01City of the Perumals
From the ninth century the Chera Perumals ruled Kerala from Mahodayapuram, with the Thiruvanchikulam Shiva temple close by as their royal shrine. The Vaishnava saint Kulashekhara Alvar and the Shaiva saint Cheraman Perumal Nayanar are both remembered as kings of this line. Their copper-plate grants name the city, and the Laghu Bhaskariya commentary of Shankaranarayana was written at an observatory in the capital in 869. After the last Perumal, around 1122, Kerala broke into many small states, and Kodungallur became the seat of a minor royal house, the Kodungallur Kovilakam, which gave Malayalam a line of poets and scholars, among them Kunjikkuttan Thampuran, who rendered the whole Mahabharata into Malayalam verse.
02Bhagavathy and Bharani
The Kodungallur Bhagavathy is the Devi in her fierce form as Bhadrakali, worshipped with Kerala tantric rites; many in Kerala also hold her to be Kannagi of the Silappatikaram, honoured by the Chera king Chenguttuvan. The Bharani festival in the Malayalam month of Meenam, March to April, brings bands of devotees from across Kerala in red, with swords and anklets, singing as they go; on the day of kavu theendal they run round the temple and strike its roof with sticks. Nearby, across the backwater, lie the excavations at Pattanam, thought to be the Roman-era port of Muziris.
The life of this place
- 869Shankaranarayana writes his astronomical commentary at the Chera capital.
- c. 1122The rule of the last Chera Perumal ends.
- 1341The Periyar flood silts the old harbour and trade shifts south to Kochi.
The Bhagavathy temple is in the town centre; go for the Bharani festival in Meenam only if you are ready for great crowds.
