ABSTRACT
The province, now called Malabar, is part of the Kerula Rajya, the kingdom of Kerula, one of the fifty-six deshas, or regions, enumerated in ancient Hindoo history as forming the Bharata Khanda or Land of India. It is supposed to have been recovered from the sea by the sixth incarnation of Vishnu, who in expiation of a matricidal crime gave over to the Brahmans, particularly to those of the Moonsut tribe, the broad lands lying between Gokarna and Kanya Kumari, or Cape Comorin. The country is also known by the names of Malayalim, the ‘mountain land’; Malangara and Cherun, from the Rajahs, who governed it at an early period. It is probably the kingdom of Pandion, described in the pages of the classical geographers.
