Don’t deny Madras its place in pre-history

First, we must recognise that Madraspatnam and adjoining Chennapatnam existed much prior to Francis Day choosing the area to erect a fort, while exploring the Coromandel coast upto Pondicherry. Francis Day secured from Venkatadri Nayak through the mediation of his brother Aiyappa, a grant of the teritory of Madraspatnam on 22 July 1639, records Dr P Rajaraman, a retired Prof of History. Similarly, “Chennapatnam was in existence even before Francis Day negotiated a cowl with him”, Rajaraman writes in his book Chennai Through The Ages in 1997. This is confirmed by several other historians.

Dr S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar in his ‘Sources of Vijayanagar History’ mentions that Chennapatnam had existed between the Dutch settlement at Pulicat, which area was famously known as Pralayakaveri, and the Portuguese establishment at Mylapore in order to prevent these two foreign enclaves from fighting as they were constantly at war. Aiyangar had taken extracts from Ushaparinayam, a contemporary Telugu work, authored by Ankabhupala, the third brother of Venkatappa. This view is confirmed by a Maratha Brahmin, who compiled the famous ‘Historical Account of the Establishment at Madras or Chennapatnam’ from a Mahratta paper. It was translated in 1802 by Cavali Venkata Boriah.

“These abstracts reveal that when the English merchants sought the consent and permission of Damarla family ‘to form their establishment in some convenient part of the coast under their protection”, the Polygars gave them four villages, Madrascoopam, Chennaicoopam, Arkoopam and Maleput’. The documentary evidence that Chennapatnam and Madraspatnam were already in existence even before Francis Day arrived on the area of activity, cannot be proved wrong, writes Dr Rajaraman.

Dr Rajaraman further records “epistolary evidence to prove to prove that Madraspatnam came into being prior to the landing of the English on the east coast. The cowl that the Nayak offered to Francis Day in 1639 makes specific mention of the ‘port of Madraspatnam’, adds Dr Rajaraman.

“Further, a reference to this place is found in Masulipatnam Consultation which specifies Madraspatnam as a port town between Pulicat and San Thome belonging to Venkatadri Nayak”, Dr Rajaraman points out. With the place already known as Madraspatnam when Day arrived there, and with the document specifying Madraspatnam, it was clear that the British used the abbreviation Madras for Madraspatnam. Just as they anglicised Tiruvallikeni into Triplicane, and Ezhumbur to Egmore, and Mayilapur to Mylapore.

Merely because someone buys a place, it doesn’t mean the place loses its history, past or antiquity. Just because the British bought the place, doesn’t mean its age starts from scratch or is about one year old. Therefore, to give a picture that Madras (or Chennai) is only 375 years old, and that only the age of British rule shall be counted and nothing before that, or nothing existed prior to that, or worth knowing about, is distortion of history.

Dr Rajaraman clearly states, “Any presumption thay the history of the city of Chennai has no antiquity and has only a life of four centuries, lacks not only historic enquiry but insight. Its constituent towns, viz Mylapore, Thiruvanmiyur and Tiruvottriyur, have not failed to draw the notice of foreign travellers. They were conspicuous as centres of culture in the socio-religious history of our people.”

They attracted not only devotees but religious leaders and exponents as early as first century AD. Mylapore which serves as the nerve centre of the city of Chennai was in ancient days a port town known to Greek geographer Ptolemy as Mylarphon, a corruption of the Tamil name Mylarpur.

It was indeed a town of importance which included Triplcane as its integral part. The hymns of Tirumangai Azhvar which speak of the sacred place as Mamayilai Tiruvallikkeni.. the celebrated hymns of the early Azhvars who are popularly known as Mudalazhvars. Pei Azhvar, who is assigned to the fifth and sixth centuries AD is historians like K A Nilakanta Sastri gives a scenographic detail of Triplicane in one of his verses in the Third Thiruvadanthi of ‘Naalaayiradivya Prabandham’, the import of which is as follows, “The white waves of the Bay of Bengal which hit and run the shore bring with them white pearls and red corals which get themselves deposited on the shore and these gems shed lights which illuminate the entire town of Thiruvallikeni in the evening”.