Kerala is the only state in modern India whose name appears as such in one of Asoka’s edicts dating to 274–237 BCE. It is clearly attested as the name of a region, for the people are called “Keralaputa,” meaning “sons of Kerala” in the language of the writer.¹ People like to think of the word kera as deriving from keram meaning “coconut,” because the coconut is such a ubiquitous symbol of Kerala. But is it really so? keram is a shortened version of nalikeram, which is a metathesis of Sanskrit narikel meaning “ coconut.” Sanskrit did not enter Kerala until more than half a millennium after the Asoka edicts. So, from where exactly did the name kerala in these edicts originate?
I have repeatedly mentioned the connection between Kerala and Egypt. The ancient Egyptians called their nation “Black,” from the color of the Nile’s black silt.² The Malayalam words for “black” are kari, karu, kara which are all very close to kera. The Egyptian hieroglyph that was used to represent the word “black” was 𓆎 Gardiner List I6: a piece of crocodile-skin with spines. Egyptologists believe the hieroglyph represents the sound [kem]. But when it morphed into Malayalam, it exchanged the [m] sound for [r], as shown by these examples:
Egyptian 𓆎𓅓, 𓆎𓅓𓏛 kem, kemm “black,” “dark” corresponds to Malayalam kari, karima, karu, kara “black,” “dark”³
Egyptian 𓆎 kem “charcoal” corresponds to Malayalam kari, “charcoal”⁴
Egyptian 𓆎𓏏𓄹 keme “dorsal fin” corresponds to Malayalam kari, “skin protrusions,” “thorn,” as in kari-mull⁵
Egyptian 𓆎𓏏𓊖 keme “arable land” corresponds to Malayalam kari “field,” as in kari-pattam⁶
Egyptian 𓆎𓅓𓏛kem “to complete” corresponds to Malayalam kazhi “to complete” (here, the [r] sound elided into [zh])⁷
Egyptian 𓆎𓐝𓇋𓇋𓏒𓏥 kemi “food” corresponds to Malayalam kari “curry”⁸
Egyptian 𓆎𓅓𓅨𓂋𓈘 kemwer, place name literally “Big Black” corresponds to kerala⁹
Of these, the last word, kemwer is interesting. wer in Egyptian meant “big.”¹⁰ The corresponding Malayalam word is valya, or valuthu, with the root val. Thus, Egyptian kemwer corresponds to Malayalam karval. All that stands between karval and kerala is the superfluous [v] in the former and the fluidity of Malayalam vowels in the latter. In other words, it does not take much imagination to leap from karval to kerala. If this is true, it means that the people of Kerala called themselves and their nation by the same name as the natives of pharaonic Egypt. Why would they do so, unless they were the same people? But, departing from the modern style of calling a diaspora “Little,” as in Little Italy, Little China, Little India, the ancient people of Kerala decided to call their colony as the “Big Black”!
kem-wer is attested in Egyptian archeological records as a place name from as early as 2686 BCE to as late as 324 CE. It is a land of the “great lake,” and so Egyptologists believe it refers to Lake Fayum, Lake Timsah, or even a mythological lake. Kerala has many great lakes. It would not be surprising at all if the kem-wer in Egyptian records is actually none other than Kerala. More to the point, by 324 CE, Kerala clearly had trade relations with Egypt; indeed, as attested by the archeological finds at Pattanam, Kerala had trade relations with Egypt predating the Asoka inscription of 274 BCE. But, during this period, there is nothing in any Egyptian records unearthed as yet to indicate that Kerala and Egypt had any relationship beside trade. Thus, the migration from Egypt to Kerala must have happened earlier, predating the morphing of [kem] to [kar], in such a distant past that all memory of that journey was wiped out from the collective minds of the people of either land by the time the name kerala emerged in Asoka’s edicts in 274 BCE.
Notes
[1] In yet another example of historians glossing over important details in their analysis of Kerala’s history, it is to be noted that they gloss over the name “Kerala” as a variation of “Chera.” However, such was clearly not the intention of the writer of the edict, for the neighboring Chola are mentioned with the “ch” in their name, showing that the writer could clearly differentiate the sound “ka” from “cha.”
[2] 𓆎𓏏𓊖 keme “black land”. https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/164430.
[3] https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/401218; https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/164320.
[4] https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/164300.
[5] https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/164460.
[6] https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/850767.
[7] https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/164450.
[8] https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/164600.
[9] https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/164510.
[10] 𓅨𓂋 wr “big,” “great,” https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/47271.
