PROJECT BY PEOPLE
Muziris Heritage Project is an endeavor to
bring to the mindscape of the visitor a culture of 3000 years or more in all
its plentitude and complexity. There is a good deal of it to be conserved and
protected as monuments –shrines , forts , palaces , seminaries , cemeteries,
boat yards, markets and what have you.
These old human conclaves, whatever is left of them, are being showcased so as
to make voyage into history to a supreme excitement.
Add to them a cluster of museums
recapturing the visual and sonal splendor of varied human pursuits that
animated life in Muziris down the ages. The museums spread over the heritage
project region will, for instance, display maritime trade, life style, barter
system, handicrafts, fishing, forts and women’s movement as they developed over
time in Muziris.
Life and work of contemporary men and women
who made a difference to social life in what was once Muziris will be the
subject of some museums. As part of the museums and the monuments or otherwise,
performing arts will be employed to represent the non-physical aspect of the
heritage of Muziris.
As visitors walk or drive down alleys and road where
seekers of fortune and salvation once roamed in abandon, or sails through the
intricate network of waterways that still led to the landscape a certain unique
charm, they should feel like being taken on a grand time trip, savouring an
experience of Muziris as a virtual reality.
Barring big cities, modern Muziris may be
among our most densely populated places. Which goes to make conservation of
heritage monuments, saving them from callous or helpless human intervention,
particularly in the project. Besides the inevitable teams of archaeologists and
administrators, architects and museologists, designers and historians , it involves a whole lot of people,
ordinary people, who are inspired to view their heritage with pride, whose
mental resources are drawn up for various project activities.
So much so that
lay people are turned into amateur historians, drafted to compile folk tales
that float around and pick up precious relics of time maybe discarded as rusted
stuff. They will be trained to regale overawed tourists and students with tales
of their land.
That should make heritage quite a useful
thing, not a cultural overhang good enough for empty banter. The idea is to
make ordinary local people feel it belongs to them. In other words, Muziris
Heritage Project is not a project for people, it is by them.
KANNANKULANGARA TEMPLE
A miniature cradle is a thing of beauty. It
is equally an object of offering to Kannan of Kannkulangara, whose shrine in
Paravur has a history shrouded in 1200 years .Kannan or Krishna who takes on
myriad forms baby, boy, lover , warrior ,shepherd, ruler , mentor is pleased by
a cradle is the leitmotif of a culture held together by the creative bond
between children and parents.
JEW CEMETERY
Death always manages to have a dominion.
Jews of Muzirins are all long gone but their dead remain in this cemetery,
close to a temple, a household whose scions were prime ministers of Kochi. The
size of the tombs, 16 of them still extant, reflects the status of the dead.
Death is never a leveler.
VYPEEKOTA SEMINAR
This was more than a seminary.This was
where printing started in South India. It was of course started to print
biblical literature for the seminary Jesuit priest opened in 1577 with the
blessings of the kings of Kochi and Villarvattam.Printing material was crafted
in wood and ink made of charcoal and oil by a Spanish priest, John Gonzalves ,
an intimate of the seminary.
CHERAMAN MASJID
This mosque of Kodungallur is the world’s
second , said to have been built in AD629, the first being in Saudi Arabia.It
takes its name from the last king of the Chera Empire who ruled from
Kodungallur. Oral tradition has it that he left for Mecca, met Prophet
Mohammaed and was converted to Islam.Armed with his letter, Malik Ibn Dinar
came to Kodungallur and sought the help of the local people to build a mosque
as a memorial to their departed ruler. Over the centuries, Cheraman Masjid has
become a meeting point for devotees as well as students of history,
transcending religious boundaries.
CHERAMAN PARAMBU
Here lies buried the splendor of the Chera
Empire.There its place complex stood this dreary tract of 5 acres, now held as
an archaeological site. The place of palace proper was called
Gotramalleswaram.The capital Kodungallur had been designed after the model
called Senamukham in Indian architecture. It was a complex complete with a
palace, battery, observation and shrines. There is a corpus of literature
dwelling on the glory of the Chera capital down the ages. Sustained
archaeological studies may be able to buttress those findings.
KOTTAPPURAM MARKET
The other side of the fort is, literally,
Kottappuram. A fort there was and beyond it, came up later a market.
Kottappuram Fort was a tribute to Portuguese military genius. Right at the
mouth of the Periyar River just before it merged into the sea, Kottappuram Fort
served them as an impregnable bastion for a about a century and a half and then
the Dutch seized control. It was witness to and the venue of the rise and fall
of many rulers through 4 centuries before it yielded to the ravage of time.
Exavacators have recently found Chinese coins from the site.
