Travancore State Manual

Travancore State Manual was a publication of the erstwhile Travancore kingdom, written and published under the statutory command of the king of Travancore. Travancore kingdom was located at the southernmost tip of the South Asian Subcontinent (currently consisting of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh), on its western side. Travancore State Manual was written by V. Nagam Aiya, who was then working as the Dewan Peishcar in Travancore government service.

The section on the Fauna of Travancore was contributed by Harold S. Ferguson Esq. F. L. N., F. Z. S), who Nagam Aiya describes in the following words: "a subject upon which he is an authority having spent nearly the whole of his life in the country, first as a Planter for several years on the Travancore Hills, then as the Guardian of the Princes, then as Commandant of one of the battalions in the Travancore army (Nayar Brigade), and lastly as the Director of the Government Museum and the Public Gardens at Trivandrum."

V Nagam Aiya mentions that he was commanded by His Highness, the Maharajah of Travancore to write the Travancore State Manual with the simple instruction that it should follow the model of the district manuals of the Madras Presidency, which was under English rule. However, he also mentions that the idea had been ‘broached’ to him by Dewan T. Rama Row, C.I.E., some fourteen years earlier. At that time, Nagam Aiya had been working as the Dewan Peishcar and District Magistrate of Quilon. Even though, the Dewan did obtain the Maharajah sanction for the project, the Dewan himself retired within a few months, and the matter was dropped.

However, the matter was revived by Dewan Mr. K. Krishnaswamy Row, C.I.E., in 1901. Nagam Aiya did a lot of pioneering and original research and work to obtain a lot of information for the preparation of this book. What came out was a book of ‘encyclopaedic nature spread over a space of more than 1820 pages of letter-press’.

It might be correct to think that Nagam Aiya did have this project in his mind, and he must have collected or at least noted down a lot of information much before he started on this work. He started his work on this project as a full-time officer from December 1904.

The Travancore State Manual is a huge book not only on the antiquity of Travancore, but also of various other features of the place. It is not a just a book on the history of the place. A detailed study and examination of the physical features, geology, Climate, Rainfall, Meteorology, Flora, Fauna, and Archaeology of the place is also there.

Detailed writings are there on the geographical location, boundaries, shape and area of the landscape, mountains, plateaus, mountain passes, rivers, canal and backwaters, coastline, ports, shipping facilities, economic geology of the place, climate, rainfall, meteorology, trees, and medicinal plants, flowering and ornamental plants, birds and animals etc., archaeology, architecture, sculpture, coins, inscriptions, forts and military works, ‘Archaeology’, ‘Fauna’, census and population, language, economic condition and various other things are dealt with, in a manner that should astound. There are a number of photographs. Apart from that, there are many pictures of the stone inscriptions collected from various parts of the kingdom. The latter part of the book deals in detail on the history of the localities that were later to be joined together to form Travancore kingdom. The delineation of history starts from the Parasurama legend. This legend is also mentioned in great detail. Then it slowly moves to the times of the Perumals.

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