Kottar 4.12

Kottar is a locality and a thriving bazaar area of Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu state, India; though a part of Nagercoil today, it is the original town around which the city of Nagercoil, near the southernmost tip of Peninsular India, grew. It was an ancient trade center of both Pandyans and Cheras at various times. The name Kottar was derived from the Tamil word kottam+aaru . The trade centre was established at the banks of the Bakruli River. The primary occupation in the area is irrigation and farming, pottery is a sub-occupation.HistoryThe history of Kottar stretches way back to the sangam period, Thirugnyana sambandhar, who lived in 7th century A.D portrays about the natural beauty, business resources and the specialized art of Kottar in his ‘Thirukkottaaru Padhigam’, a part of ‘Dhevaaram’. He starts it with ‘Suchindrum Thalapuraanam’, which also mentions the Kottar name reason. In the literature “Pandi Kovai” of 8th Century, it is mentioned that, Ninraseer nedumaaran, a Pandian king who lived during the period of Thirugnyana Sambandhar invaded Kottar and conquered it. Thus he was called as ‘Kotaaru Azhitha Kon’.Foreign SourcesThe Roman naturalist and writer, Pliney the Elder (who lived in between 23 – 79 A.D.) mentions Kottar as a commercial metropolis, having trade links with his contemporaneous Roman merchants.Doctor Galdwell, one of the most authoritative Indologists of modern time’s mentions, that Ptolemy, a Greek mathematician, astronomer and geographer who lived in Alexandria about 130 A.D., referred Kottar as Kottora Metropolis. This will witness to the fact that Kottar which is now the part of Nagercoil, was in its own right, a trading emporium even prior to the first century A.D.