Editing Travancore (section)

===Venad Swaroopam===

{{main|Venad}}

[[File:Thambiran Vanakkam 1578.JPG|left|thumbnail|''[[Thambiran Vanakkam]]'' was printed at Kollam, the capital of Venad in 1578, during the Portuguese Era. It holds the record of the first book printed in any Indian language. It was written in the language ''[[Lingua Malabar Tamul]]'', which was spoken in southern Kerala (Kollam-[[Thiruvananthapuram]]-[[Kanyakumari]] area) during the medieval period.]]

The former state of Venad at the tip of the Indian subcontinent, traditionally ruled by [[raja]]s known as the Venattadis. Until the end of the 11th century AD, it was a small principality in the Ay Kingdom. The Ays were the earliest ruling dynasty in southern Kerala, who, at their zenith, ruled over a region from [[Nagercoil]] in the south to Thiruvananthapuram in the north. Their capital during the first [[Sangam age]] was in Aykudi and later, towards the end of the eighth century AD, at [[Quilon|Quilon (Kollam)]]. Though a series of attacks by the resurgent Pandyas between the seventh and eighth centuries caused the decline of the Ays, the dynasty was powerful until the beginning of the tenth century.<ref name="Menon2007">{{cite book|author=A Sreedhara Menon|title=A Survey of Kerala History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FVsw35oEBv4C&pg=PA97|access-date=18 September 2012|date=2007|publisher=DC Books|isbn=978-81-264-1578-6|pages=97–99}}</ref> [[Sulaiman al-Tajir]], a [[Persians|Persian]] merchant who visited Kerala during the reign of [[Sthanu Ravi Varma]] (9th century CE), records that there was extensive trade between Kerala and China at that time, based at the port of Kollam.<ref>{{Cite book|title=India Charitram|last=Menon|first=A. Shreedhara|publisher=DC Books|year=2016|isbn=9788126419395|location=Kottayam|page=219}}</ref>

[[File:British Residency in Kollam.jpg|thumb|The [[British Residency]] in Quilon, where the resident of Travancore resided]]

When the Ay diminished, Venad became the southernmost principality of the [[Second Chera Kingdom]].<ref name="Menon139"/> An invasion of the Cholas into Venad caused the destruction of Kollam in 1096. However, the Chera capital, [[Mahodayapuram]], also fell in the subsequent Chola attack, which compelled the Chera king, Rama Varma Kulasekara, to shift his capital to Kollam.<ref name="Menon140">{{cite book|author=A Sreedhara Menon|title=A Survey of Kerala History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FVsw35oEBv4C&pg=PA140|access-date=18 September 2012|date=2007|publisher=DC Books|isbn=978-81-264-1578-6|page=140}}</ref> Thus, Rama Varma Kulasekara, the last emperor of the Chera dynasty, was probably the founder of the Venad royal house, and the title of the Chera kings, ''Kulasekara'', was thenceforth kept by the rulers of Venad. Thus the end of the Second Chera dynasty in the 12th century marks the independence of Venad.<ref name="Menon141">{{cite book|author=A Sreedhara Menon|title=A Survey of Kerala History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FVsw35oEBv4C&pg=PA140|access-date=18 September 2012|date=2007|publisher=DC Books|isbn=978-81-264-1578-6|page=141}}</ref>

In the second half of the 12th century, two branches of the Ay dynasty, the Thrippappur and Chirava, merged in the Venad family, which set up the tradition of designating the ruler of Venad as Chirava Moopan and the heir-apparent as ''Thrippappur Moopan''. While the Chrirava Moopan had his residence at Kollam, the Thrippappur Moopan resided at his palace in Thrippappur, nine miles north of Thiruvananthapuram, and was vested with authority over the temples of Venad kingdom, especially the [[Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple]].<ref name="Menon139">{{cite book|author=A Sreedhara Menon|title=A Survey of Kerala History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FVsw35oEBv4C&pg=PA139|access-date=18 September 2012|date=2007|publisher=DC Books|isbn=978-81-264-1578-6|page=139}}</ref>