Ananthapuram - the

 Forgotten Frontier of Zamorin Country

"The Zamorin's empire at its zenith included the whole of the west coast from Kollam to Kollam, that is from Panthalayini in Kurumbranad Taluk of British Malabar to Quilon in the Travancore State", writes Prof. K.V.Krishna Ayyar in his monumental work, 'The Zamorins of Calicut'.

Panthalayini Kollam was, of course, a well-known medieval port city, blessed as it is with natural mud banks which ensured calm water on the open coast all through the south-west monsoon.  'This is the Pandarani of Portuguese writers, the Flandarina of Friar Odoric, the Fandreeah of Rowlandson's Tahafat-ul-Mujahidin, the Fandaraina of Ibn Batuta', says Logan in his Malabar Manual. 

When news reached the Zamorin at Ponnani that Vasco da Gama's fleet was anchored off the coast of Kappad on 21st May 1498, his first instruction was to ensure that Gama should be escorted to Panthalayini Kollam, 'which was a good port unlike Calicut itself'. He was aware  that the south west monsoon with its devastating power was only ten days away and even the strongest fleet could be wiped off in its fury. (It was, however, a different story with the East India Company's vessel Morning Star which was totally wrecked in the fury of the south-west monsoon in 1793, while anchored at Panthalayini Kollam.)

Perhaps the folklore about the rivalry between Zamorin and Kolatthiri helped to confirm the belief that the boundary between the two principalities was the Korappuzha River.This may have contributed to the lack of any serious investigation of the reach of the Zamorin to the territory between Korappuzha and Panthalayani Kollam.

 How did the Zamorin come to acquire Panthalayini Kollam, about ten miles north of Korappuzha river? 

Krishna Ayyar quotes from Keralolpathi: The territory of Kolatthiri stretched from Korappuzha to Nileswaram. A prince from this family was stationed at Panthalayini Kollam as the southern viceroy. During one of his visits to Calicut, the young viceroy fell in love with a young princess (Thampuratti) of the Zamorin's family. They eloped to Kollam and from there to Chirakkal, the headquarters of Kolatthiri. Enraged at this, the Zamorin advanced against the Kolatthiri kingdom to take revenge against this insult to the family. He occupied Kollam and was marching towards Chirakkal.

 The Kolatthiri, however, sent emissaries offering to make amends for the wrong done by the viceroy. The Zamorin was pacified by offering Kollam and certain rights over the temple at Taliparamba. Thus it was that the Zamorin gained control over this prosperous port town.

Kollam became a favourite destination of the Zamorins till the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Mysore army and finally the British pinned them down to Calicut. The Calicut Granthavari records the demise of a Zamorin from Panthalayini Kollam in 1597 and the coronation of his successor  at the same location. But the records do not mention 'Panthalayini Kollam'. Instead, the name mentioned is 'Ananthapuram'. 

The Granthavari records an offering made by the Zamorin to the Ananthapurath Thevar in 1656 A.D. but no reference to the more famous Pisharikavu Temple which is next door. Perhaps, this Temple had an autonomous existence and the Zamorin confined himself to the Ananthapuram Temple. However, the Granthavari  does record the conferment of the title of Manappurath Arayan on a fisherman named Kodi son of Payyanad Kuttan in 1667. But the conferment of this title took place in the Calicut Palace, although the Manappurath Arayan had jurisdiction in Panthalayani Kollam.

Ananthapuram today is a small hamlet about half a kilometre to the north of Kollam town on the National Highway. It lies on the northern side of the vast Kollam Chira (tank) and more than a kilometre to the east of the port. Even the tank is not associated with the Zamorin - the local legend has it that a prosperous trader named Elela Chingan (some say Chingan Nair) dug the tank, which today is part of the Pisharikavu Temple complex.

The only vestige of the Zamorin in Ananthapuram today is a modest building which used to be the Palace of the Zamorin and a few Brahmin households which formed part of the agraharam. Then there is the small but majestic Maha Vishnu Temple which may have been built by either the Kolatthiris or the Zamorins - midway between the two more famous Ananthapuram Temples in Kasaragod and Trivandrum. 

Anathapuram Maha Vishnu Temple

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A Heritage Site Soon to Disappear

One more landmark in the glorious past of Calicut may soon disappear – unless those who love Calicut (and they are legion) act to prevent the demolition of the only colonial structure left in the Mananchira Square. The row of buildings constructed in the Victorian style which adorns the southern bank of the Mananchira Tank may soon be sold in auction for meeting some statutory payments relating to the dues of the workers of the Commonwealth Trust.

Photo: Courtesy www.skyscrapercity.com

The Commonwealth Trust, which is the successor to the Basel Mission Industries, is a standing reminder of the bold and revolutionary attempt at social engineering in Malabar, attempted by the German missionaries. The story of this magnificent failure has been recounted by Jaiprakash Raghaviah, an active member of Calicut Heritage Forum, in his work : Basel Mission Industries in Malabar and South Canara, 1834-1914 (1990).

The fascinating story of dedication and perseverance of a handful of Calvinist priests is worth narrating in some detail. Napoleon had, in 1815, escaped from imprisonment in the Island of Elba and had landed in France. Soon, war restarted in Europe. The city of Basel which shared its boundaries with Germany and France felt the tremors of invading armies. A group of pious Christians belonging to the Reformed Church of Basel and the Lutheran Church of Wurtenberg pledged to start a seminary fro missionary training if God would spare Basel from destruction. Soon Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo and the threat disappeared. In fulfilment of this pledge, six persons including three clergymen, one professor, a notary and a merchant, met in the rectory of St. Matin at Basel and formed the Evangelical Missionary Society on 26^th September, 1815. Within a year, they started an institution for training missionaries with seven students.

