Venadu kingdom


Venadu ', also romanised as Venad,' was a medieval state located between the Western Ghat Mountains and the Arabian Sea, at the south-western tip of India, with its traditional capital at the port city of Kollam. It was one of the major principalities of present-day Kerala, along with states of Kannur, Kozhikode, and Kochi during the medieval and early modern periods.
Venadu, originally a chiefly territory within the medieval Chera state in Kerala, gradually developed into an independent principality ruled by the Kulasekhara dynasty. Ravi Varma Kulasekhara, the most ambitious ruler of Venadu, conducted a successful military expedition into the Pandya and Chola lands in the early 14th century CE.
Records state that the 16th-century rulers of Venadu acknowledged the supremacy of the Vijayanagara rulers. In the 17th century, the rulers of Venadu paid an annual tribute to the Nayaks of Madurai following an invasion by Tirumala Nayaka. The English East India Company established a factory at Vizhinjam in 1664, and a fort was built at Anjengo in 1695. Venadu later evolved into the modern state of Travancore in the 18th century CE, as feudal relations and medieval political authority were dismantled under Marthanda Varma, who is often credited as "the Maker of Travancore".

Etymology

According to Da San Bartolomeo, a famous Austrian historian who resided in Kerala during the 17th century, the name 'Venadu' was derived from Venattu or Venadu, a Malayalam word for 'white,' which he associated with the white sand found in the regions near Venadu or Travancore, referring to a land with white sand.
Some early Tamil literature mentioned, the term "Venad" is a compound word consisting of "Vel" and "Nadu". The origin of the term can be traced back to "Velnad", where it referred to the settlement of the Vel people or kinship group, who were related to the Ay chieftains.

Ancestry

The early rulers of Venadu trace their ancestry to the Vel chieftains related to the Ay lineage of the early historic south India.
The later Venadu – ruled by hereditary "Venadu Adikal" of Kulashekara lineage of Chera line – appears as an autonomous chiefdom in the kingdom of the Chera Perumals of Kodungallur from around 8th – 9th century CE. It came to occupy a position of pre-eminent importance in the structuring of the Perumal kingdom.' The country was intermittently and partially subject to the Pandya kingdom in the medieval period.
The rulers of Venadu, known in the medieval period as Venadu Cheras or the Kulasekharas, claimed their ancestry from the Chera Perumals.'
As early as the 10th century, the powerful chiefs of Venadu used the surname suffix "Varma", denoting the Kshatriya status of the ruling line. Panankavil Palace, whose location remains a mystery, was the royal residence of the Venadu rulers at Kollam.'
Venadu had a kind of chiefly rule with principles of succession, indicated by the term kuru, that is, the rights of the chief and the order of succession within the chief's household. Rulers of the extended Venadu royal family lived at different locations in the kingdom. Migrations and setting up new palaces continued into the early modern period. Political authority of a complex nature was followed by the Kerala joint families. Trippappur, Desinganad, Chiravay and Elayadam branches of the family were called "swaroopams". The swaroopams were further divided into matrilineal descent groups.
Sources refer to the ruler of Venadu as controlling parts of Thiruvananthapuram district, Kollam and presumably parts of Alappuzha and Kottayam districts. The autonomous chiefdom of Venadu came to occupy pre-eminent importance in the structuring of the Chera/Perumal kingdom. The rulers of Venadu owed their importance to exchange of spices and other products with the Middle Eastern and Chinese merchants.' Venetian adventurer Marco Polo claimed to have visited Venadu capital Kollam, a major centre of commerce and trade with East and West Asia. European colonisers arrived at Kollam the late fifteenth century, primarily in pursuit of the Indian spices and textiles.

