Cheraman Perumal: The King Who Rode After His Friend

This is the most developed friendship in either Tamil canon and it is worth thinking about what the tradition does with it.

The asymmetry. It is the point.

• Cheraman was a king, with a kingdom, an army and a treasury
• Sundarar was a poet with no position, who had been legally declared somebody's slave, who was constantly short of money and who asked Shiva for it
• The friendship ran in the direction one would not expect

What the king did in it:

• He came to Sundarar rather than summoning him
• He gave, and did not require gratitude or return
• He travelled with him and showed him his country
• He wrote about him
• And at the end he went after him rather than staying

What Sundarar did in it:

• He accepted, freely and without embarrassment
• He asked for things
• He named Cheraman in his verses
• He treated him as a peer

Why the tradition rates this. Because it is an instance of bhagavata relation, the connection between devotees, which both Tamil traditions rank above the relation to the Lord.

Sundarar's own formula, adiyarkku adiyen, servant of the servants, is the doctrinal statement. The Cheraman friendship is what it looks like in practice.

Sakhya bhava again. The friend's mood, described in the Periyalvar and Sundarar entries.

What is interesting here is that it operates horizontally, between two devotees, rather than vertically between devotee and deity. The same informality, the same absence of ceremony, the same willingness to ask.

Comparable friendships in the traditions:

• Krishna and Sudama, where a poor brahmana and a king are friends from childhood and the king washes his feet
• Krishna and Arjuna, which is the model of sakhya
• Rama and Sugriva, Rama and Guha the boatman, Rama and Vibhishana
• Chaitanya and his companions in Bengal
• The Varkari saints of Maharashtra, who form a community across castes and centuries in the tradition's own accounting

The Sudama comparison. Worth drawing out because it is the same shape.

Sudama, poor and embarrassed, brings a handful of beaten rice to Krishna at Dwaraka. Krishna, who is a king, receives him, seats him, washes his feet himself, eats the rice, and sends him away without being asked having transformed his household.

The asymmetry of position, the refusal of the asymmetry in the relation, and the gift that is not requested.

What this offers a reader. Something quite specific.

The devotional traditions are frequently presented as being about the individual and the deity, and a great deal of the literature is.

But the doctrinal position in both Tamil traditions is that the community of devotees is where the relation actually lives, that service to them ranks above service to the Lord, and that the strongest statements a saint can make about themselves are about their position relative to other devotees.

Practically:

• A satsang, a group who meet to sing or read, is a devotional form in its own right and not a lesser one
• The friendships formed in it are the practice, not a side effect
• The bhajana mandali, the kirtan group, the Prabandham goshti, the Tevaram class, all work this way
• Somebody sitting alone with a book is doing something real, and somebody sitting with six other people is doing something the tradition rates higher

And the specific thing Cheraman did. He did not stay behind.

When his friend was called, he found a way to go too, and the tradition tells the story of the horse rather than of anything he did as a king.

Kodungallur and the old Chera capital deserve their own account, because the place is unusually layered.

Mahodayapuram:

• The Chera capital, near present day Kodungallur in Thrissur district, Kerala
• On the Periyar, near where it meets the sea
• The ancient port of Muziris, which is how it appears in Greek and Roman sources

Muziris. The reason the place matters far beyond this story.

• The principal port of the Malabar coast in the classical period
• The centre of the pepper trade with Rome
• Pliny complained about the drain of Roman gold to India for pepper, and the archaeology supports him: Roman coin hoards are found across south India
• The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a first century Greek merchant's handbook, describes it
• Muziris was lost, and its exact location was uncertain until excavations at Pattanam, near Kodungallur, produced Roman amphorae, glass and other material

What arrived there early. This is the extraordinary part.

• Roman and Mediterranean trade from before the common era
• Jewish settlement, with a community at Kodungallur before moving to Cochin, and the Paradesi synagogue at Mattancherry
• Christianity, by the tradition of St Thomas arriving at Kodungallur in the first century, which is the foundational tradition of the Syrian Christian community of Kerala
• Islam, with the Cheraman Juma Masjid at Kodungallur claiming to be among the oldest mosques in India
• And the Hindu traditions throughout

The Cheraman Perumal legend and Islam. This must be handled carefully because it is contested and the two Cheraman traditions are frequently confused.

