Edakkal Caves and the History of Wayanad

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The colonial administrators were curious about the history, myth and legends of the provinces they conquered. So, the first written documents available on the past of our history were prepared by the colonial officers for their administrative purposes. Rao Bahadur C Gopalan Nair, the then Deputy Collector was the first Malayali writer (1911) who compiled a comprehensive history of Wayanad for his British masters.

William Logan’s Malabar Manual, Mackenzie Manuscripts, Nilgiri District Gazetteer, Mysore District Gazetteer, Madras Manual of Administration these are some of the official records narrating the history of Wayanad

We hope this collection of articles and notes from various sources will help the students of history.

I thank Mr. Sali Thankappan for his photographs of Edakkal caves.

Panoramic View from the Top of Tamarasseri Ghat towards the Arabian Sea, a Distance of Thirty-nine Miles from Wayanad: it’s Poples and Traditions by C Gopalan Nair 1911.

High mountains rise to the lift with water glistening on bare black rocks like tears of gladness in the eyes of sorrow; forests stretch away herewith gentle slope and easy undulation, there down precipice and steep declivity; for below lie swamps choked, with thomy thicket and rank coarse grasses, breeding fevers and miasma, but yet in whose bosoms are stored the streams which ‘water those long stretches of rice fields, here sere and yellow after the sickle of the reaper, there whitening unto harvest or again a vivid, green where the second crop matures, Hills everywhere, some arid, red and unfruitful, more covered in the feathery foliage of these Eastern orchards. Here and ‘there smoke cruls up in the still noon-tide air; or the glint of some mosque or temple or riverpool catche’s the eye. As the distance grows farther, hill and field all merge into one green plain and beyond gleams the sea, hard to be discerned from the heaven that bends down and meets it. As you gaze, the thought rises from the heart that in such fair and well- order beauty, the affairs of this world may perchance appear from the Throme of Heaven with all their inequality, so-strange, so little comprehendable by us the dwellers amid its hills and valleys.”