The southern Kerala coast from the Odanad border to the Neyyattinkara country and the Padmanabhaswamy temple, ruled by the Venad king from Kollam with the three swarupams and the temple assemblies.
Nanjinad, the rice country beyond the Aramboly pass (Kottar, Suchindram and the Cape, on ground that is now in Tamil Nadu), is drawn as contested between Venad and the Pandya claim; sit's sheet leaves it to this one.
Who holds it
- Name
- Vira Rama Varma (see Venad)
- Title
- Venad ruler of the Kulasekhara line
- Since
- not pinned
- Confidence
- low
No source we read names the holder for 1 January 1200.
What it holds
- Kollam, Vizhinjam, Varkala and the Padmanabhaswamy temple
How things stand that morning
An independent chiefdom on a quiet frontier.
Wealth
Pepper, rice, trade dues; no figure.
Military
Nair levy and the arisippadijanam; no numbers.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: See Venad. The Nanjinad part rests on the campaign board and one line of Wikipedia.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: Nanjinad and the Kerala-side taluks of Kanniyakumari are drawn on whole Tamil Nadu taluks; the line between Venad proper and Nanjinad is a guess.
Primary sources for Kerala chiefdoms
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- South Indian Inscriptions (Archaeological Survey of India), Various (Chola, Pandya and other chanceries and temple scribes), edited by E. Hultzsch, V. Venkayya, H. Krishna Sastri and successors (inscriptions of the 7th to 17th centuries; the series ran from 1890). The temple inscriptions printed here are the primary record of the Tamil country in 1200. Read online
- Travancore Archaeological Series, Various (Kerala chiefs, temples and merchant guilds), edited by T. A. Gopinatha Rao, K. V. Subrahmanya Aiyer and A. S. Ramanatha Ayyar (inscriptions of the 9th to 18th centuries; the series ran from 1910 to 1938). The main corpus for the Kerala coast. Read online
- The Book of Roger (the Pleasure of Him who Longs to Cross the Horizons), Muhammad al-Idrisi (completed 1154 at Palermo). The nearest Arabic geography in time to 1200 for the Indian Ocean. Read online
- A Description of the Foreign Peoples (Records of Foreign Nations), Zhao Rukuo (Zhao Rugua) (1225 at Quanzhou). The best single text for the island world around 1200, written by the superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou from merchants' reports a generation after the date. Read online
- Description of the Foreign Peoples (Chau Ju-kua), Zhao Rukuo (趙汝适) (about 1225, while superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou). The Song customs officer's survey of the overseas world, compiled from merchants and from Zhou Qufei, a generation after 1200 but describing trade routes that were the same in 1200. Read online
Sources and studies
- Venad, Wikipedia (read for this sheet)
- Kollam, Wikipedia (read for this sheet)
- OMNIA board notes for the place (a lead, checked against the other sources)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.