The Kerala tradition holds that a Cheraman Perumal, a Chera ruler, saw the moon split, learned that this was connected to the Prophet Muhammad, divided his kingdom, travelled to Arabia, converted, and died on the return journey, and that he sent companions who established the mosque at Kodungallur.

What can be said about it:

• The tradition is old and is held in Kerala Muslim communities
• The Cheraman Juma Masjid exists and the claim of great antiquity is made for it
• Historians dispute the identification, the dating and the historicity
• Whether this figure is the same as the Nayanar, a different Chera ruler, or a legend is not settled, and the traditions are generally treated as separate
• The Nayanar tradition and the Islamic tradition each have their own Cheraman Perumal

Why this matters for a reader. Because Kodungallur is a place where a very large number of traditions arrived early and coexisted, and the confusion between the two Cheraman traditions is itself a symptom of that layering.

What is not in dispute is that the Malabar coast had Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities from very early, that they were long established and locally integrated, and that the Kerala religious landscape has been plural for two thousand years.

Thiruvanchikulam:

• The Shiva temple at Kodungallur, associated with Cheraman Perumal Nayanar
• A Paadal Petra Sthalam, and the principal one in Kerala
• Sung by Sundarar
• Where the friendship is commemorated

Kodungallur Bhagavathy:

• The great Devi temple at Kodungallur, one of the most important in Kerala
• Associated with Kannagi of the Silappadikaram, who is worshipped there as Bhagavathy
• The Bharani festival, in Meenam, which is one of the most striking and most argued about festivals in Kerala

The Kodungallur Bharani. It should be described honestly.

• Very large numbers come, including Velichappadu, oracles, who dance in trance
• The kavu theendal, in which the crowd runs round the shrine striking it
• The Bharani pattu, songs which are traditionally sexually explicit and abusive, addressed to the goddess
• Historically it involved animal sacrifice, which has been restricted

How to describe it. As a living folk festival with an extremely old character, which draws communities that other temples excluded, and which is genuinely unlike mainstream temple practice.

It has been the subject of reform efforts, of criticism, and of anthropological study. It is not for casual visitors and it is very crowded.

Visiting Kodungallur:

• In Thrissur district, Kerala, around 30 kilometres from Thrissur and 40 from Kochi
• Thiruvanchikulam Shiva temple
• Kodungallur Bhagavathy temple
• Cheraman Juma Masjid
• Pattanam, the Muziris excavation site
• The Muziris Heritage Project sites, which link the whole area
• October to March, avoiding the monsoon

Since Cheraman Perumal is the Kerala Nayanar, the state's Shaiva tradition deserves an account, because it is distinct from the Tamil one.

The Paadal Petra Sthalams in Kerala. Only a small number of the 275 are outside Tamil Nadu, and Kerala has:

• Thiruvanchikulam, at Kodungallur, sung by Sundarar
• A small number of others in the border regions

Kerala temple architecture. Completely different from the Tamil form and worth describing.

• Circular or square sanctums with conical or pyramidal copper roofs, rather than stone vimanas
• Heavy use of timber, with elaborate wooden roof structures and carved wooden panels
• The nalambalam, the rectangular enclosure around the sanctum
• The balikkallu, offering stones
• Koothambalam, the theatre hall, in larger temples, for Kutiyattam
• Mural painting, which is a distinct and very fine Kerala tradition
• Steeply pitched roofs for the rain

Why the difference. Rainfall and timber.

Kerala's monsoon makes flat stone superstructures impractical and its forests supplied timber, so the architecture developed differently from the Tamil stone tradition next door.

Kerala Shaiva sites:

• Vaikom, the Mahadeva temple, and the site of the 1924 to 25 Vaikom Satyagraha over the right of excluded communities to use the roads around the temple
• Ettumanoor, with its famous murals including the Nataraja
• Thrissur Vadakkunnathan, the great Shiva temple at the centre of Thrissur, around which the Thrissur Pooram takes place
• Chidambaram connections, since Vadakkunnathan is associated with Kerala's Shaiva tradition
• Rajarajeshwara temple at Taliparamba
• Peruvanam and the Kerala festival circuit

Thrissur Pooram. Worth knowing about since it happens at a Shiva temple.

