Paris on the banks of the Tirur

How could one ignore the Paris stop in Kuttayi, Kerala. Anything so deliciously contraposed had to be visited. I was conjuring up crepes on banana leafs !!

There was not a soul in sight. More than the belle epoque of Paris, it could pass as a sun baked Mexican town. The snoring of the septuagenarians under the thatch superimposed on the buzzing flies around the compost heap of discarded mango skins gives it its own somnambulistic march music.

Ponnani - Ghosts of Aryabhata

Ponnani is a verdant beachside town.

Looking inland from the vacant red-clay beach are regimented rows of palm trees studded with mobile towers and spires of ancient mosques - a harmonious juxtaposition of the modern and the ancient.

The beach, if situated in Europe would be overrun with sun worshippers of a different ilk but here it was just a taut prowed boat on the red sand contrasting vividly with the cerulean sky.

The port at the confluence of the Bharathapuzha River and the Arabian Sea is shaped like an appendix, bounded by the breakwater on one side and carved into the forest. Brightly painted Baghlahs, Dhangis, Ghanjahs, Jalibuts and other assorted dhows move languorously through the turgid water with human, animal and comestible cargo all mixed in.

Ponnani was the premier trading port on the Malabar coast. Trade with Arab lands flourished and is reflected today in a peaceful coexistence of Hindu and Muslim populations in Ponnani.

Most residents here do not know of or recognize the significance of Aryabhata's solar eclipse observations or indeed of his presence in any way.

Today, K. Chandra Hari postulates that this town could also have been the birthplace of Aryabhata. If this were true then Ponnani must occupy exalted status along with the Cambridge of Newton, the Pisa of Galileo and the Torun of Copernicus. He was long known by Arabic Muslim scholars as Arjabhad and later in Europe in the middle Ages by the Latinized name of Ardubarius.
For a comprehensive view of Aryabhata's life and work, please follow this link.
http://incredblindia.blogspot.com/2009/02/aryabhatta-and-evolution-of-zero.html

Leaving Ponnani by the Chamravattam bridge you chance upon a small but exquisite temple dedicated to Lord Ayyappa. This temple is said to have been built on the grounds sanctified by a sage called Sambaran.

Unlike other Hindu temples; the Sanctum sanctorum of the temple, where the idol of Lord Ayyappa is installed, is below the ground level and the idol is installed in sand; as if the temple was built around the idol which was already there. This idol is considered “Swayambhu”, meaning Self-manifested. I had heard of Shiva lingas having been Swayambhu but this is the first I have heard of Lord Ayyappa. More so, since this idol is swamped under 4ft of swamp during the monsoon seasons.

More detail on Ponnani can be found here: http://kallivalli.blogspot.com/2013/02/ponnani-old-and-then.html

The 1st Prime Meridian is on the banks of the Nila, not the Thames

August 11 AD519, a lone Dhoti clad, sunbrowned man is the only one on the beach overlooking the latticed well traveled shores of the Indian Ocean. Everyone else in the ancient port of Ponnani on the coast of Kerala were cowering in fear with palm shutters rolled down. The solar eclipse had just started and Aryabhata cast out into the ocean on a vallam, the Keralite boat. Legend has it that Aryabhata and his son Devarajan were both excommunicated from their caste for the double sin of going to sea and observing the eclipse. The prejudices of Europe echoed from Copernicus' Poland to the Malabar coast.

A millennium before Mercator drew his prime meridian through Fuerteventura, India had a prime meridian that formed the basis of trade in the Indian Ocean through to China. With the possible exception of Ptolemy's meridian through the Canary Islands this would likely be the first  multi-state sanctioned meridian. 

Ponnani as its southernmost point on the Indian subcontinent was a thriving port on the Malabar coast and is the oldest port continually in use in India. It is of supranational astronomical significance because in the words of CS Hari "Aryabhata's theory of Earth's rotation had its genesis in the experience of apparent motion of the shore during his sea voyage".

I have set out to trace the original prime meridian from Ponnani in Kerala up to the snow gnarled  mountains of Kashmir.