes a convincing argument of this new hypothesis. He refers to an ancient text Tamraparni Mahatmyam devotional literature in Sanskrit, which mentions the flow of five rivers from Gupta Sringa - Potigai malai in the Kerala Tamil Nadu border- from where Tamraparni river flows to the southeastern coast. He claims that the Culli River of the Sangam literature and the river named by Ptolemy as Pseudostomos may be the same. Through that inference, he points out that Munchirai near the banks of this river may be the original Muziris. However, he humbly admits that his hypothesis needs more research to be proven right or wrong.
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