KOZHIKODE, COCHIN AND NAIRS IN PORTUGAL

The Epic speaks of casteism in Malabar too

It was in Francis Day's very mediocre history of Cochin,The Land of Perumals,I first read about the great Portuguese poet,Luis Vaz de Camoes(rendered in English as,Camoens),singing praises of Cochin,in his epic,Lusiad.As time went by,I found the final three cantos of the epic,with a total of 10 cantos,were devoted entirely to Kozhikode,and there was only a fleeting remark on Cochin,and it sang paeans about the fighting community of Nairs.

Listen to what the epic has to say on Nairs:

By the proud Nayres the noble rank claimed;

The toils of culture and of art they scorn,

The warrior's plumes their haughty brows adorn;

The shining faulchion brandished in the right

Their left arm wields the target with tight;

Of danger scornful,ever armed they stand

Around the King,a stern barbarian band.

The epic was published in 1572,and I am sure,within the next four centuries,the barbarian band has steadily progressed into a cultured band.

Camoes/Portrait by Fernao Gomez,C.1577

Camoes,not only wrote about Kozhikode,Cochin,Kannur,Kodungallur and Kollam,but,lived in the Malabar Coast and battled for the Portuguese;from the Malabar Coast he went up the trade route to Egypt and returned to Goa.He was deported to Goa,after a fracas with a palace official,with a punishment to serve three years, in Indies.His father,Simao Vaz de Camoes,had left for India,at an early age,seeking fortune,and had died in Goa.Camoes was the only son of Simao and wife,Ana de Sa de Macedo.Condemned to serve three years,Francis Day records,he served 16 years in India.When the promises of his bosses didn't materialize,he decided to return to Portugal,but the Governor who wanted to retain him,Day says,imprisoned him,to a debt of 200 ducats.His friends paid it,Camoes was free and wrote,Lusiad.

The facts are slightly different.

First edition cover of Lusiad

Camoes was born in 1524,and educated by Dominicans and Jesuits and he was fortunate in having his uncle,Bento de Camoes as Prior at the Manastery of Santa Cruz and Chancellor of the University of Coimbra.Camoes enrolled in the University,and it is believed,he fell in love with Catherine of Ataide,the Lady-in- Waiting to the Portugal Queen,and also,Princess Maria,sister of King John III of Portugal.These affairs and the discreet allusion to the King,in his play,El Rei Seleuco,may have played a part in his exile of 1548.After staying with friends in Ribatejo for six months,he enlisted in overseas militia,to Teuta,in 1549.In the battle with Moors,he lost sight of the right eye,returned to Lisbon in 1551,led a bohemian life,and during the religious festival of Corpus Christi,in the Largo do Rossio,had a fracas with Gonzalo Borges,member of Royal Stables,attacked and injured him.Camoes was imprisoned,but freed on the pleading of his mother to the King and the Borges family,for a fine of 4000 reis and three years compulsory militia service in the Orient.He reached Goa in 1553,on board,Sao Bento,commanded by Fernao Aloes Cabral.

Portugal stamp of Gama meeting Zamorin

Francis Day's account of the Governor,punishing Camoes,for retaining him in India,seems to be exaggerated,because,Camoes was punished initially after six months of his arrival,and imprisoned for debt.But he enjoyed Goa and famously said later,Goa is a step mother to all honest people.He battled first on the Malabar Coast,then along the Egyptian trade route to suppress pirates,and returned to Goa,in,1554.

At the end of the term of three years,he was made Chief Warrant Officer,in Macau,but was charged with managing the properties of missing and deceased soldiers in the Orient.He began writing,Lusiad,during this time of upheaval,in a grotto.Accused of misappropriation,he traveled to Goa to appear before the Tribunal.On return,he got shipwrecked,in the Mekong river,along the Cambodian coast,and the legend has it that he succeeded in swimming ashore,holding the manuscript,afloat.He saved the manuscript,but lost his Chinese lover,Dinamene.He reached Lisbon in 1570,and the manuscript saw light of the day two years later.It became a sensation and the ill fated, young King Dom Sebastian(1557-1558),granted him a small pension of 15000 reis.The King was killed a year later,in the battle of Akacer Quibir.

The day of Camoes' death,June 10(1580)is Portugal's national day.He was interred near Vasco da Gama,in the Jeranimos Monastery in the parish of Belem.He was born in the year,Vasco da Gama died.

King Sebastian

Lusiad,translated by Sir Richard Fanshaw(1608-1666) into English,is Portugal's historical poem,celebrating the nation's conquests in the East.10 Cantos of the poem has 1102 stanzas and Kozhikode/ Calicut appears in Canto VII.At the penultimate port,a friendly Moor,Moncaide, told the narrator of the epic,Lusiads,son of Lusus,or Portugal,or Vasco da Gama,that at Calicut,the Queen of India,lived the Zamorin,Lord of India,to whom all subject kings paid their tribute.And,then Gama sees,Calicut.

CANTO VI,STANZA 92:

Now splendid Morning tipt the hills with red

Whence rolls the Gange his sacred sounding tide,

When sea men percht upon the topmast head

High lands far rising o'er the prows descried

Now,'scaped the tempest and the first sea-dread

fled from each bosom terrors vain,and cried,

the Melindanian Pilot in Delight,

"Calecut-land,if aught I see aright!"

"The prows descried ",is explained in a foot note,as Mount Delli,near Kannur.

