A puzzling question that has repeatedly bothered me during my research into Kerala’s history is, why has no trained historian written about pharaonic Egypt’s persistent influence on so many aspects of Kerala’s culture? Have scholars looked at historical facts, yet dismissed the connection because the facts have not held up in the light of some other contradicting premise? Have they analyzed the evidence and concluded that despite appearances, what is observed is merely an extraordinary anomaly because of something else that makes the connection actually impossible? To find answers to these nagging questions, I perused published literature in renowned international and domestic journals and discussed the possibility of this connection with professors in reputed institutions. What I encountered was not objective, reasoned analysis, but a wall of prejudice, parochialism, condescension, and sadly, a sort of obstinate blindness, in which one sees with the eyes but cannot comprehend with the mind. A case in point is the ancient practice of urn burials in Kerala.
Tombs with urn burials have been unearthed from several areas in Kerala. Chiramanganad and Porkalam in Thrissur district, Kadanad in Kottayam district, Mangadu in Kollam district, Machad and Pazhayannur in Talapilly taluk, Anakkara in Palakkad district, Niramakulam in Pathanamthitta district, Ummichipoyil in Kasaragod district, and Marayur and Hydermettu in Idukki district are among the many localities where such urn burials or stone dolmens representing grave sites have been found. Archaeologists attribute them to “primitive” “tribesmen” of a “prehistoric” era. They call these sites ‘megalithic’ burials connoting a misguided association with megalithic stone structures of ancient Europe. It is undisputed that the implements recovered from archeological digs of these urn burials are iron implements, even some of them post-dating 1000 BCE, buried during the most recent epoch in human history, a time when many parts of the world were far from primitive.
Why is there this tendency to dismiss burials in earthen pots as “primitive?” Burying the dead inside ceramic pots was one of the most widespread funerary practices across cultures of the ancient world, both primitive and not. Yet, the majority of published literature about these urn burials in Kerala persistently describes them as evidence of a “primitive” culture. Is it because of prejudices drawn from Brahmanism, in which cremation is the preferred mode of disposing the dead? from Christianity, in which burial in coffins is preferred? from Islam, in which neither a coffin nor an earthen pot is used? from Buddhism, where cremation followed by burying the ashes is the norm? When modern funeral practices are perceived to be the only “civilized” ways of disposing the dead, the undeniable conclusion, naturally following from this logical fallacy, is that burying the dead in earthen pots is “uncivilized.”
An exception to this view is given in Dr. Rachel Varghese’s informative article on megaliths in Kerala. She warns that we should be careful not to allow modern assumptions to govern interpretations of archaeological evidence. Yet, the article echoes the majority consensus that objects found in these urn burials are “associated with the advent of iron in the region,” (emphasis added) despite admitting, “analyses of these objects point to highly evolved techniques of extraction and production,” an observation that does not logically support the majority consensus of an isolated primitive society that has just begun to use iron. Dr. Shinu Abraham agrees that archeological analysis of these burial sites remains flawed, that there is a tendency to “appropriate the archeological data as a source of correlates for information gleaned from the texts.”
However, even textual information is dismissed for not matching the fashionable hypothesis of the day. In an example of such “unsystematic and selective use of textual record,” historians have summarily brushed aside an inscription in the central shrine of the Vishnu temple at Tirukkakkarai, which claims that the temple was first constructed around 2500 BCE. Instead of analyzing this date further, Subrahmanya Aiyar in Travancore Archeological Series opines: “the absurdity as regards facts in this case needs no comment.” Perhaps the date was a scribal error, but it is equally likely that it was not. Indeed, the date matches very well with archeological evidence of maritime activity in ancient Egyptian ports on the Red Sea during the reign of Pharaoh Khafre around that same time period, suggesting a trans-oceanic venture.
The original faith of the natives in Kerala, even as recently as 1920 according to Padmanabha Menon, was that “so long as the bones remain undisturbed and undefiled, so long does the soul enjoy heaven.” This belief could not have arisen in a society that exclusively cremated its dead, a process in which bones are more or less destroyed by fire. Historians agree that urn burials had been the norm in Kerala’s ancient days, but they disappeared among the upper echelons of society with increasing Brahmanical influence, replaced with cremation and Vedic sraddha ceremonies. This Brahmanical influence, as I wrote in my article on Pazhassi, together with the circular reasoning mentioned above, is probably what drives the tendency to view pre-Brahmanical Kerala as a primitive society, much like Euro-centric historicism that views the pre-European-colonized world as a primitive, unenlightened one. Hence, despite the existence of archaeological evidence in Kerala, the analysis of such evidence remains, for the most part, stubbornly driven by a dated, colonial, Brahmanical mindset.
Kerala’s connection with pharaonic Egypt can likely be derived from the nature of the artifacts found at these urn burial sites despite the vast time difference between the two societies. Indeed, they suggest that the practice could have been derived from similar pharaonic Egyptian practices of burying the dead in earthen urns in simple tombs. The major classes of artifacts found at burial sites in Kerala include black-topped red ware ceramic vessels, iron implements such as daggers, swords, axes, nails, sickles, and agricultural implements, and beads. These artifacts, while being similar to finds in peninsular India, are also remarkably similar to the black-topped red ware ceramic vessels, iron, and stone implements and beads unearthed from urn burials throughout ancient Egypt, suggesting a possible cultural connection.
Scholars are divided regarding the chronological continuity of the Egyptian urn burials; some limit the practice in Egypt to periods before 2000 BCE, while others identify its persistence throughout the entire pharaonic period to 30 BCE and beyond. Urn burial practices were evidently not only for the poor; well-to-do families too buried their dead in household urns; according to some scholars, such burials represented one of the most unvarying and persevering modes of burial in Egypt, with their use before, during and after the pharaonic era.
Many of Egypt’s monarchs before 2200 BCE were buried under gigantic pyramids rather than in urns. In Kerala, besides the urn burials, tombs in the style of pyramids, albeit on a significantly more modest scale, have been unearthed fairly recently, in 2018. In Perur of Kasaragod district, centuries old tombs have been found near an old Nambuthiri mansion and in the fields outside Adur Mallavara Sri Panchalingesvara Temple. These tombs are called duppe in the local dialect. They are believed to house kings, lords, and other magnates of olden days, although their actual antiquity has not been measured using modern scientific methods.
Thus, the argument against a pharaonic Egyptian connection in Kerala based on the lack of archeological evidence seems to be actually based on the lack of proper analysis more than anything else, because the evidence seems to exist in abundance, not merely in urn burials, but in almost all aspects of Kerala’s culture.
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