the name more accurately as Ciola (i.e. Chola) mandalam, but his explanation of it as meaning the
Country of Cholam (or iuwariSorghum vulgare, Pers.) is erroneous. An absurd etymology is given
by Teixeira (Relacion de Harmuz, 28; 1610). He writes: Choromãdel or Choro Bãdel, i.e. Rice Port, because
of the great export of rice from thence. He apparently compounds H. chaul, chawal, cooked rice (!)
and bandel, i.e. bandar (q.v.) harbour. This is a very good type of the way etymologies are made
by some people, and then confidently repeated.
The name is in fact Chôramandala, the Realm of Chôra;
this being the Tamil form of the very ancient title of the Tamil Kings who reigned at Tanjore. This correct
explanation of the name was already given by DAnville (see Éclaircissemens, p. 117), and by W. Hamilton
in 1820 (ii. 405), by Ritter, quoting him in 1836 (Erdkunde, vi. 296); by the late M. Reinaud in 1845 (Relation,
&c., i. lxxxvi.); and by Sir Walter Elliot in 1869 (J. Ethnol. Soc. N.S. i. 117). And the name occurs
in the forms Cholamandalam or Solamandalam on the great Temple inscrip
tion of Tanjore (11th
century), and in an inscription of A.D. 1101 at a temple dedicated to Varahasvami near the Seven Pagodas. We have other quite analogous names in early inscriptions, e.g. Ilamandalam (Ceylon), Cheramandalam,
Tondaimandalam, &c.
Chola, as the name of a Tamil people and of their royal dynasty appears as Choda
in one of Asokas inscriptions,
and in the Telugu inscriptions of the Chalukya dynasty. Nor can we doubt that the same name is represented by [Greek Text] Swra of Ptolemy who reigned at [Greek Text] Arkatou
(Arcot), [Greek Text] Swr-nax who reigned at [Greek Text] Orqoura (Wariur), and the [Greek Text]
Swrai nomadeV who dwelt inland from the site of Madras.3
The word Soli, as applied to the Tanjore
country, occurs in Marco Polo (Bk. iii. ch. 20), showing that Chola in some form was used in his day.
Indeed Soli is used in Ceylon.4 And although the Choromandel of Baldaeus and other Dutch writers
is, as pronounced in their language, ambiguous or erroneous, