Sakthan Thampuran
1751–1805
Maharaja of Cochin (1790–1805), who made Thrissur his capital and its port at Aranattukara busy
Rama Varma, better known as Sakthan (“the strong”) Thampuran, ruled the kingdom of Cochin from 1790 until he died in 1805. He made Thrissur his seat. His palace at Vadakkechira still stands, and he is credited with giving the Thrissur Pooram its present form.
The king who took over the trade
For Aranattukara, his reign mattered because of the kadavu (boat landing). Until then, the book explains, foreign merchants took most of the profit from Cochin’s trade. Sakthan Thampuran made the buying and selling of salt, pepper and tobacco a state business. Government warehouses, called pandikasalas, went up near the landing. Goods from the hills and the plains were stored there before going on by boat to Kochi, Kodungallur and Kozhikode.
The records quoted in the book give a sense of the scale: thousands of bundles of tobacco, and rice weighed out at the landing for his officers. Salt for the whole state, the book says, was gathered at Aranattukara. Christian boatmen from the village fetched it from the salt pans near Kozhikode.
The first church
Tradition says the king was friendly towards the Christian traders who handled much of this business. According to the book, it was his decree that gave land for Aranattukara’s first church. That church was consecrated in 1796 in honour of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary. It is the ancestor of today’s St. Thomas Church.
Not a man to cross
Not all the stories about him are gentle. A Thrissur tale retold in the book describes a proud Nambudiri who tried to humble the king with a show of gold at a feast. Later, it is said, the Thampuran had that family’s house pulled down. He also took the Vadakkunnathan temple out of the hands of the Brahmin assembly that had sided with his enemy, the Zamorin.
The warehouse landing has long gone. But the trade he organised is a large part of why Aranattukara grew from a riverside village into a busy market town.
Related
The Kadavu and Sakthan Thampuran's Warehouses
The lost landing on the backwaters where Thrissur's goods once met the boats, and where Sakthan Thampuran kept the state's warehouses.
St. Thomas Church, Aranattukara
The parish church at the heart of Aranattukara, whose story runs from a first church in 1796, through a long division, to reunion in 1964 and the church we see today.
Lalur Karthyayani Temple
An old kavu (sacred-grove) temple at Lalur whose goddess goes in procession to Vadakkunnathan as one of the small poorams of the Thrissur Pooram.
Aranattukara in 10 Minutes
The whole story of Aranattukara in one short read — from a landing on the edge of the kol wetlands to a busy ward of Thrissur city.
Christian Heritage
How a riverside trading village became a Christian parish, split into two rival churches for almost seventy years, and came back together in 1964 under one roof, the St. Thomas Church we know today.
The Port of Thrissivaperur
Before the railway, Thrissur's goods left by water from the landing at Aranattukara. Sakthan Thampuran's warehouses, the toll posts and the slow decline of an inland port.