“History at least in its state of ideal perfection is a compound of poetry and philosophy”

Macaulay

Travancore, like the whole kingdom of Kerala itself, has had an uninterrupted succession of Hindu sovereigns from remote antiquity. It is probably the only country in this part of India, where Hindu traditions, Hindu manners and customs, Hindu learning and the Hindu religion are still preserved in their original simplicity and purity, owing chiefly to the continuous and prosperous rule of a long line of Hindu kings from of old. The natural barrier of mountain and sea was another circumstance which kept it intact as it gave it an inaccessibility to the outside world and contributed to its comparative immunity from molestation and conquest by the warlike races who successively swept over the rest of the Indian continent. But, as is generally the case in India, there has been no regular or continuous record kept of the kingdom of Kerala, its origin and progress, its peoples or its ancient administrations.

As Bishop Caldwell justly remarks, “ It is a singular fact that the Hindus though fond of philosophy and poetry, of law, mathematics and architecture, of music and the drama, and especially of religious or theosophic speculations and disquisitions, seem never to have cared anything for history “. Its history therefore remains to be written.

There are, however, ample materials for a good and reliable account, lying scattered about all over the land, in old Olas, copper-plate and stone inscriptions, in the sacred Puranas and Temple Chronicles, in quaintly written old books of Sanscrit, Tamil or Malayalam, such as the Kerala Mahatmya, the Keralolpatti, the Nannul and the Tolkapyam, in the stray verses of Kambar, in proverbs and maxims, in nursery tales and maidens’ songs, in ancient coins and in the fragmentary records of ancient commerce from the time of the Greeks, in the traditional architecture of houses, temples and temple flagstaffs, of Kavoo-shrines, Gopurams, Mantapams and old forts, in the diaries and note-books of old sailors and soldiers, in the ancient titles of kings and chiefs, or later on in the treaties and engagements with the Hon’ble East India Company, in the Residency and Huzur records at Trivandrum. in the valuable archives of Fort St. George, in the Mission reports and private letters of the last century, in the modem but incomplete historical compilations of Sir Madava Row, Shungoonny Menon and Nanoo Pillay and a host of lesser writers, in the Manuals and histories of adjacent British Districts, in the records of various Departments of the State, in the State Administration Reports and Gazettes for the last half a century, in Almanacs and Calendars, in sundry magazines and newspapers and in the memories of old men still living — all awaiting the patient inquiry, the toilsome research and the genius of the true historian to collate, to discriminate and to depict.

Until such a historian arises, the account attempted in the following pages may be taken as a faithful narrative, in which all available information about the country and its people, whether traditionary or of an authentic or historical value, has been carefully brought to book and as fully as the time at the disposal of a heavily worked Revenue official would permit.