Tanur is located south of the estuary of Poorappuzha River, which is a tributary of Kadalundi River. Tanur was one of the major ports in the southwestern coast of India during the medieval period.[2] It was ruled by the Kingdom of Tanur, also known as Vettathunadu, who were vassals to the Zamorin of Calicut.[2] In the early medieval period, under the chiefs of Kozhikode and Tanur, Tanur developed as one of the important maritime trade centre on the Malabar Coast.[2] Later it became a part of Vettathunadu Taluk in Malabar District under British Raj, which was merged with the Ponnani taluk in 1860–1861.[2]
Tanur railway station is a part of the oldest Railway line of Kerala laid in 1861 from Tirur to Chaliyam.[3]
Presently, the status of Tanur is reduced to a major fishing centre in Kerala.
The name "Tanur(Thanni-ur)" is derived from the Malayalam language. "Thanni" refers to the Bastard myrobalan tree, Terminalia bellirica, while "ur" refers to the settlement.[11] Tanur was an important trading port with trade connections with Middle East during the early medieval period.[12] When Kingdom of Tanur became vassal to the Zamorin of Calicut, Tanur also became a major port like other port towns in the kingdom.[12] The Zamorin earned a greater part of his revenue through the maritime trade through ports.[12]
An 1744 map of Malabar Coast (Tanur is written in large letters south of Calicut. It was an important port then. Note that in the map, only Vettathunad is shown with a separate boundary within the Kingdom of Zamorin)
Vettathunad, also known as the Kingdom of Tanur, was a coastal city-state kingdom in the Malabar Coast. It was ruled by the Vettathu Raja, who was a vassal of the Zamorin of Calicut. Parts of Tirurangadi, Tirur, and Ponnani Taluks were ruled by the Vettathu Rajas.[13]Vettathunad was known for its trade relationship with the Middle Eastern merchants in the medieval period. Tanur was a major port town in the Malabar Coast during the medieval period.[14] Tanur was also an important trade centre. The Veṭṭathunāṭu rulers owed their allegiance to the kings (Zamorin) of Calicut, a regional power on the Malabar coast. With the emergence of the Portuguese in India, the Veṭṭathunāṭu ruler sided with them against his overlord at Calicut. It is believed that St. Francis Xavier visited Tanur in 1546AD.[15] The Raja converted to Christianity — though only for a few months — in 1549.[16]
The naval chiefs of Zamorin, commonly known as Kunjali Marakkars, had close relationship with the medieval port town of Tanur.[21] In 1523, when the Portuguese Viceroy Menezes sailed with all the available ships to Hormuz, an Arab merchant, one Kutti Ali of Tanur, had the effrontery to bring a fleet of two hundred vessels to Calicut, to load eight ships with pepper, and to despatch them with a convoy of forty vessels to the Red Sea before the very eyes of the Portuguese.[21] In 1532 with the help of the ruler of Tanur, a chapel was built at Chaliyam, together with a house for the commander, barracks for the soldiers, and store-houses for trade. Diego de Pereira, who had negotiated the treaty with the Zamorin, was left in command of this new fortress, with a garrison of 250 men; and Manuel de Sousa had orders to secure its safety by sea, with a squadron of twenty-two vessels.[22] The Zamorin soon repented of having allowed this fort to be built in his dominions, and used ineffectual endeavours to induce the ruler of Parappanangadi, Caramanlii (King of Beypore?) (Some records say that the ruler of Tanur was also with them [22]) to break with the Portuguese, even going to war against them.[18] In 1571, the Portuguese were defeated by the Zamorin forces in the battle at Chaliyam Fort.[23]]
During the last decades of 18th century CE, Vettathunadu became a part of Kingdom of Mysore. Tanur is located on Tirur-Kadalundi Tipu Sultan Road.[3] It is one of the earliest roads in Kerala, which was created by Tipu for his conquests.[3] Following the Treaty of Seringapatam in 1792, Tanur became a part of British India. During the arrival of British, according to William Logan, the kingdom ("nadu") was divided into 21 "Amsoms" as shown below[2] (A main bazaar in each Amsom is given in bracket):
According to Logan, the Kshatriya family of the Vettathu Rajas became extinct with the death of the last Raja on 24 May 1793.[2] It was an important town in Malabar District during the British rule. During the first decades of British era Vettathunadu was the name of a Taluk in Malabar District consisting of Tanur and Tirur regions of present-day Tirur Taluk, and it was situated on the northern bank of the River Bharathappuzha.[21] Later it was merged with Ponnani taluk.[21]Tanur railway station is one of the oldest railway stations in Kerala. It was a part of the first rail route (Tirur–Chaliyam) in Kerala, which began in the year 1861.[24] In 1957, the region was separated from Ponnani taluk to form Tirur Taluk.
Civic administration
The town is administered by Tanur Municipality, headed by a chairperson. For administrative purposes, the town is divided into 44 wards,[25] from which the members of the municipal council are elected for a term of five years.
