Chera Dynasties

Chera Kingdom
Monarchy
Unknown, c. 4th century BCE–12th century CE (1124)
Extent of Chera kingdom
Capital		Mahodayapuram Quilon Karuvur
Languages		Malayalam (West Coast dialects),Old Tamil
Religion		Dravidian folk religion Hinduism: Shaivism, Vaishnavism Jainism, Buddhism minority: Christianity, Judaism, Islam
Political structure		Monarchy
History
•	Established	Unknown, c. 4th century BCE
•	Disestablished	12th century CE (1124)
Succeeded by [[Venad, Samoothiri]]
Today part of		India

The Cheras were the principal ruling dynasty of the present-day state of Kerala and to a lesser extent, parts of Tamil Nadu in South India. Along with the Ay kingdom in the south and the Ezhimala kingdom in the north, they formed the ruling kingdoms of Kerala in the early years of the Common Era. The origins of the dynasty are unclear and it is understood that they were speakers of Proto-Tamil-Malayalam while some being practitioners of literary writing in Old Tamil. In fact, most of their history is reconstructed from the body of literature known as the Sangam literature written in Old Tamil around the 3rd century CE. Together with the Cholas and the Pandyas in the adjacent modern-day State of Tamil Nadu, the Cheras formed one of the three most powerful warring Iron Age kingdoms of the southern-most States of South India.

The earliest traveller's accounts attesting the existence of the Cheras are by the Greek ambassador Megasthenes (4th century BCE), Pliny in the 1st century CE, in the Periplus of the 1st century CE and by Ptolemy in the 2nd century CE. While Pliny and Ptolemy refer to the Cheras as 'Calobotras', the Periplus refers to them as the 'Keprobotras'. The earliest Sanskrit works which refer to the Cheras and Kerala is probably the Aitreya Aranyaka. It refers to the land as Chera-'pada' - and as one of the three peoples who did not follow some ancient injunctions. There are also brief references by Katyayana (4th century BCE), Edicts of Ashoka (2nd century BCE), Patanjali (2nd century BCE) and Kautilya (c 2nd century CE) though Pāṇini (5th century BCE) does not mention of the land. However, it is the Tamil works collectively known as the Sangam literature that form the most important sources for a more detailed history of the Cheras and ancient Kerala. These works roughly span the period 100 CE to 300 CE. Among them, the most important sources for the Cheras are the Pattittupattu, the Agananuru, the Purananuru and the Silappatikaram.