Kerala was known as 'Keralaputra' back in history and was mentioned as one of the independent kingdoms of South India. Cheras transformed the state into an international centre by establishing trade via Arabian Sea. While in middle age, Namboothiri Arab immigrants captured the state and society was guided under caste system. Early Cheras collapsed by neighbouring intervention of Cholas, and later Kingdom of Kozhikode arose regaining them their power back. Kozhikode ports was main gateway for foreign entities and in the year 1498, Vasco Da Gama established a sea route to Kozhikode and this marked influences of Europe in India. In the year 1741, the Dutch was defeated by Marthanda Varma. Later, British gained control over Northern Kerala states and created Malabar district. In 1947, after independence Travancore was established as a sovereign state. In 1956, Kerala State was formed with Travancore-Cochin state, Malabar district and Kasaragod Taluk of South Canara district of Madras state. The PPT on The Keralolpatti as History. Check out the presentation right away! To download original, editable and non-watermark PowerPoint Presentation check, https://resorcio.com/products/the-keralolpatti-as-history To watch more similar PPTs visit www.resorcio.com

1. “THE KERALOLPATTI AS HISTORY”
KESAVAN VELUTHAT

2. CONTENTS
01
02
03
04
KESAVAN VELUTHAT
THE KERALOLPATTI AS HISTORY
WORKS ON KERALAM
CONCLUSION

3. KESAVAN VELUTHAT
• Professor of History and author of several books and
articles.
• Taught in different colleges in Kerala between 1972 and
1982.
• Retired from University of Delhi in 2016 and joined
University of Hyderabad as a visiting professor.
• Area of Interest- Early medieval Indian History with focus on
South India.

4. 04
03
02
01 05
MAJOR PUBLICATIONS
The Political
Structure of Early
Medieval South
India (1993)
Notes of
Dissent
The Early
Medieval in
South India
(2009)
Brahman
Settlements in
Kerala:
Historical
Studies (1978)
History and
Historiography in
constituting a
region: The Case
of Kerala(2018)

6. “The Keralolpatti as History” is an essay that
looks at expressions of historical consciousness in
narratives of pre-colonial Kerala in an attempt to
identify notions of history with special reference
to Keralolpatti.

7. AWESOME
PRESENTATION
THE KERALOLPATTI
AS HISTORY
Veluthatt begins the essay by focusing on the
Historical Consciousness – especially that of
Kerala.
Historical Consciousness can be defined as
individual and collective understanding of the
past –
• the cognitive and cultural factors that shape
those understandings, as well as
• the relations of the historical understanding
to those of the present and the future

8. THE KERALOLPATTI AS HISTORY
Historical consciousness varies
from society to society
Colonial writers claimed
that India had neither a
consciousness of history
nor a sense of the past

9. 1
2
Scholars need authentic ‘evidence’ from ‘contemporary’
sources to accept historical writings as history.
Indian forms of historical writings fell short of these
standards.

10. • Colonial masters invented secure and usable past
to control and maintain dominance over their
colonies.
• They claimed that India is an ‘ahistorical’ society
which does not maintain an authentic or accurate
records of the past.
• Historical Writings from any part of the country
were considered as superstition, legend and
nonsense.
• Colonial masters tried to reconstruct historical
writings.
• Veluthat mentions the works that traces Kerala
history.

11. WORKS ON KERALAM
Granthavaris
1 2 3
4 5
Mushikavamsakavya Unniyachi charitam
Unnichirutevi charitam Unnunili sandesam

12. • Granthavaris were the descriptive accounts maintained
by the major ruling families and temples in Kerala
during the medieval period
• The early Tamil works form one of the most important
sources of information for the history of ancient Kerala
GRANTHAVARIS

13. The Mushikavamsakavya written in the 11th C. AD
by Atula, the court poet of the Mushaka king
Srikantha of Kolathunad, is the most important
historical Mahakavya in Sanskrit
MUSHIKAVAMSAKAVYA

15. P. Shankunny Menon - A
History of Travancore
from the Earliest Times William Logan - Malabar
Manual
K. P Padmanabha Menon
- Kochi Rajya Charitram
WORKS ON KERALAM

16. Elamkulam -
Chera Samrajyam Onpathum Pathum
Nuttandukalil, Kerala Charitrathile
Irulatanja Etukal
A. Sreedhara Menon -
Survey of Kerala History
M.G.S Narayanan -
Perumals of Kerala
WORKS ON KERALAM

17. In his famous Malabar Manual, William Logan
described the narrative called Keralolpatti as a
‘farrago of legendary nonsense but he himself
had to depend on the same narrative to
reconstruct the history of Kerala.
WILLIAM
LOGAN

18. 1 2
3
Veluthat looks at the
historical consciousness
in the narratives of pre
colonial Kerala.
VELUTHAT SAYS
Brahmanas played an
important role in the
political economy of
Kerala. They are the
‘power behind the
throne’. Rulers were
subservient of the
Brahmana groups
Veluthat states that the
Historical Consciousness
of Kerala society and the
way they choose to
record it is very different
from other societies or
kingdoms in South India.