The municipality comes under the jurisdiction of the Tanur police station, which was formed on 29 February 1962.[27] The station is located on Tanur-Parappanangadi public road about 100 yards west of Tanur junction.[27] The station has the jurisdiction over the municipality of Tanur and the Gram panchayats of Tanalur, Ozhur, Niramaruthur, and Nannambra.[27]
The jurisdictional courts of Tanur Police Station are Judicial First Class Magistrate Court at Parappanangadi, Subdivisional Magistrate Court at Tirur, and Sessions Court at Manjeri.[27]
Tanur is also headquarters of one among the six subdivisions of Malappuram District Police.[28] The police stations at Tanur, Parappanangadi, Tirurangadi, Kalpakanchery, and Kadampuzha comes under the jurisdiction of Tanur subdivisional zone of district police.[28]
Transport
Tanur Railway Station
Tanur railway station, in the heart of the town, is located 30 kilometres (19 mi) from Malappuram on the Shoranur - Mangalore Section of the Southern Railway.[3] The nearest airport is Karipur Airport, which is approximately 30 kilometres (19 mi) from the town. Tipu Sultan Road (Tirur-Kadalundi Road), one among the oldest roads of Kerala (laid in 18th century CE), passes through Tanur town.[3]
Devadhar Government Higher Secondary School, one of the oldest Secondary Schools in Kerala
Govt Arts and Science College Tanur: C.H. Muhammad Koya Memorial Govt. Arts & Science College Tanur was established in 2013.[30] The college is affiliated to the University of Calicut.[30] Now the college is temporarily located at Puthentheru, about 2 km away from Tanur town.[30] College offers UG courses in B.A English, B.Com., BBA, BCA, and B.Sc. Electronics.[31] The college has been an entrance to the world of higher education for the public, especially for the people from coastal area.[30]
Islahul Uloom Arabic College:[32] Islahul Uloom Arabic College in Tanur town is one among the oldest Arabic Colleges in Kerala.[33] It was built in 1924 under the leadership of Pangil Ahmed Kutty Musliyar, a personality who died in 1946.[33] The decision to building an Islamic Institution in Tanur was made by Asasul Islam Sabha of Tanur, in a meeting held at Tanur Valiya Kulangara Palli, on October24 1924.[33]
Devadhar Government Higher Secondary School: Established in 1919, it is one of the oldest secondary schools in Kerala.[34]
There are also many private and government schools as well as a state Industrial training institute and a government arts and science college.
Another important school near Tanur is Govt. Higher Secondary School, Kattilangadi, Tanur.[34] A Govt. Fisheries Vocational Higher Secondary school is also there.[34]
^According to Pliny the Elder, goods from India were sold in the Empire at 100 times their original purchase price. See [1]
^Bostock, John (1855). "26 (Voyages to India)". Pliny the Elder, The Natural History. London: Taylor and Francis.
^Indicopleustes, Cosmas (1897). Christian Topography. 11. United Kingdom: The Tertullian Project. pp. 358–373.
^Das, Santosh Kumar (2006). The Economic History of Ancient India. Genesis Publishing Pvt Ltd. p. 301.
^M. K. Devassy (1965), 1961 Census Handbook- Kozhikode District(PDF), Directorate of Census Operations, Kerala and The Union Territory of Laccadive, Minicoy, and Amindivi Islands, p. 76
^ abcK. V. Krishna Iyer Zamorins of Calicut: From the Earliest Times to AD 1806. Calicut: Norman Printing Bureau, 1938
^Roy, Ranjan (1990). "Discovery of the Series Formula for π by Leibniz, Gregory, and Nilakantha". Mathematics Magazine. 63 (5): 291–306. doi:10.2307/2690896. JSTOR2690896.
^Pingree, David (1992), "Hellenophilia versus the History of Science", Isis, 83 (4): 554–63, Bibcode:1992Isis...83..554P, doi:10.1086/356288, JSTOR234257, S2CID68570164, One example I can give you relates to the Indian Mādhava's demonstration, in about 1400 A.D., of the infinite power series of trigonometrical functions using geometrical and algebraic arguments. When this was first described in English by Charles Whish, in the 1830s, it was heralded as the Indians' discovery of the calculus. This claim and Mādhava's achievements were ignored by Western historians, presumably at first because they could not admit that an Indian discovered the calculus, but later because no one read anymore the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, in which Whish's article was published. The matter resurfaced in the 1950s, and now we have the Sanskrit texts properly edited, and we understand the clever way that Mādhava derived the series without the calculus, but many historians still find it impossible to conceive of the problem and its solution in terms of anything other than the calculus and proclaim that the calculus is what Mādhava found. In this case, the elegance and brilliance of Mādhava's mathematics are being distorted as they are buried under the current mathematical solution to a problem to which he discovered an alternate and powerful solution.
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