Political history

Antecedents

It appears that the whole region of medieval Venadu was part of the Ay country in early historic south India.' Veliyans belonging to the Ay family were the hill chiefs of the "Vel country". Towards the close of the early historic period the Pandya supremacy might have extended to Kanyakumari in Ay territory.'
The ancient political and cultural history of Venadu was almost entirely independent from that of the rest of Kerala. The Chera dynasty governed the area of Malabar Coast between Kanyakumari in the south to Kasaragod in the north. This included Palakkad Gap, Coimbatore, Salem, and Kolli Hills. The region around Coimbatore was ruled by the Cheras during Sangam period between c. 1st and the 4th centuries CE and it served as the eastern entrance to the Palakkad Gap, the principal trade route between the Malabar Coast and Tamil Nadu.
In the middle of the 8th century CE, the Pandya sacked port Vizhinjam, and took possession the Ay country. This foray brought the Chera-Perumal kings of Kodungallur into the conflict and a prolonged Pandya-Ay/Chera struggle followed.' By the middle of the 9th century CE, as a result of the encroachment of the Pandyas and Cheras, the ancient Ay country was partitioned into two portions.' Venadu with its base at Kollam came under influence of the Cheras while the Ay country, or what was left of it, came under the influence of the Pandyas.'
A new calendar was known as the "Kollam Era", was established in 825 CE at port Kollam. The exact events that lead to the foundation of the era is still matter of scholarly debate. According to historians, it commemorated the foundation of Kollam harbour city after the liberation of Venadu from the Pandya rule. The Kollam Syrian plates of Venadu chieftain Ayyan Adikal, does mention the then Chera king Sthanu Ravi.' The chief was providing land and other provisions to the Christian merchant Mar Sapir Iso at the port of Kollam.' The rulers of Venadu, known as "Venadu Adikal", owed their importance to exchange of spices and other products with the Middle Eastern and Chinese merchants.' Sulaiman al-Tajir, a Persian merchant who visited Kerala during the reign of Sthanu Ravi Varma, records that there was extensive trade between Kerala and China at that time, based at the port of Kollam.
The chiefs of Venadu were always determined to extend their sway into the Ay territory. There is a possibility that chieftains captured the whole region down to Kottar by 10th century CE.' In general, the influence of the Kerala rulers spread into the ancient Ay territory in the 10th century CE.
The region to the south of present-day Thiruvananthapuram – former Ay country – came under the control of the Cholas of Tanjore during early 11th century CE. There is a possibility that the Venadu chieftains tried to recapture the old Ay region after the raids by Rajaraja I. Chola prince Rajadhiraja claims to have "confined the undaunted king of Venadu to the Chera kingdom ...and liberated the king of Kupaka" presently Keezhperoor.' Eventually the Chera-Perumal kingdom also submitted to the Chola rule.
Cherar ruler Rama Kulasekhara, a contemporary of Chola Kulothunga, is seen organising the defence against the Cholas at Kollam in early 12th century CE.

Venadu in late medieval period

It is speculated that the threat of attacks from the imperial Cholas compelled the last medieval Chera ruler of Kerala, Rama Kulasekhara, to reside for an extended period at the port of Kollam.' According to tradition, Vira Kerala, the first ruler of Venadu, was his son.' After the dissolution of the medieval Chera state of Kerala around the 12th century, Venadu survived and gradually emerged as a powerful principality in southern Malabar. Venadu then came to be known as the kingdom of the Cheras or the Kulasekharas.
Possibly following the decline of Chola power after the reign of Kulothunga I, the rulers of Venadu gradually extended their control over the Nanjanad region. In the latter half of the 13th century, Venadu occasionally came under the control of the Pandyas of Madurai, when rulers such as Jatavarman Sundara Pandya and Maravarman Kulasekhara asserted their dominance over the region. In the early 14th century, the Venadu ruler "Sangramadhira" Ravi Varma led military raids to the northern frontiers of south India. His inscriptions have been found as far north as Poonamallee, a suburb of Chennai.
In the Venadu royal family, as in most other royal houses of Kerala, succession followed the matrilineal system of inheritance. Under this system, the throne passed not to the king's own son, but to the eldest son of his sister.
Venadu ruler Aditya Varma, before his accession to the throne, is believed to have resisted "invasions by Muslim forces" along the borders of Venadu. His successor, Chera Udaya Marthanda Varma, is credited with extending Venadu's influence into the interior regions of Tirunelveli. Vira Udaya Marthanda Varma, a tolerant ruler who granted lands to the Jains and exempted the Christian Paravas from certain oppressive taxes, acknowledged the supremacy of the Vijayanagara rulers. The conflict with Vijayanagara continued, as commanders such as Rama Raya Vithala defeated the Venadu forces during the reign of king Vira Kerala Varma.

In Colonial period

In 1498, during the Age of Discovery, the Portuguese expedition to India reached Kozhikode, the capital of the Zamorin's kingdom, thereby opening a direct sea route between Europe and Asia. In 1502, they became the first Europeans to establish a trading centre at Thangassery, Kollam, which served as the hub of their spice trade, especially in pepper, marking the beginning of Portuguese influence in southern Malabar.
  • Well into the modern period, Venadu remained one of the principal states of Malabar, along with the kingdoms of Kannur, Kozhikode, and Kochi.
  • The Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, managed by the Venadu rulers, was an important centre of worship in southern Kerala.
  • In the 17th century, the rulers of Venadu paid an annual tribute to the Nayaks of Madurai. By this time, the old state of Venadu had fragmented into several collateral branches, including Trippappoor, Elayadathu, Desinganad, and Peraka Thavazhi.
  • During the regency of Umayamma, southern Venadu was famously overrun by a Muslim adventurer.
  • The English East India Company established a factory at Vizhinjam in 1664, followed by the construction of a fort at Anchuthengu in 1695. In 1721, around 150 Company men from the Anjengo Factory, on their way to an audience with the queen-mother, were killed by a local mob in what came to be known as the Attingal Outbreak.
  • Ravi Varma, who ruled from 1721 to 1729, later entered into formal treaty agreements with both the Company and the Nayaks of Madurai. The main purpose of these arrangements was to strengthen the ruler's position against the regional nobles and other "hostile elements" within Venadu.