Indus valley and the city of Kozhikode

The Cheraman Perumal's sword that was given to the Eradi brothers. Engraved from an original sketch (pc: Wikipedia)

The city of Kozhikode is located on the coast of the Malabar. Legend has it that the Cheraman Perumal-the last Chera ruler-was converted to Islam. Before leaving for Mecca, he had partitioned his kingdom, but forgot to allocate anything to his trusted chiefs - the Eradis. Later, when the king was appraised of this, he told them that they could occupy all the land in the ambit of a Rooster's cry from where they were standing. The king had also gifted the warrior brothers his conch and the sword. Though it was an unwanted piece of marshy tract, the brave Eradi brothers, with the blessings of the erstwhile Perumal, had conquered all the nearby land and established a large kingdom with Kozhikode as its capital.

While some attribute the name Kozhikode to the above legend (Kozhi is the Malayalam word for Rooster), a better explanation is provided by VVK Valath, the renowned toponymist. Code in Malayalam is the edge (of a piece of land). There are numerous place names in Kerala ending with Code as in the case of the Thiruvithamcode (Thiru-Athan-Code or the tip of the kingdom of the great Athan). That way Kozhikode is that edge, or the portion (of a land) inhibited by the Roosters.

Roosters in this case must not be taken in the literal sense. The Dravidian clans happened to worship a plant or an animal or a bird with whom they had felt a mystical relationship. That organism would serve as a totem of the clan and the members of the group would eventually be referred to by its name. Thus, we had the Monkeys (of the Ramayana), the Nagas (Snake worshippers), the Bears (like the Jambavan), the Eagles (like the mighty Garuda and the Jadayu), the Peacock, the Bulls, the Roosters etc. This is akin to referring the people of New Zealand as Kiwis these days. The practice of identifying a family or group by its totem was common in the ancient times and people knew that they were referring to real humans and not any plant or animal.

Earlier, I had written an article in which I tried to interpret the countless mythical creatures mentioned in our Puranas (myths) and Ithihasas (epics) from a euhemeristic standpoint. Murugan (son of Shiva and Parvathi) is always depicted as him sitting on a Peacock which is pressing a Snake under its claws. We know that the Poultry birds prey on Snakes. So naturally a group or clan who had an intense rivalry with the Nagas tend to consider the Peacock or the Rooster as their totem. It would be interesting to note that the Murugan’s flag has a Rooster. So I hypothesized that Murugan was a warlord of the Peacock (or the Rooster) worshipping Dravidian clan.

The capital of the early Cholas is Uraiyur which was also known as Kozhiyur (The land of the Roosters) or Thirukozhi (The revered Rooster). The Chola kings bore the title Kozhikkon (The king of the Roosters) as suggested by the Tamil anthology Muthollayiram (It says- “Kuthalai paruvathai kozhikkomanai vathuvai perukentral annai”). The Cholas deified the Roosters, and it is important to note that they came to power by overthrowing the Nagas of Uraiyur and Puhar. 

Interestingly, the Chera King was also referred to as Kozhikkon in Perumal Thirumozhi (it says – “Kolli kavalan kootal ayakan kozhikkon kulachekaran”). 

All the above evidences suggest that the groups worshipping the Roosters were very common in the south of the Peninsula. Kozhikode was once a colony of Rooster worshippers and hence the name. One might be fascinated to know that there are numerous other place names in Kerala attributed to roosters like Kozhippuram, Kozhimala, Kozhippara etc.

As I had already explained in several earlier articles, it is widely accepted that the early Cholas, Cheras had emigrated from the Indus valley following the decline of Harappan civilization. So, the question, now, is whether we have any reference of Roosters in the Indus Seals?

To answer the question, let me invite your attention to the below Indus seal (fig 1) excavated from Mohenjo-Daro. The script is simple. It includes a street sign indicating a planned city or a town followed by two Roosters. This should be read as the city of Roosters (or the Cocks' city) according to the renowned epigraphist Iravatham Mahadevan. Arma or Armaka in Sanskrit stands for old, ruined cities. Indologist Thomas Burrow had found mention of places like Kukkudarma, Guptarma etc in the early Sanskrit literature. He postulated that those were the ruined cities on the banks of the Indus, destroyed either by advancing Aryans or were already lying in ruins when the Aryans arrived. Kukkuda in Sanskrit means a Rooster or a cockerel. This had led Mahadevan to conclude that Kukkutarma (or the city of Roosters) is a reference to Mohenjo-Daro.

This cultural parallel is yet another remarkable testament to the migration of the Velir clans to the state of Kerala and the rest of the Peninsula’s southernmost parts after the decline of the Indus cities. The immigrants continued to name their settlements after their totem.

I think the people of the Indus valley were identified by both the totem - which is an animal, a bird, or a plant that their ancestors had been worshipping since the prehistoric times - say a Chera/Naga (the Snake worshipper), or a Kozhi (the Rooster worshipper) and the occupation - say a Sata-Poraiyan/Sata-Vahana (the bearer of the food), or a Shali-Vahana (the bearer of the arrows). The Indus societies might have been cosmopolitan. However, a careful analysis of the dual identities of its natives could probably shed some light on the rise and evolution of myriad dynasties, their rivalries and alliances in the Post Harappan era.

fig 1: An Indus seal from Mohenjo-Daro. Mahadevan read the script as Cocks' city

References

Balakrishnan, R. (2012). The 'High-West: Low-East' Dichotomy of Indus Cities: A Dravidian Paradigm.

Monier-Williams. (n.d.). A Sanskrit-English dictionary, etymologically and philologically arranged, with special reference to Greek, Latin, Gothic, German, Anglo-Saxon, and other cognate Indo-European languages.

Valath, V. V. (1986). Keralathile Sthala Charitrangal Palakkad Jilla.