'A once capacious haven': What happened to Calicut (Malabar coast of India), 1335-1887

Abstract

From the fourteenth to the nineteenth century the port of Calicut on the Malabar (Kerala) coast of western India was well known to ocean-going traders and others. Two contrasting sets of descriptions of Calicut exist and it has been universally assumed they refer to the same place and characterise its rise and fall. It seems clear that there have been two Calicuts, one (named here 'Calicut at Beypore') being the original city and port, the other (named here 'Calicut at Kozhikode') being that described in the later part of the period. Two events of note are deduced from analysis of fourteenth- to nineteenth-century accounts of Calicut. First is that Vasco da Gama visited the 'wrong' Calicut, requiring the Zamorin (King) of Calicut to hasten there from the 'real' Calicut to receive the Portuguese delegation. Although this mistake was corrected a few years later, 'Calicut at Kozhikode' became a growing focus for foreign trade thereafter, something aided by an unknown catastrophe that destroyed the functionality of 'Calicut at Beypore', leading it to be abandoned by the Zamorin for the other Calicut. The absence of any port here and the comparatively poor condition of its site, compounded by largely Portuguese attacks, saw the rapid decline of this 'Calicut at Kozhikode'. The catastrophe that destroyed 'Calicut at Beypore' is deduced to have occurred in the second half of the sixteenth century and most likely involved an earthquake that led to abrupt subsidence and tsunami waves that washed across the site. Evidence of similar events from elsewhere along the Malabar coast support this explanation and underscore the role of catastrophe in human affairs, as well as the need to critically appraise assumptions made about place in historical accounts.