Chera

Chera (or Kerala) is the name of a Tamil dynasty that for over eleven centuries ruled most of the area of the modern state of Kerala as well as western districts of what is now the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India. During that era the Tamilagam or Tamil-speaking territory extended to the west coast of India, and a separate Malayalam language had not yet developed. The Chera capital was originally Vanji, on the Periyar River near Cochin; later Tiru-vanjikkalam near the mouth of that river became the capital. The kings were said to be of the Vanavar tribe and were Tamil speakers.

Around the beginning of the Common Era the Chera king Nedunjeraladan went to war with Perunarkilli, king of the neighboring Chola dynasty, and both perished. Subsequent generations of the two royal families fought with each other, but in the second century CE the two dynasties were united by a marriage. When the Chola capital of Puhar was destroyed by floods, its king was aided by the Chera king Cenguttuvan, a grandson of the Chola king Karikkal. Under him the Cheras were the dominant power in the south. For a while there seem to have been two royal lines among the Cheras. However Karikkal's successor Cey was conquered by the neighboring Pandya dynasty, which assumed the ascendancy until it was overcome in turn by the Pallava dynasty. Nonetheless the royal line lingered on until Chera rule finally disintegrated in the twelfth century CE. As late as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the rajas of Cochin claimed descent from the Chera line.

Chera history is known mostly from epic poetry. In addition an Alexandrian Greek mariner's handbook, The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, mentions five thriving seaports on the Kerala coast in the first century CE. In later centuries Jews and Christians moved to this coast from the Middle East. Roman and Alexandrian traders came here, and an as yet undiscovered temple of Augustus was reported to exist in the city of Kuranganur. Today the modern population in the area of the former Chera kingdom is probably ethnically similar to the ancient inhabitants, and the Dravidian languages of Tamil and Malayalam are spoken in the region.

Nilakanta Sastri, K. A. (1966) A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar. 3d ed. London and Madras, India: Oxford University Press.

Woodcock, George. (1967) "The Age of the Cheras." In George Woodcock, Kerala, a Portrait of the Malabar Coast. London: Faber and Faber, 73–97.