• Held in Medam, April or May, at the Vadakkunnathan temple ground
• Two groups of temples, Paramekkavu and Thiruvambady, present competing displays
• Very large numbers of caparisoned elephants
• The panchavadyam and chenda melam percussion ensembles, which are among the great percussion traditions anywhere
• The kudamattam, the exchange of parasols
• Fireworks

On elephants at festivals. This must be addressed and it is not comfortable.

Captive elephants used in Kerala temple festivals have been the subject of sustained welfare concern, litigation and regulation.

The documented issues:

• Elephants standing for long hours in heat and crowds
• Transport conditions
• Foot problems and injuries from concrete surfaces
• Musth periods and the risk of a panicked elephant in a crowd, which has caused deaths of both people and elephants
• Training methods

What has happened: courts and the Kerala government have issued rules on hours, transport, heat, veterinary certification, distance from crowds and the number of elephants, and enforcement has been inconsistent. There is an active public argument in Kerala about the practice, conducted by devotees on both sides.

What a visitor should know:

• The percussion and the display are extraordinary and the festivals are worth seeing
• The elephant question is real and is argued about within Kerala, not imposed from outside
• Keep a substantial distance from elephants at any festival, follow the barriers, and do not approach or feed them
• Incidents happen

Kerala's other performance traditions. Connected to temples and worth seeing.

• Kutiyattam, the Sanskrit theatre tradition, UNESCO listed, performed in the koothambalam
• Kathakali, which is temple connected in origin
• Theyyam, in north Kerala, in which a performer becomes the deity and is worshipped, which is one of the most striking living traditions in India and involves communities historically excluded from temples
• Mohiniyattam
• Chakyar Koothu

Theyyam deserves the emphasis. Performers from specific communities, many of them Dalit, take the form of deities, and during the performance are worshipped by everybody present including people who would not have let them into a temple.

That inversion is the tradition's own structure and it happens annually across north Kerala from roughly December to April.

Places

Thiruvanchikulam, Kodungallur:

• The Shiva temple associated with Cheraman Perumal Nayanar
• The principal Paadal Petra Sthalam in Kerala
• Sung by Sundarar
• In Thrissur district, around 30 kilometres from Thrissur

Kodungallur generally:

• The Bhagavathy temple
• The Cheraman Juma Masjid
• Pattanam, the Muziris excavation
• The Muziris Heritage Project sites

Thiruvarur, Tamil Nadu:

• Where Sundarar lived and where the friendship is remembered on the Tamil side

Mylapore, Chennai:

• The Arupathimoovar in Panguni, where Cheraman Perumal is carried with the other sixty two

Reading

• His three works are in book eleven of the Tirumurai
• The Thirukkailaya Gnana Ula as the first example of the ula genre
• Sundarar's hymns on the Kerala temples, composed during the visit
• The Periya Puranam account of the friendship

Practice

Namah Shivaya:

• The panchakshara, which is what he is said to have whispered in the horse's ear

And the specific one from this entry: the friendship.

The transferable practice here is not individual. It is finding or making a group.

• A satsang, a bhajan group, a reading group, a temple service group
• Somebody to do the practice with
• Both Tamil traditions rank the relation to fellow devotees above the relation to the deity, and say so explicitly
• If your practice has been entirely solitary, that is the thing this entry suggests changing

How to find one:

• Most temples have groups: bhajan, recitation, service, food distribution
• Ask at the temple office
• Many run online now, and diaspora communities are well organised
• If none exists near you, two people is a group

And what it is not. A guide should say this.

• A group that requires you to give money is not a satsang
• A group organised around a single living figure whose authority cannot be questioned is a different thing, and the warning signs set out in the Madhurakavi entry apply
• A group whose main activity is disparaging other traditions is not doing what this entry describes

A closing thought

A king in Kerala heard about a poet in the Tamil country, travelled to meet him, became his friend, brought him home, showed him around, gave him things, wrote about him, and then, when the poet was sent for, did not stay behind.

The tradition remembers him for that rather than for anything he did as a ruler, and it puts him in a list of sixty three alongside a hunter, a washerman and a man who was not allowed into temples.

And the thing he is said to have whispered into a horse's ear so that it could fly was five syllables that anybody can say.