Recently I was searching that how Nairs became rich in ancient times. When searching on the internet, I read on a website that the spice trade in Malabar was once owned by the Nairs. In those days, different types of spices were exported to the foreign countries like China, Portugal, the Arabian countries, etc. and also were transported to different parts of India. For example, in 'The Quarterly Review of Historical Studies - Volume 8' is it mentioned that "Spices came to Surat largely from the Malabar Coast and the spice islands. Pepper, nutmegs, mace, cloves, cardamoms and cinnamon were the chief varieties traded at Surat."
Luís Vaz de Camões or Luis de Camões was a poet of the 16th century and is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil, and Dante. Luis de Camões' travel journals and his Lusiads (1572), translated into English in 1776, also told of the idyllic Nair community and its gracious trade in vital spices like cinnamon, cardamom, sandalwood, and pepper; and he contrasted the civility of its thriving seaport of Calicut with the tawdry living of Dutch settlers and Portuguese adventurers in the former Nair port of Cochin.
Before Camões, the Portuguese traveller Domingo Paes also told in 1520 of the Nairs' astute management of the ancient spice route, and of their cultural and religious ties with the Brahmin kingdom in the Deccan whose capital, Vijayanagar, was a large and splendid as Rome.
In 'A History of India by Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund' it is given that "The most important port of Malabar coast was Muziris(Crangannore near Cochin/കൊടുങ്ങല്ലൂർ) in the kingdom of Cerobothra (Cheraputhra), which 'abounds in ships sent there with cargoes from Arabia and by the Greeks'. The Periplus reported on Roman trade in Malabar: "They send large ships to market-towns on account of the great quantity and bulk of pepper and malabathrum(Cinnamon). There are imported here, in the first place, a great quantity of coin; topaz, thin clothing, not much; figured linens, antimony, coral, crude glass, copper, tin, lead, wine, not much, but as much as at Barygaza[Broach]; realgar and orpiment; wheat enough for sailors, for this is not dealt in by the merchants there. There are exported pepper, which is produced in quantity in only one region near these markets, a district called Cottonara [north Malabar?]. Besides this, there are exported great quantities of fine pearls, ivory, silk cloth, spikenard from the Ganges, malabathrum from the places in the interior, transparent stones of all kinds, diamonds, and sapphire and tortoise shell; that from Chryse land, and that taken among along islands along the coast of Damirica[Tamil Nadu]. They make the voyage to this place in a favourable season who set out from Egypt about the month of July, that is Epiphi." "
Marco Polo was an Italian merchant, explorer, and writer. In one of his books, he has written about Malabar that "It is the best part of India... It the richest and most splendid province in the world... Malabar(Kerala) and Ceylon(Sri Lanka) between them produce most of the pearls and gems that are to be found in the world." Nāgadveepa was the name of the northern (pearl-producing) part of Sri Lanka.
In our Tharavadu, there was a big Moonstone. It was as big as a coconut endocarp. Sometimes the Moonstone was kept in the light of the full moon. At that time, it produced liquid. This liquid was collected and was used to make some Ayurvedic medicines. My mother's maternal grandmother possessed original Navaratnas. Navaratnas are believed to be nine sacred gemstones related to eight planets (excluding earth) and the moon. My mother, in her childhood days, had seen those nine gemstones in her maternal grandmother's Mundupetti (a trunk or a large wooden box that is used to keep clothes).
Some data were collected from Wikipedia, Indian Renaissance: British Romantic Art and the Prospect of India by Hermione de Almeida, From Matrilineal Kinship edited by David Murray Schneider and Kathleen Gough, Beyond Price: Pearls and Pearl-fishing: Origins to the Age of discoveries - Volume 224 by R. A. Donkin
Luís Vaz de Camões or Luis de Camões was a poet of the 16th century and is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil, and Dante. Luis de Camões' travel journals and his Lusiads (1572), translated into English in 1776, also told of the idyllic Nair community and its gracious trade in vital spices like cinnamon, cardamom, sandalwood, and pepper; and he contrasted the civility of its thriving seaport of Calicut with the tawdry living of Dutch settlers and Portuguese adventurers in the former Nair port of Cochin.
Before Camões, the Portuguese traveller Domingo Paes also told in 1520 of the Nairs' astute management of the ancient spice route, and of their cultural and religious ties with the Brahmin kingdom in the Deccan whose capital, Vijayanagar, was a large and splendid as Rome.
In 'A History of India by Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund' it is given that "The most important port of Malabar coast was Muziris(Crangannore near Cochin/കൊടുങ്ങല്ലൂർ) in the kingdom of Cerobothra (Cheraputhra), which 'abounds in ships sent there with cargoes from Arabia and by the Greeks'. The Periplus reported on Roman trade in Malabar: "They send large ships to market-towns on account of the great quantity and bulk of pepper and malabathrum(Cinnamon). There are imported here, in the first place, a great quantity of coin; topaz, thin clothing, not much; figured linens, antimony, coral, crude glass, copper, tin, lead, wine, not much, but as much as at Barygaza[Broach]; realgar and orpiment; wheat enough for sailors, for this is not dealt in by the merchants there. There are exported pepper, which is produced in quantity in only one region near these markets, a district called Cottonara [north Malabar?]. Besides this, there are exported great quantities of fine pearls, ivory, silk cloth, spikenard from the Ganges, malabathrum from the places in the interior, transparent stones of all kinds, diamonds, and sapphire and tortoise shell; that from Chryse land, and that taken among along islands along the coast of Damirica[Tamil Nadu]. They make the voyage to this place in a favourable season who set out from Egypt about the month of July, that is Epiphi." "
Marco Polo was an Italian merchant, explorer, and writer. In one of his books, he has written about Malabar that "It is the best part of India... It the richest and most splendid province in the world... Malabar(Kerala) and Ceylon(Sri Lanka) between them produce most of the pearls and gems that are to be found in the world." Nāgadveepa was the name of the northern (pearl-producing) part of Sri Lanka.
In our Tharavadu, there was a big Moonstone. It was as big as a coconut endocarp. Sometimes the Moonstone was kept in the light of the full moon. At that time, it produced liquid. This liquid was collected and was used to make some Ayurvedic medicines. My mother's maternal grandmother possessed original Navaratnas. Navaratnas are believed to be nine sacred gemstones related to eight planets (excluding earth) and the moon. My mother, in her childhood days, had seen those nine gemstones in her maternal grandmother's Mundupetti (a trunk or a large wooden box that is used to keep clothes).
Some data were collected from Wikipedia, Indian Renaissance: British Romantic Art and the Prospect of India by Hermione de Almeida, From Matrilineal Kinship edited by David Murray Schneider and Kathleen Gough, Beyond Price: Pearls and Pearl-fishing: Origins to the Age of discoveries - Volume 224 by R. A. Donkin
