Journey
South India — the other landscapes
The southern places the temple and dynasty journeys leave out: the earliest written Kannada, two excavated Sangam-age towns that moved the date of Tamil urbanism, a backwater port that had to be dug, a temple town buried under sand, and a forested block of the Ghats that held land as armed clans.
Stops (14)
- Banavasi · 4th–6th century
Banavasi, the Kadamba capital in the Malnad forest, where the earliest Kannada inscription of any length was cut on the Halmidi model and where the Madhukeshwara temple still stands. Kannada as a written literary language begins in the record of this court. Kannada as a written literary language begins in the records of this court, and the Kadambas' own dynastic name is still the district's. Pampa, the first great Kannada poet, invokes Banavasi three centuries later.
- Keladi & Ikkeri · 1499–1763
Keladi and Ikkeri, the two seats of the Keladi Nayakas, who broke from Vijayanagara after Talikota and ruled the Malnad and the Kanara coast for two and a half centuries. Rani Chennamma of this house sheltered Shivaji's son Rajaram from Aurangzeb, which is why Mughal armies came into these hills.
- Talakadu · Ganga to Wodeyar
Talakadu on a bend of the Kaveri, a Western Ganga capital with a group of temples now dug out from under sand dunes that the river's shifting course laid over them. The Wodeyar dynasty's own legend of a curse on Talakadu and Srirangapatna attaches to the place's burial. The Wodeyar dynasty's legend of a curse on Talakadu and Srirangapatna attaches to the burial.
- Kodumanal · 3rd century BCE onward
Kodumanal, an early historic craft town in the Tamil interior making beryl and carnelian beads, shell bangles and crucible steel, with graffiti-marked pottery and a megalithic cemetery beside the workshops. The beryl the Romans prized came from mines in this district rather than the coast. The beryl Roman writers prized came from mines in this district rather than from the coast.
- Keeladi · 6th century BCE onward
Keezhadi in the Vaigai valley, whose brick structures, graffiti-marked sherds and radiocarbon dates have pushed Tamil urbanism several centuries earlier than the accepted chronology and become the most argued-over excavation in India. The repository records the finds and the fact that the dating is contested. The repository records the finds and the fact that the dating is still contested.
- Korkai · the pearl coast
Korkai on the Tamraparni, the Pandya port that worked the Gulf of Mannar pearl banks the Periplus, Pliny and the Arab geographers all single out. The coast has built seaward since, so a harbour named by Ptolemy now sits several kilometres inland with Roman coin in its levels. Pliny reckoned pearls the most valuable commodity on earth, and this is where they were fished.
- Tirunelveli · the Tamraparni
Tirunelveli, the city of the southern Tamil country, with the Nellaiappar temple at its centre and a rice economy on the one perennial river in a region otherwise dependent on tanks. The Tamraparni valley is the oldest continuously irrigated landscape in the far south. The Tamraparni valley is the oldest continuously irrigated landscape in the far south.
- Alappuzha · from the 1760s
Alappuzha, laid out by Travancore's minister Raja Kesavadas with canals cut inland so that coir, copra and pepper could be loaded on a coast with no natural harbour. The coir industry it created is still the district's largest employer, and the canal grid is still the town plan. The canal grid Kesavadas laid out is still the town plan today.
- Mangaluru / Mangalore · Parashurama Kshetra
Mangalore and the Tulu shore, read in tradition as land Parashurama reclaimed from the sea by throwing his axe from the Ghats. It is a working port with its own language, its own matrilineal inheritance traditions and its own spirit-worship, none of which the Kannada or Malayalam accounts cover. Tulu has its own script and its own literature, neither of which is taught in schools.
- Melkote / Thirunārāyanapuram · 1098–1137
Melkote, where Ramanuja lived about twelve years after leaving Srirangam, consecrating the Cheluvanarayana temple under Hoysala patronage and opening temple entry to communities he named Thirukulattar. It is called Dakshina Badri, a southern re-siting of Badrinath, which is how these networks propagate. It is called Dakshina Badri, a southern re-siting of Badrinath, which is how these networks propagate. The temple's jewelled crown is said to have been given by Tipu Sultan.
- Guruvāyūr · the Krishna of the west coast
Guruvayur, whose image is held by legend to have come from Dvaraka, which extends Krishna's western coastal story fifteen hundred kilometres south. It is now one of the largest pilgrimage centres in Kerala, with its own elephant sanctuary and its own long-running temple-entry disputes. It has its own elephant sanctuary and its own long-running temple-entry disputes.
- Kālaḍi · Shankara's village
Kaladi on the Periyar, the traditional birthplace of Adi Shankara, from which the whole four-corner matha network — Sringeri, Dwarka, Puri, Jyotirmath — is narrated as radiating. A village on a Kerala river is the origin point of a pan-Indian institutional geography. A village on a Kerala river is the origin point of a pan-Indian institutional geography, and the mathas at the four corners still claim their descent from it.
- Kodagu (Coorg) · Haleri 1600–1834 · British Coorg 1834–1947
Kodagu, a high forested block of the Ghats between Mysore and Malabar in which the Kaveri rises. Its Kodava population held land as armed clans rather than as castes, kept a distinct ancestor cult, and were recruited in numbers into the colonial and then the Indian army. The Kaveri rises in the same block of forest, at Talakaveri, and is worshipped there.
- Sabarimala · the hill pilgrimage
Sabarimala, reached only on foot through forest, with a forty-one-day vow before the walk and a Muslim shrine at Erumely on the traditional route that pilgrims stop at. It is now one of the largest annual gatherings anywhere, and the subject of the longest-running temple-access litigation in India. There is a Muslim shrine at Erumely on the traditional walking route that pilgrims stop at.