North Paravur understand · North Paravur tourist information
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North Paravur tourist information
North Paravur tourist information
Paravur shortly known as PARUR in the past, is one of the oldest towns in South India, established in 52 BC when an ancient Tamil tribe Cheras, decided to make the city as its capital, owing to presence of a natural port here as well. You can still see very old houses and community living of Tamil Brahmin people around Kannankulangara and Mookkambi areas.
The mighty Periyar river flow through this region,making many small islands and making the region one of the most fertile lands for agriculture.
The Cheras named this capital known as Murichipattanam (spelled as Muziris in Greek), soon rose to international fame, due to its extensive trading relations with Egypt, Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman and Chinese civilizations. The sea route from Egypt to Muziris was known as ancient spice route, where extensive spices, cotton, rice were traded. The Cheras also built several palaces and temples, typical its traditional Dravidan culture.
From 11th century AD onwards, the fortunes of Muziris declined due to its constant wars with neighbouring Tamil state, the Cholas. In 1344, the great Periyar floods made a major blow to Muziris, when river Periyar changed its course of flow and choking the port of Muziris. Soon the Cheras shifted their capital to nearby Thiruvanchikulam and renamed as Mahodayapuram. After prolonged 100 year Chera-Chola war, by 14th century, the Cholas successfully raided Muziris and set the city under fire, making the city completely lost in memories.
After partition of Chera Empire, the city came under control of Kochi Kingdom. The Kochi Rajas encouraged extensive farming here, due to its fertility. In 14th century, the Raja granted a township to large number of Jews, who seeked asylum from Jerusalem. The town was soon occupied by colonial Portuguese, after they constructed extensive fortifications. The town also witnessed a major battle between Portuguese and Dutch, leading to defeat of former. In 18th century, Kochi Raja partitioned Paravur into two and granted the northern portion to Travancore Kingdom as an enclave to built extensive fortifications known as Nedumkotta to thwart possible Mysore invasion. Thus a new town was established known as North Paravur under Travancore and South Paravur under Kochi. In 1949, both Paravurs were united after merge of Travancore-Kochi state. However the name struck as North Paravur (PARUR) to town. It has also become easy to call and identify as NORTH because there are 3 more similar sounding paravoor or paroors in Alleppey, Quilon and even one in Ernakulam dist.
Untill a decade back, Paravur was small countryside hamlet famous its unique variety of rice known as Pokali as well as extensive backwater fishing. The rise and development of modern Kochi city, soon made Paravur growing into a major suburb of the city due to availability of affordable housing.
With the new roads through Gosri Bridges, and the container Terminal Varapuzha road, the distance to Parur from Cochin has reduced to 30 kms and a drive of less than 40 minutes on a normal day.
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North Paravur Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.