254. Mangalore: Antiquity & Evolution -2

The place name ‘Mangalur’ evidently came into existence after ca. 1400 CE during Vijayanagar administration in Mangalore. Before that the port town Mangalore was known under various other names as documented by travellers from abroad. One of the odd names recorded by foreign travellers for Mangalore is ‘Mangaruth’. We shall explore some of these place names and the connected obscure pages of history of Mangalore.
Which was the oldest known inhabited area within ancient Mangalore?
Kudu phase
As discussed in the previous part of this post (No. 253), note that there are atleast two points that are likely to form significant temporal markers in the study of evolution of Tulunadu:
1. Early agricultural phase in Tulunadu, the Kudu phase, is correlated with published archeo-botanical data available for peninsular India.Thus the phase can be fixed at 3000-2000 BC timespan in general.
2. The Kudu phase and the formation of Kudu- villages (Kudla, Kudupu etc) were in turn correlated with the period when River Phalguni (Gurupur) was flowing westwards in the area now known as Alike-Kudroli-Kodialbail valley.Thus the period of flow of Phalguni has be equated with 3000-2000 BC period. (The existence of the river in this region could be still older, but it survived atleast up to the Kudu phase.Let us designate this ancient river segment as ‘Kudla River’.
Ancient Netravathi
Another interesting historical data that can be correlated to the Kudu phase is that the River Netravathi was flowng in the ancient river path of Phalnir-Attavara- Pandeshwara valley region. Then, it was joining the Arabian Sea near Pandeshwara Goods shed area. Let us designate this river segment as ‘Attavara River’. Pandeshwara, originally known as ‘Pandela’ (=port of ‘pāndi’ boats) was the sea-faring port for merchant boats during Alupa Rule.
There were atleast two ‘kudu’ hamlets on the bank of this ancient river segment of Netravathi: ‘Kudpadi’ (a part of Jeppu) and ‘Kudthadka’ (a part of Bajal).
Manki
You may be surprised to know that one of the oldest names of Mangalore was ‘Manki’! The place name is preserved as Manki stand near Mangaladevi temple in Bolar area of southern Mangalore. During the British period in Mangalore, the stand (station) for tongas and vehicles was designated as Manki stand. (Some people erroneously considered that it was ‘monkey stand’).
The ancient word Manki has been analysed as Mam+ki (in earlier posts herein), wherein Mam represented elevated area and ‘ki’ a spatial attribute suffix.However, revised studies suggest that the word should be considered as mang+ki wherein Mang represents an immigrant Austro-asiatic tribe and ki stands for village or a spatial suffix. The suffix ‘ke’ or ‘ki’ (=village) is an ancient (Neolithic Bronze age) Austro-asiatic word of Vietnamese origin. (Refer: Keith Weller Taylor: The Birth of Vietnam.).
Infact the place name Manki has been repeated along the West Coast as if tracing the migration path of these Mang tribes. There is one Manki near Honavar, Uttara Kannada district. One Permanki (Greater Manki, ‘peri’ or ‘peru’=larger, greater) village exists near Ulaibettu on the banks of River Gurupur. Similar manki place names have been found in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh as well in Nowshera district of Pakistan.One Manki is also found in the islands of Papua New Guinea.Besides these there are several Mankar, Mankapur, Mankarai, Mankatha etc place names in India, which appear as modified versions of ‘Manki’ village names.
Mangar
The forgotten and vanished/assimailated Mang tribes have left behind one more signature village in ancient Mangalore close to Manki stand (Mangaladevi). The place was known as Mangar! If you are interested in fact finding personally, you can walk westward fom Mangaladevi (and Ramakrishna Mutt) and find the forgotten place name ‘Mangar’ mentioned as ‘Mangar kshetra’ in the signboards of Spirit shrines in the western part of Mangaladevi near Yemmekere. Mangar, possibly was Mang+ār, the field (ār) of Mang tribes.
Mang tribes
There were several village names along West Coast and peninsular India that have retained the signatures of the bygone Mang tribes. Place names like Mangra, Mankar, Mangaon, Mangliya gaon, Mangolpuri, Mangliyavas, Mangalagiri etc are the possible vestiges of the Mang era. Mangs were a nomadic tribe that migrated far and wide. Mangols might have been a derived or related tribes.
Māng tribes may have vanished from southern Mangalore, because of displacement by later occupants. However, several sects of Māng tribes are reported from Marharastra and Andhra regions.
Mangaruth, Mangar-ta
Traveller Cosmas who visited the West Coast during ca. 545 CE has recorded the place name of Mangalore as ‘Mangaruth’. (Post No 87.)
Manjeshwara Govinda Pai in one of his essays has reflected that ‘Mangaruth’ could be a misnomer for Mangalur.However the presence of place name Mangar even today, even though lesser known, suggests that Cosmas reference to ‘Mangaruth’ was not out of place.
Tulu PaDdana have also documented the ancient place name Mangar.PaDdana have described (as mentioned in Tulu Nighantu) Mangar-ta kaDapu, Mangar-ta ghatta etc. The ‘-ta’ in Tulu represents the ‘of’ preposition of English language.Theefore Mangar-ta kaDapu means the ferry of Mangar; Mangar-ta ghatta means the Hill of Mangar, Mangarta pānDela means the port of Mangar and so on. Overall, it appears that the word ‘Mangarta’ must have been documented as ‘Mangarut’ by Cosmas.
Sixth Century CE markers
We can now visualize that during the period of visit of the traveller Cosmas (ca.545 CE) the names documented in ancient Tulu PaDdanas such as Mangarta pānDela (port of Mangar) was at present Pandeshwar; Mangar-ta kaDapu (ferry of Mangar) was just North of and close to present Yemmekere (now a dried up tank); Mangar-ta ghatta (Hill of Mangar) appears to be the present Light house hill.
Conversely, the origin of these relevant ‘Mangar-ta’ paDdanas also can be traced back to not less than Sixth Century CE.
Mangala
Several aspects of the word Mangala, its possible origin and scope, has been described (post 90. Mangala ). However, some additional interesting clues may be discussed here.
The spatial association of the place names Manki, Mangar and Mangala in southern Mangalore suggests certain new possibilities to the origin of this word Mangala. If Manki and Mangar are Mang+ki and Mang+ar, the origin of Mangala have been Mang+ala, which means Mang tribal settlement on the bank of River.
The evolutionay sequence of place names Manki> Mangar> Mangala were possibly employed by different generations of tribes of different origin that settled in this southern Mangalore region during different layers of time.
Mangaladevi
The diety of Mangaladevi has origin connected with Natha cult in Mangalore.Macchendra and Gorakha Naths (10th Century CE) are credited with the establishment of Manjunatha temple at Kadire, Mangalore (Posts.77,79,80,82,83,85,88,92). Macchendra had an ardent disciple in Kerala known as Queen Pingala. She followed the Natha sages and came to Mangalore; but due to adverse health conditions, she expired on the way while she reached Mangalore. The event occurred during the early part of 10th Century CE.
The locals built a memorial shrine in her name in the ‘Mangalā’ village, in the tradition of spirit Bhagavathi worship of that time and eventually it was reknowned as ‘Mangalā devi’ (The diety of Mangalā). The shrine of Mangaladevi was renovated subsequently by Alupa Kings and Mangaladevi has been adopted as a form of diety Durga Parameshwari.
Mangalādevi temple has become a major landmark of Mangalore since then. Vijayanagar rulers in Karavali during 14th Century CE renamed the town as Mangalur in honour of the diety Mangalādevi.
®