The market on the other side of the fort,
Kottapuram Market, is of later origin and an indigenous initiative at that.
Kochi’s redoubtable king, Sakthan Thampuran, had it organized towards the close
of the eighteenth century. It is probably one of India’s oldest markets,
serving even as a centre of foreign trade. Proximity to the sea and access
through waterways made for easy cargo movement.
Inevitably, it assimilated foreign,
particularly Portuguese and Dutch, practices and preferences in trade and
commerce and construction.
Much of its glory is now a trail memory but
Kottapuram Market continues to function on Mondays and Thursday. It is now a
hybrid, emaciated spectacle, stultified through haphazard, often mindless
construction of structures and closure or opening of outlets. Generations have lived on it,
buying and selling not only articles of use but exchanging news and views,
building social bonds.
Kottapuram Market has been given a new
look, a new life, in an effort to make it again a vibrant economic forum in the
life of the people of the region. More,this old new market overlooking the
river and the sea can be a delight to every visitor. Its Where vessels once
carried cargo and its owners, waterways will now be open to travelers who wish
to add value to leisure.
PARAVUR SYNAGOGUE
Trade and religion necessarily grow together.
Whether the Jews of Paravur set up its first or synagogue is a matter of idle
conjecture both are still around. Only that the synagogue is pretty much a
run-down structure, its users having all but faded away. The market, opening to
the river, still functions thrice a week and the Jews Street still goes by that
name, though of one of its two pillars at the entrance has long been knocked down.
PALIAM
Paliam is an ancient family which provided
prime ministers to Kochi’s successive kings –except for Sakthan Thampuran who
felt he could do without a prime minister. Often they acted as law givers, now
and then as ambassadors and army commanders when the calling came.
In the early inter play of foreign powers,
Paliath Achan persuaded his king to resist the Portuguese, making friends with
the Dutch. The beholden Dutch built a house for the prime minister which
continues to be called Paliam Dutch Palace. The Paliam household lived in the
nalukettu, built in 1786, a uniquely classical structure of Kerala, with a big
open yard in the centre and rooms and verandahs surrounding it.
Kochi was a little kingdom but Palisth
Achan had taken bold, if reckless, initiative in rescuing neighbours who were
in distress. He was one of the early Indian chieftains to revolt against the
British and even managed to drive out the helmsman of Fort Kochi to the sea,
before being overpowered, forced to surrender and go into voluntary exile.
There is an apocryphal story that a scion of Paliam was converted to
Christianity and became Villarvattam Thomas Raja only one of his dynasty, the
only Christian dynasty in India.
MARTHOMA CHURCH
A strong foundation of belief built up through
generations is what makes this church at Azhikode particularly holy. The belief
is that it was here that St Thomas built the first church during his mission in
India which began in AD 52. The present church was built under papal
instructions in 1953. It has on display a particularly holy relic which people
believe is a piece of bone from the right hand of the saint. Curious travellers
are apt to be even more curious about nature’s captivating beauty when they go
for a boat race in the river where it joins the sea.
KODUNGALLUR TEMPLE
Kodungallur’s goddess is dreaded as she is
loved. Evil doers she will decimate, infecting them with seeds of sickness.
Devotees she will protect as a mother’s mission. She represents a violent
aspect of the deity, reacting to the world around her with the fury of a
wronged woman. Time was when itinerant devotees danced and sand lewd songs,
presuming to regale the goddess and performed cock sacrifice to propitiate her.
The nature of worship, like all else, has been sophisticated over time.
Like most temples, Kodungallur has a strong
web of stories woven around it, inspiring awe and devotion, casting a spell
through the narrative on the ways of the goddess, creating a certain mystique.
Affront to women runs through the legend of the deity as a constant refrain. In
the tale of the tormented Kannagi, who is identified with the deity of
Kodungallur, a modern feminist could conceivably find an unerring source of
spiritual strength and relevance.
Silappatikaram,a great work of the Chera prince, Ilango Adigal, opens
with the story of this outrage against Kannagi. The king, his brother,
Senguttuvan, had the first shrine of the deity built in Kodungallur, his
capital, probably in an act of penitence.
THIRUVANCHIKKULAM TEMPLE
When god’s antiquity is estimated, a couple
of thousand years may be trifle. Such is the hoary history of this temple which
combines the majesty of royal patronage and the intensity of religious faith.
It has a live link with many a Saiva savant of southern India and it goes
without saying, the Chera rulers. As zhuregards antiquity, even a historical
document in vatzhutthu script obtained from the temple premises, recording its
annual income and sources, is a thousand years old. The past beyond that is
daunting in terms of time.