They started by setting up centres in West Africa in 1821. However, their effort to send missionaries to India was thwarted by the East India Company which did not permit non-British missions to work in the areas occupied by it. This obstacle was removed after the revision of the Company's Charter in 1833.

Thus it was that three missionaries – Johan Christopher Lehner, Christian Lenhard Greiner and Samuel Hebich – landed in Calicut on 21^st August 1834. Although their original mandate was to establish schools and institutions for training catechists, they realised soon that mere education without providing some remunerative jobs would be unsustainable, due to the extreme poverty of most of the members of the congregation.

The mission had started work in Mangalore, as the place was thought to be more hospitable. The Collector of Mangalore, Mr.H.M.Blair had donated a piece of land to Rev.Hebich to help him pursue his idea of jobs for the poor. The padre's experiment in coffee plantation on this land was a disaster. The next experiment of making sugar from toddy was equally disastrous. When their various agricultural ventures failed, the missionaries turned to industries as a possible alternative for creating jobs for the congregation.

It was not as if their industrial ventures were great successes, either. The first attempts at locksmithy, carpentry and watch making were all failures. The printing press which was started in Mangalore in 1841 fared better and soon it was churning out English-Kannada-Tulu-Malayalam dictionaries.

The arrival of Mr.Haller, a European weaving expert marked the beginning of the weaving industry by the Mission. He set up a small factory in Mangalore with 21 handlooms of European design and a Dye house. Mr. Haller is reputed to be the inventor of Khaki, the colour and cloth which is now known the world over. Khaki was born in Mangalore in 1852.

A review of the Mission's activities was undertaken in Basel and as a result, Mr. Pfeiderer was sent to India in 1854 to guide the missionaries in their ventures. It was Mr. Pfeiderer who laid a firm foundation for the commercial enterprises of the Mission by laying down that their aim should be not to make profits but to teach how to conduct business on Christian Principles. A joint stock company was formed under the name Mission-Handels-Gesellschaft (Mission Trading Company) and one of its first ventures was a Tile manufacturing factory.

Although the Mission had started its industrial activities in Mangalore, it soon found that Malabar had better availability of labour, raw materials and other factors. The activities spread rapidly in Malabar with the first weaving factory being set up in Kannur in 1852, followed by another in Calicut in 1859, Chombala, Tellicherry and Codacal in 1860. A Dye house was established in Koilandy in 1880. The first tile factory in Malabar was established in 1887 in Codacal and Palghat, followed by another in Feroke in 1905.

The Mission insisted on a casteless society among converts unlike many other congregations, particularly in Travancore where the converts continued to carry their pre-conversion caste hierarchy and prejudices into their new lives. It also insisted on following a management pattern which mirrored closely the Church hierarchy. In many cases, factory responsibilities and Church positions overlapped. The idea was to look after the converts in an exclusive atmosphere where their temporal and spiritual needs were looked after. In spite of this, the Calvinist doctrine of individual salvation perhaps limited the scope for mass conversion. Raghaviah reports that the total number of converts in 1914 was less than 20,000.

Perhaps Malabar and the Malayalam literary world will remember the Mission less for its factories and more for its gift of its first and greatest lexicographer, Dr. Herman Gundert. He was part of a team of missionaries which landed in Calicut on 13^th October 1834. Mr. Thomas Strange, the British District Judge of Tellicherry, who was well disposed towards the Basel Mission, donated his Illikkunnu Bungalow for missionary activities. It was here that Gundert spent the next several decades working at not only the monumental dictionary, but on a grammar book called Malayala Bhasha Vyakaranam (1868) and a translation of the Bible into Malayalam.

When World War broke out in 1914, the properties of the Mission were seized as belonging to Germans who were enemies of the British. Commonwealth Trust was formed in London to administer the properties and industrial ventures. (Please see for more details http://calicutheritageforum.googlepages.com/meeting5)

The Mission's activities were thereafter confined to its original mandate of education and uplift of the socially depressed classes. In 1947 the Protestant denominations of Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists and Congregationalists came together to form the unified Church of South India (CSI). The Lutherans did not take part in the unification. CSI now maintains a large number of educational institutions and health centres.

The Commonwealth Trust meanwhile prospered under British patronage, making fabrics for the European homes. Most of its products found ready acceptance as these were tailored to the demands of the western market. Modern designs and technologies, introduced from time to time, ensured that the supremacy was maintained. A case in point is the invitation to the influential American weaver Sheila Hicks in 1966 to visit Calicut and work with the weavers to develop new designs. She designed a type of tapestry 'in plain weave, its ribbed, sculptured effect relying on the random insertion of very thick tapering and overlapping wefts secured by rows of plain even weave using the same fine cotton as the warp.'

Sheila named the fabric 'Badagara' to commemorate her stay at the Sandbanks island in Badagara during her assignment in Calicut. She took samples to Paris where it became popular as a wall covering for hotel foyers and other common areas. The new Hong Kong Club which was being built in Sydney used 'Badagara' for its foyer.

However, the Trust and its products gradually declined and, under a new ownership the effort was to sell the family silver to overcome temporary cash flow problems. The first casualty was the majestic colonial bungalow on the beach which went, reportedly, for a ridiculously low price. Then followed some factory sites in Palghat and the Guest House facing Crown Theatre, another piece of colonial architecture.

The final piece will be the imposing building on the southern shore of Mananchira Tank which houses the administrative block and some weaving sheds at the back. Efforts are on by institutions like INTACH to stop the sale of this heritage building. We can only pray that the new owners may retain the facade of the existing structure while building their own dream edifice behind it.

Reference: 

www.skyscrapercity.com  

www.geocities.com/basel.htm

www.poerhousemuseum.com

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