253. Mangalore: Antiquity & Evolution-1

Mangalore has changed immensely during the last five millennia! The city of Mangalore initially evolved as a group of agricultural villages located on ancient river banks some 5000 years ago! The position (flow-paths) of the ancient rivers of Mangalore, have changed with passage of time, but the original agricultural signature villages have remained as fossil place names!
India was populated by early humans migrating since ca.120,000 years according to recent studies. Early pre-history of Mangalore is hazy but it was definitely home for numerous ancient tribal immigrants from Africa, northern India and Austro-Asiatics from Southeast Asia as found and immortalised in the numerous ethnonyms preserved to this date.

Kudla
The familiar Tulu name for Mangalore is ‘Kudla’. Often the name ‘Kudla’ has been confused with ‘Koodla’ (=confluence of rivers). However, the confluence of two rivers that bound the Mangalore city at present, namely Phalguni (Gurupur) and Netravathi, happened only in the year 1887. (Cf: Post 98 in this blog). Before that period the two rivers were flowing independently and not showing any features of confluence! Therfore, the ‘koodla’ or confluence definition for kudla ventured in older posts herein (No16, 17) or other inspired texts requires amendments.
The word ‘Kudla’ (kuD+la) should be understood as agricultural village on river bank. Let us look into this explanation in detail.

Ancient Agricultural phase :(ca.3000 BC-400 BC)
Tulu rural people have a special fascination for the humble horse-gram (‘kuDu’), do you know why? ‘KuDu’ (Tulu) or ‘Huruli’ (Kannada), or the horse gram was the earliest agricultural food crop preferentially grown by our ancestors some 4 to 5 millenia ago as found out by archeo-botanical studies in southern India!
Within Mangalore there are atleast four areas that were formerly (ancient, ca. 3000-1500BC) dedicated to the cultivation of earliest known crop, the horse gram (‘kudu’). Of these, the place names ‘Kudla’ and ‘Kudupu’ are well known.