CANTO VII,STANZA 22

The Country-people call this range the Ghaut,

and from its foot-hills scanty breadth there be

whose sea ward-sloping coast-plain long hath fought

'gainst Ocean's natural ferocity:

Here o'er her neighbor Cities,sans a doubt,

Calecut claimeth highest dignity,

Crown of the kingdom fair and flourishing:

Here he entitled "Samorim" is King

 

Now,the encounter of Gama with Zamorin,translated into prose:

CANTO VII

 

Gama,adorned in his most splendid garments and accompanied by his train,also in bright array,entered the gilded barges and rowed to the shore,where stood the Catual,the Zamorin's minister.Moncaide acted as interpreter.The company passed through a temple on their way to the palace,in which the Christians were horrified at the graven images there worshiped.On the palace walls were the most splendid pictures,relating to the history of India.One wall,however bore no sculptures;the Brahmins had foretold that a foreign foe would at some time conquer India,and that space was reserved for scenes from those wars.

Into the splendid hall adorned with tapestries of clothes of gold and carpets of velvet,Gama passed and stood before the couch on which sat the mighty Monarch.The room blazed with gems of gold;the Monarch's mantle was of clothes of gold and his turban shone with gems.His manner was majestic and dignified;he received Gama in silence,only nodding to him to tell his story.

So,the Zamorin was not having a crown,but a turban!

In Richard Burton's translation(1880),Moncaide,the interpreter,is corrected to,Mon Sayeed.Maybe,Mon stands for Monsignor,but is has been clarified in the text that,he was a Muslim.Catual,the Zamorin's minister,has been explained by Burton,as Kot-wal,Captain of Fort.

After the meeting,Catual asks Sayeed to learn more about the new arrivals.Catual then goes to Portuguese ships.

 

Comoes with manuscript of Lusiad /Charles Le Grand

CANTO VIII

Catual sees the paintings.Bacchus appears to him in a vision as a Muslim priest,in Zamorin's court and convinces him that the explorers are a threat.The priest spreads the story,and the Zamorin confronts Gama.Catual,corrupted by Muslim traders,refuses to lend Gama a boat to reach his ship,and holds Gama a prisoner.Finally,Gama is released only after agreeing to offload all the cargo.

CANTO IX

Sayeed  reveals to Gama,a plot by Muslim traders to attack and kill him,and Gama's ship leaves Kozhikode.

CANTO X

The future is revealed by Tethys:Duarto Pacheco Pereira will defend Cochin,in battle of Cochin.Here,the martyrdom of St Thomas at Mylapore,is recounted.

 

Tomb of Camoes

From what I have abridged,the politics Camoes has weaved into the epic is amazing,but borrowed from Portuguese historian,Joao Barros. Portuguese in battle with the Muslim traders,at the same time,getting help from some lay Muslims like,Sayeed.That Camoes was a total Catholic has also been revealed,in the description of the journey of Gama from the port to the palace,when he records the shock of the accompanying Christians,seeing the Hindu idols.If we examine the work of missionaries in Kerala,from then on,the focus of their attack was on the many idols,while preaching monotheism.

Camoes,one eyed,with pen and sword

The surprising element in the vision of Catual,is the Muslim priest in the Zamorin's court,where by Camoes hints at the influence Muslims wielded with Zamorin.Though written 350 years after the visit of Gama,Francis Day,a Christian missionary,records in his book,The Land of the Perumals(1863),that the Zamorin never granted an audience,to a Muslim,which in turn,made Hyder Ali furious,culminating in the suicide of the Zamorin.Day has once again played the Christian/Muslim politics,which still exists in Kerala.According to Day,it was the custom of Zamorin to maintain 1500 Brahmins in his palace and while they were fed,he fasted.No Muslim ever had an audience with him.Hyder requested an interview,but the Zamorin declined and said,he will meet the Head Brahmin of Hyder.Hyder,imagining that a little fasting would bring the zamorin to a knowledge of his helpless position,sent rice the following day for only 500 Brahmins,on the second day only for 300,third,100,after which he stopped sending rice.Zamorin fasted for three days,then set fire to his palace,and perished in flames.Some women in his family and three Brahmins were also killed.

Of Course,the Zamorin committed suicide.But,Day's account,you will agree,is not secular.It was the Portuguese who brutally killed the erstwhile Muslim naval commander of Zamorin,Kunhali Marakkar,and hanged his dead body,in Goa.

Barros

Like many,I had also thought,the description of kozhikode by Camoes,was first hand.But,Thomas Moore Musgrave,in his translation of Lusiad(1826),has pointed out that much of the history has been borrowed from ,Joao de Barros'(1496-1570),Decades of Asia.Barros was one of the first great historians of Portugal, and Treasurer at the India House.The first three volumes of his book were published during,1552-1570.

I conclude by quoting two gems from Luciad, on casteism in Kerala.

CANTO VII,STANZAS 37/38:

Two modes of men are known;the nobles know

the name of Nayrs,who call the lower caste

Poleas,whom their haughty laws contain

from intermingling with the higher strain

..............

These Nayrs as sin and shame,forsooth,despise

the touch of outcasts and they fain believe

that,paradventure,if the touch occur,

a thousand rites must wash their bodies pure.

Four centuries have passed,and if Camoes were to reach Kozhikode today,would you ask him to delete these lines,or make it stronger?

Reference:

1.Translations of Lusiad by Sir Richard Fanshaw(1655) , Sir Richard Burton(1880),Thomas Moore Musgrave(1826) and William Julius Mickle(1778)
2.National Epics:The Story of Lusiad/Kate Milner Rabb
3.The Land of Perumals/Francis Day

 

See my Post, A CHRISTIAN IN MALABAR ROYAL FAMILY