19. KERALOLPATTI
• According to him, the scholars are mainly concerned
with the historicity or narrative of book (Keralolpatti)
rather than the historical consciousness expressed in it
or its social function.
• Hence, they failed to identify or appreciate the
narrative as an expression of the sense of history
shown by the Kerala Society.
Keralolpatti was the text that the
elite in Kerala chose to express its
historical consciousness.

20. Historians have taken widely varying
positions, ranging from describing it
as ‘a farrago of legendary nonsense’
and as ‘having attained the rank of
authentic history’
• The purpose of this essay is to look at it as a
narrative of history which tells the story of
Kerala, right from the creation of the land.
• An examination of the events and how they
are represented clarifies the extent of
historical consciousness that it exhibits.

21. PRASASTIS
Prasastis - inscriptions
recording grant of land
and contain historical
account of the dynasty
of the donor in whose
honour they are
composed.
Through this genre
historical consciousness
found its expression in
the time of Guptas
onwards in the early
medieval India.
According to M.G.S.
Narayan, Prasastis were
absent in Kerala (Chera
kingdom of
Mahodayapuram) because
the Chera kingdom
followed the matrilineal
order of succession.

22. But this argument did not
hold much water because
ancestry is ancestry whatever
the system of succession.
Prasasti is concerned with the
origin and succession of ruler so
naturally Kerala Society avoided
this form of expressing the
consciousness of the past.

24. KERALOLPATTI
Keralolpatti is a work that
deals with the origin of
Keralam.
Shangunny Menon
ascribes the authorship of
this work to Thunchathu
Ramanujan Ezhuthachan.

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Historians still doubt the reliability of the
collection of legends in the text due to some
discrepancies.
It is considered to be an expansion from an
earlier Sanskrit work, Kerala Mahatmyam.

26. It is a narrative in a kind of
sanskritized Malayalam and it tells
the history of Kerala from the time
of its creation by the inevitable.
Tamil translation is available.
The variations in the different
versions are largely related to the
third period, that is the Age of
Tampurans.
There are also variations in relation
to the position that different castes
are given in different versions of
Keralolpatti

27. The Age of
Tampurans
The Age of
Parasurama
The Age of
Perumals
DIVISIONS
Keralolpatti falls into three broad periods

28. P A R A S U R A M A
Parasurama - The sixth avatar of Lord
Vishnu, born to kill the cruel kings of
the Kshatriya vamsa.
Known as Jamadagnya, Virarama,
Bhargavarama.
Son of Sage Jamadagni and his wife
Renuka appears both in Mahabharatha
and Ramayana.

29. Keralolpatti begins with an account of
Parasurama’s creation of Kerala.
The migrants carried with them the
tradition that Parasurama created their
land and donated it to them.
They wanted to remember this as an important
item in relation to their past, as the control they
had in large areas of land received considerable
sanction from this memory.
THE AGE OF PARASURAMA
01
02
03

30. He created Kerala with a fling of his
axe and peopled the land by
Brahmanas brought from the north in
sixty-four gramas.
Of the sixty-four gramas,
thirty-two are in Tulunad
and thirty-two in present
day Kerala.

31. The Brahmanas brought by
Parasurama did not stay there. They
left the new land in fear of serpents.
Parasurama brought them back,
changed their style of clothing
and hair style so that they
would not return to their native
place and persuaded them to
practice matriliny.

32. 32
He also established 108 temples each for Siva and Durga.
He selected 36000 Brahmanas from the different gramas
and conferred on them the right to arms (sasthrabhiksha),
so that they could protect their land themselves.

33. The Brahmanas who were governing
the land so far decided to get a
kshatriya as their ruler because they
felt that the business of governance
corrupted them.
The sister of the kshathriya king was
married to a Brahman so that their
progeny would be the future king.
That is how Perumals come into the
scene.

34. The ways in which the Namboothiri heroes like Alvancheri
Tamprakkal, Vasu Bhattathiri and Sankaracharya are
treated in the text is important in looking at this phase.
According to Sankaracharya’s biographies he owed
hardly anything to Kerala. But after he became a
celebrity, he was shamelessly appropriated.
THE AGE OF PERUMALS
1
2

35. The portrayal of Sankaracharya, arms bearing Brahmanas
and the account about the end of the Perumal regime are
instances of the use of the past in seeking validation for
those groups which enjoyed and sought to perpetuate
high status.

36. • Gives a list of such foreign Perumals who are alleged to have
ruled over the country.
• All the Kulasekharas from Kulasekhara Alwar to Rama Varma
Kulasekhara belonged to the Chera royal house of
Mahodayapuram.
• They ruled over the land claiming the allegiance of all classes of
people.

37. The 9th, 10th and 11th centuries comprised the age of the
Second Chera Empire when the Kulasekharas exercised their
authority over the whole of Kerala from their capital at
Mahodayapuram.

38. A new epoch in the history of Kerala began
in the 9th C. AD with the establishment of
the second Chera kingdom and the rule of
the Perumals.

39. The rulers of the kingdom were called as
the Perumals or at times as Kulasekharas.
Kulasekhara Alwar, Rama Rajasekhara,
Sthanu Ravi, Ravi Varma Kulasekhara are
some names worth mentioning.

40. Account about the end of the Perumal regime goes
as, the last Perumal accepted the Fifth Veda ,
abdicated the throne, divided the kingdom among
his sons and relatives and left for Mecca.
LOREM IPSUM DOLOR
SIT AMET, CU USU
AGAM INTEGRE
IMPEDIT.
The Age of the Perumals witnessed an epic struggle
with the neighbouring Chola monarchs.
This conflict is sometimes referred to as ‘Nuttantu
Yudham’ or Hundred Years War
The weak central authority of Cheras was replaced
by the stable local authority of the Naduvazhis who
became the centre of the new agrarian order.

41. The Age of Tampurans corresponds to the period following
the end of Perumal era in 20th C. AD. It was the period of
the petty local chieftains in the post twelfth century period
of Kerala history.
THE AGE OF TAMPURANS

42. In this phase, there is
a recognition that the
political power is more
a function of military
aggrandizement .
THE AGE OF TAMPURANS
It was a region with few
Brahmanical settlement
and limited control by the
Brahamanas.
The power behind the
throne was different from
what it was like under the
Perumals.
1 2 3

43. There were also many local landed magnates who
were incorporated into the political system.
THE AGE OF TAMPURANS
The role that the Brahmanical groups have to play
is very little in this phase and hence there are
many differences in nature and content of the
narrative from this point.
The newly emerging political power and the
support it had from the trading group is
highlighted here.
4
5
6
Eg:- the Kingdom of Calicut..

44. The various nodes of power in the
localities with the Nayar, landed
elements occupying a crucial place
in the power structure are
acknowledged.
THE AGE OF TAMPURANS
This section in the Kolattunad tradition of
Keralolpatti follows the period of the
Mushikavamshakavya.
A large number of non-Brahmana
chiefs rose to prominence in this
period.
The medieval festival of mamankam is
described elaborately in this last section.
7
8
9
10

45. Though the work ends with the
Age of Tampurans, it is important
to know the later history too.

46. • Towards the end of Tampurans, there was
the total absence of a unifying central
power.
• Only three rulers possessed somewhat
independent authority.
• Portuguese came for trade.
• At the time of European advent, Kerala was in
a distracted political condition with several
petty feudal chieftains engaged in endless
feuds.
• Then comes the Modern History of Kerala.

47. • Scholars of earlier generation dismissed it as a bundle of
legends.
• But there has been an increasing appreciation of the fact that
Keralolpatti is not to be rejected outright but to be used with
caution.
• The statements made there should not be accepted at their
face value.
• However, they contain references which supplement and
clarify evidence obtained from other sources of information
though it reflects interest and prejudice and suffers from
interpolation as well as misinterpretation.
VELUTHAT’S REMARKS OF
KERALOLPATTI
VELUTHAT SAYS

48. A
B
Comparison of the Parasurama tradition
in South Canara (told in the Kannada
text Gramapaddhati) and Kerala is
explored.
The account of the creation of the land and
its donation to the Brahmanas occurs in
both, but the latter part is not represented in
the Gramapaddhati with as much importance
as it is in the Keralolpatti.

49. It is a significant indication of the
difference in the role of the Brahmanical
groups in the two societies
The importance that the Brahmanas of Kerala
had in polity and society was not matched by
what their counterparts in South Canara had.

50. The polity with such overwhelming importance of the Brahmanical groups
required a legitimation different from what was used and found successful
elsewhere.
Thus, the story of Parasurama creating the land and donating it to the
Brahmanas, carrying out of the governance of the land, creating the ruler
and the ruler being obedient to them are all motifs which would be useful in
this unique means of legitimation.
The Keralolpatti records those events of the past which were thought as
relevant to the Brahmanical groups of Kerala society

51. The portrayal of Sankaracharya, arms bearing
Brahmanas and the account about the end of the
Perumal regime: instances of the use of the past
in seeking validation for those groups which
enjoyed and sought to perpetuate status
VELUTHAT’S
READINGS

52. The character of the narrative suddenly
changes in ‘the age of Tampurans’
VELUTHAT’S
READINGS
The role that the Brahmanical groups have to
play at the Age of Tampurans is little, if any.

53. History being generally a record of the
activities of socio-political status groups,
those who have status at different times find
a place in recorded history.
The concern of historical writing gets shifted
to those who are at different nodes of power.
Kerala, was not a society entirely devoid of
a sense of the past and the different forms
which, that sense of history took to
express itself eminently suited the needs of
society from time to time.
CONCLUSION 1
2
3

54. Kesavan Veluthat states that Kerala too had
a sense of history, which it expressed in
forms that were found most suitable for its
needs. History was used here as elsewhere
as a ‘handmaid of authority’.

55. He proves that Keralolpatti is a Brahmanical
document par excellence that records those events
of the past which it thought were relevant to the
Brahmanical groups of Kerala. The form that it chose
too was almost suited to the needs of the
Brahmanical groups in society.

56. Veluthat, Kesavan. “The Keralolpatti
as History.” The Early Medieval in
South India. Oxford University Press.
2010
REFERENCE

57. THANK YOU