The great hill and seamark of the northern Malabar coast, called the former capital of the Mushika kingdom of Kolathunadu on Wikipedia (Ezhimala), where ships first sighted the coast.
The Ramanthali inscription of 1075 names the Kunda Alupa here, and the Madayi mosque inscription of 1124 lies about three kilometres away. The Mushika line moved its capital among Pazhi, Ezhimala, Valabhapattanam and other sites; whether the Kolathiri sit here or at Valapattanam on 1 January 1200 cannot be recovered.
Who holds it
- Name
- The Kolathiri (not named for 1200)
- Title
- lord or governor
- Confidence
- low
Lord in 1200
The Kolathiri (not named for 1200)
How things stand that morning
A seamark and an old capital site of the Kolathiri; where the court sits in 1200 is not pinned.
Trade and crafts
A seaport and trading centre from about the start of the Common Era on the page; its trade in 1200 is not described in a source we read.
Places of note
- Ezhimala: hill, seamark and old Mushika capital
Where the sources disagree
- The campaign board has no Ezhimala place of its own; the campaign board's note on the settlement behind Ezhimala is covered by Kolathiri (board id madayi-kolathunad).
Evidence: The site, its inscription of 1075 and its old rank are on the Wikipedia page; nothing we read gives its officers, its size or its lord on 1 January 1200.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
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
- Ezhimala, Wikipedia (read for this sheet)
- Kolathunadu, Wikipedia (read for this sheet)
- Alupas, 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.