ABSTRACT
This essay is a humble endeavour to situate the port of Muziris in Malabar in the broader background of the subcontinent’s sustained linkages with the eastern Mediterranean region. The first port that illuminates the maritime past of the Malabar coast is Muziris of the Classical texts. Figuring in the Tamil Sangam texts, the earliest known Tamil literary creations, as Muchiri, the port is sought to be identified (by many, but not unanimously) with the recently excavated coastal site of Pattanam in Kerala.1 While the land of the Cheras in ancient Kerala denoted the western fringe of what is called the Tamilakam of the Sangam literature, the eminence of the port of Muziris needs to be studied in the context of the Indian Ocean maritime scenario. This, in its turn, has a distinctbearing on the subcontinent’s commercial and cultural linkages with lands afar, especially West and Central Asia and the eastern Mediterranean region. This deliberately wide perspective may help focus better on the salience of Muziris as a port, along with the commonalities
1 There are scholars who would prefer to identify Muziris/Muchiri/ Muchiripattanam with Kodungallur on the northern side of the river Periyar, rather than with the excavated site of Pattanam on the southern side of the same river.
