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Concept
Venad (kingdom)
Summary
Venad was a medieval kingdom lying between the Western Ghat mountains and the Arabian Sea on the south-western tip of India with its headquarters at the port city of Kollam/Quilon. It was one of the major principalities of Kerala, along with kingdoms of Kannur (Kolathunadu), Kozhikode (Nediyiruppu), and Kochi (Perumpadappu) in medieval and early modern period.
Rulers of Venad trace their ancestry to the Vel chieftains related to the Ay lineage of the early historic south India (c. 1st – 4th century CE). Venad – ruled by hereditary "Venad Adikal" – appears as an autonomous chiefdom in the kingdom of the Chera/Perumals of Kodungallur from around 8th – 9th century CE. It came to occupy a position of pre-eminent importance in the structuring of the Perumal kingdom. The country was intermittently and partially subject to the Pandya kingdom in the medieval period.
Venad outlasted the Chera/Perumal kingdom, gradually developed as an independent principality, known as the Chera kingdom, and grew later into modern Travancore (18th century CE). Ravi Varma Kulasekhara, most ambitious ruler of Venad, carried out a successful military expedition to Pandya and Chola lands in the early 14th century CE.
The rulers of Venad, known in the medieval period as Venad Cheras or the Kulasekharas, claimed their ancestry from the Chera/Perumals. Venad ruler Vira Udaya Marthanda Varma (1516–1535) acknowledged the supremacy of the Vijayanagara rulers. Minor battles with Vijayanagara forces in the subsequent period are also recorded. In the 17th century, the rulers of Venad paid an annual tribute to the Nayaks of Madurai. English East India Company established a factory at Vizhinjam in 1664 and a fort was built at Ajengo in 1695. The medieval feudal relations and political authority were dismantled Marthanda Varma (1729–1758), often credited as "the Maker of Travancore". Travancore became the most dominant state in Kerala by defeating the powerful Zamorin of Kozhikode in the battle of Purakkad in 1755.
Official source
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