Place · Bay of Bengal island chain · India
Nakkavaram / Nicobar Islands
The Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal, generally identified with the 'Nakkavaram' or 'Nakkavarnam' named in Rajendra Chola I's 1025 CE Tanjore inscription as part of the geography of his Southeast Asian naval raid. The identification is supported by Ptolemy's 'Nakkabara' and by the Nicobarese 'Nakkavarma' naming tradition. The archipelago of 22 islands was a maritime way-station between the Coromandel coast and the Shrivijayan Malacca Strait trade, inhabited by Austroasiatic-speaking communities until the 1869 British annexation. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated the islands, killing an estimated 3,500 Nicobarese and destroying coastal villages. The islands are now Indian Union territory under heavy restriction on outside access.
- Function
- Text & inscription
- Confidence
- Mixed / layered
- Location
- 8.500, 93.500
Universally identified with the Nicobar Islands.
Connections (4)
- Tanjore inscription nameNagapattinam
Nakkavaram is commonly identified with the Nicobar Islands, which sit directly on the sailing route from the Coromandel to the straits — the first landfall after crossing the Bay of Bengal. The inscription places it within the 1025 campaign's geography, and Marco Polo two and a half centuries later describes the same islands under a similar name. It is one of the few names in the list whose identification is generally accepted.
- Traveller routeMarco Polo
Marco Polo coasted the Nicobars in 1292 on his way home and describes them under a name close to the Nakkavaram of the Tanjore inscription — two and a half centuries apart, an Indian imperial record and a Venetian merchant's account naming the same islands on the same sailing route. It is the clearest external corroboration any name in the Chola list has, and it is why this one is generally accepted.
- Imperial administration ofTranquebar (Tharangambadi)
The Nicobars were administered, when they were administered at all, from Tranquebar: settlers, missionaries of the Moravian Brethren and supply ships all went out from the Coromandel fort. Malaria killed most of them. A Danish warship sent from Tranquebar in 1783 was also what persuaded the rival Austrian colonists on Nancowry to give up their claim.
- Imperial administration ofTrieste
The Nicobars were claimed for Maria Theresa in 1778 and named the Theresia Islands, the only territory the Habsburg monarchy ever claimed in Asia. Denmark had declared the same group Frederiksøerne in 1756 and sent a warship to say so. Austria's Asian empire lasted seven years, consisted of one island group nobody could inhabit, and was abandoned in 1785.
On these journeys
- Chola expeditions overseas — Lanka, the Maldives and Srivijaya
- Marco Polo — the Indian Ocean homeward (c. 1292–95)
- Danish India — 1620 to 1868
- Austrian India — 1722 to 1785
Sources
Tanjore inscription; historical-geographical scholarship
Open Nakkavaram / Nicobar Islands in the repository →