Epilogues
By Pallikonam Rajeev
No one would disagree with describing Dewan Peshkar T. Rama Rao as the “Architect of Modern Kottayam.” After Kottayam came under Travancore rule, the old town had fallen into decli…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
The market currently active in Kottayam was relocated to Kodimatha, south of the town, only a few years ago. Before that, a market had stood for about a century just north of Chant…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
The following is an account based on the facts that have emerged from investigations into the Trade centres of Old Kottayam that remained active until around the middle of the eigh…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
Outside the Thirunakkara Temple complex, at its south-eastern corner, stands a roughly five-foot-high, round shaped stone pillar in the middle of the public road. This crudely shap…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
Although historians mark Munjunad (Munjanad) as one of the powerful principalities of central Kerala in the early medieval period, no clear information about its boundaries, its pe…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
The place-name "Kottayakam" is first found recorded in the deed by which Aditya Varma, the Thekkumkur king of the time, granted tax-exempt land in AD 1550 for the Valiyapally — Kot…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
The craftsmen who built the Thirunakkara Mahadeva Temple belonged to a family of sthapathis (master architects) of the Vishwakarma caste, who lived settled near the Swamiyar Madam.…
By Research Study Division, Kottayam Naattukoottam
In old, history-steeped Kottayam, the traditional-style houses and places of worship still standing on both banks of the Meenachil river in ancient Thazhathangadi continue to aston…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
"On the 17th of Kumbham in the year 1030 [Malayalam Era], the bonded laborer Sirattamannu Iravi Parameswaran of Govindapuram desam, on behalf of Amrithi, a Pulayan, and Mani, a Pul…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
The name Chettitheruvu — once home to the Chetty trading community until about 200 years ago — will likely be unfamiliar to the newer generation. Chettitheruvu was the street that…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
Chalukunnu was the eastern gateway to old Kottayam town. Kottayam town, during the Thekkumkur era, stretched from Chalukunnu westward to Kummanam, with Thaliyilkotta as its adminis…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
This is an idiom that has long been in use in Kottayam and its surrounding areas. It was a saying used much the way today's generation might say "epic" or "over the top" — a prover…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
Everyone in Kottayam knows that the sub-jail stands east of the police parade ground. But not everyone knows where Kottayam's very first jail once stood. That original jail was no…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
In old Kottayam, on the bank of the Meenachil river in Thazhathangadi, a large stone cross stands by the roadside. It is enclosed by a low square wall built around it. Various opin…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
By the seventeenth century, during Thekkumkur rule, a new marketplace was established in the eastern part of old Kottayam town, between Thirunakkara Hill and Narikunnu. Besides the…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
"On the 17th of Kumbham in the year 1030 [Malayalam Era]..." — no wait, this belongs to a different piece. Let me give the translation directly. The Lore of Thirunakkara A green, h…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
The most famous temple in Kottayam town's Veloor Kara is Parappadam. It is a Major Temple. An elder (karanavar) of Thumbayil — a well-known Nair ancestral house in Veloor — used to…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
For the old-timers of Kottayam, the grand finale of Onam celebrations was always the Kottayam boat race — the competitive vallamkali held on the Meenachil river at Thazhathangadi!…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
It is believed that Islam started and spreading the Old Kottayam from 7th century A.D. This area was one of the early Muslim centres in Kerala. Before the era of the Prophet Mohamm…
By Pallikonam Rajeev
The Valiyapally, established in AD 1550, was the first Christian church in Kottayam town. By the tenth century, numerous Marthoma Nazrani families had already settled in Thazhathan…