Ancient Rivers of Mangalore: Phalguni
Geological studies (conducted by our team during the last two decades) evince interesting historical and paleo-geographic data on the rivers of Mangalore. The flow paths (channels) of the two rivers of Mangalore, namely Phalguni (Gurupur) and Netravathi, have continuously changed paths several times during the period of last 10,000 years or more.
One of the interesting aspects of geological and historical data correlation is that the River Phalguni was flowing along what is presently known as Kodialbail (recognisible as a paleo-valley paths), cutting across Mahatma Gandhi Road near TA Pai convention center and flowing across Alake and joined the Sea near Kuduroli. As far as geological evidences for the existence of river channel are concerned, you can see distinct presence of water worn quartz pebbles preserved in the soil zones all along the paleo- river path described above.
The ancient village names actually support the geological findings. The name Kudla suggests agricultural/farm area (kuD) beside a river (‘ala’). Similarly ’Alake’ (Ala+ke) is a village on river bank, ‘ke’ being a spatial suffix of south-east Asian Austro-asiatic origin. Thus we can correlate the time of flow of Phalguni along Kodialbail to the ancient agricultural Kudla phase estimated at ca.3000-2000 BC, based on archeo-botanical studies in southern India.
Further, Kuduroli represents a village (Oli= village) of ‘kuduru’s (=riverine islands). The ‘Kuduroli’ place name may be slightly later in time and coined after the period the river shifted its position northwards from Alake- Kuduroli area.

Kudu, horse gram
Kud (u) =meant agricultural land ( ‘kuDu’, pre-Dravidian word of Munda origin: ku+du, ku=good,prosperous; du=land).Kudu (=horse gram) represented one of the earliest grown and consumed cereal grain in southern India. According to paleo-botanical evidences, Rice, the major food crop of the south, was introduced in southern India probably during ca.800-400 BC period. (Kudugol, Kannada word, is an agricultural/farming, crop cutting sickle.).
Incidentally the equivalent Kannada word ‘huruli’ is a modification of ‘uruli’, where uru=land and uru+li means product of earth. Thus both the words ‘kudu as well as ‘uruli’ reflect the deep respect early farmers had toward the earth.
Kudla= A habitation formed during ‘kudu’ phase. (Kud+la, Kud=agricultural land, la= a habitation beside a flowing stream,river).The word ‘Kudla’ has been also interpreted as kooD+la or confluence of rivers, but the agricultural explanation appears more appropriate because in the original area identified as ‘Kudla’ (or Kodialbail) proper, there is no evidence of any sort of confluence of rivers!
Kudupu= An agricultural (Kudu) village.
Kudthadka (near Bajal) = A field (aDka) dedicated to farming. kuDuta +aDka
Kudpadi (Jeppu)= A shady zone (shrub or tree grown area=’pāDi’) dedicated to Kudu farming.
Almost all these places were originally on the banks of river, now with passage of time most of the rivers have changed their flow paths due to earth movements. KuDupa (=farmer) was one of the ancient proper names among Tulu people.
It can be seen that ‘koDipu’ (=to sprout) evolved from the original word ‘kuDu’. With this, ‘koDi’ and ‘koDa’ place names like Kodipadi, Kodavur etc evolved.

Pre-Dravidian signatures
Kudu place names are not exclusive to Tulunadu. Infact Tulu people have inherited this word from the pre-Dravidian culture of Munda civilization had dominated in southern India, before the advent of Dravidian speakers. Even though there were skirmishes between the Munda aborigines and Dravidian immigrants as testified in 'Devi Mahatme' and other epics of the period, Dravidian culture gradually absorbed essence of of the older Munda language and culture as testified by the presence of older Munda words as well as continuation of Munda place names in Tulunadu and other pats of southern India. As a proof you of pervasive Munda civilization in southern India, you can find kudu place names in other parts of Karnataka and Maharastra such as Kudle, Kudne, Kuditi, Kuditini etc. Besides, ‘Kudubi’ or ‘Kudumbi’ were an ancient agricultural tribes.

Associated Naga cult
One of the possibilities apparent in the analysis of Kudu village names is the growth and association of Naga worship cults along with the Munda agricultural phase. Prehistoric agricultural development in Tulunadu lead to destruction of natural forest areas and the wild serpents began to invade cultivated farm areas. The farming tribes were appalled at the sight of snakes that had magical powers to terminate people by their venomous stings. The early farmer had no other choice but to pray ardently to these serpents for the security of his family and livestock.
The Kudupu village was an ancient centre of Naga worship.(Later it was transformed to centre of Kumara/Skanda worship). The derived word ‘koDapu’ means to sting (like a serpent bite). And the word ‘koDa’ also represented a ‘Naga’ or serpent. A special word in this connection is ‘koDamaNi’ (as found in the name of the Tulu Spirit Kodamanittaya) which possibly represents the ‘Nagamani’ or the mythical gemstone found on the hood of cobra.
®