LEGEND
& HISTORY
Long
ago, in the mists of time as it were, Lord Vishnu descended from the heavens
in his incarnation of Parshuram. After slaying the evil kings 21 times over
to repeal their force from earth, he did penance for waging the terrible war,
and threw his axe into the sea. The area where the axe landed, from shaft to
blade, rose from the sea as Kerala, a land of plenty and prosperity.
Its geographical position has been responsible too for Kerala's historic ebb
and flow. The strip of land found a natural defense in the hills that sealed
off one longitudinal section, leaving it open to access from the sea alone.
Sea trade started with the Phoenicians, and in 1000 BC Kerala was visited by
King Solomon's ships that traveled to 'Ophir', in all probability the modern
Puvar, south of Trivandrum.
Then followed the galleys of other far-off countries: Greece, Rome, and Arabia,
China. A fresh wave of trading history started with the Europeans: the Portuguese
gained trading rights in 1516; the Dutch merchants a stronghold in 1602, and
by 1663 the Portuguese were forced out of the area.
By 1795, however, the Dutch too had to move out, for the British traders had
become the strongest power in India by that time. In all this period of prosperity
and strife, the region's identity existed as the Malabar Coast and Cochin Travancore.
It was only in 1956 that it gained recognition as an independent state, Kerala.
