Venad
| Vēnāṭu | ||||||||||||||
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| Capital | Kollam (Quilon) | |||||||||||||
| Languages |
Malayalam Tamil |
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| Religion | Hinduism, Saint Thomas Christianity and other religions | |||||||||||||
| Government | Feudalism | |||||||||||||
| History | ||||||||||||||
| • | Disintegration of Later Chera Kingdom | 12th century | ||||||||||||
| • | Formation of Travancore | 1729 | ||||||||||||
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Venad (Malayalam: Vēnāṭu) or the Kingdom of Quilon was one of the three prominent late medieval Hindu feudal kingdoms on the Malabar Coast, South India, along with the Kingdom of Calicut and Kolathunadu.
The rulers of Quilon, the Venattadi Kulasekharas, traced their relations back to the Ay kingdom and the Later Cheras. The last Chera ruler, Rama Varma Kulashekhara, was the first ruler of an independent state of Quilon. In the early 14th century, King Ravi Varma established short-lived supremacy over South India. After his death, Quilon only included most of modern-day Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram districts of Kerala and Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu. Marco Polo claimed to have visited his capital at Quilon, a centre of commerce and trade with China and the Levant. Europeans were attracted to the region during the late fifteenth century, primarily in pursuit of the then rare commodity, black pepper. The Thiruvithamkur and Kolathiri families are the only direct descendants of the Venad (Ay) Dynasty.
A new calendar was established by Quilon rulers, the Kollam era. The calendar started in 825 with the renovation of the family temple Thirupalkadal Sreekrishnaswamy Temple.
The name Venad is believed to be derived from Ay vel (Ay=shepherd, Vel=king), referring to the ancient rulers of Velnad. Sangam literature mentions three sets of seven Vallals (philanthropists). Out of the last set (the Kadaiyezhu Vallals, circa 100 AD), three lived in present-day Kollam and one in the Trivandrum area. Sangam literature also mentions the murder of Pari, ruler of Quilon. Kapila, a poet friend of Pari, married the slain Ay vel's daughters off to the Thirukovilur (Kollam) prince and built a temple for Pari at Parippalli. The places Ayur (Ay), Oyur (Oy) and Kariavattam (Kari) were also named after Ay vels.
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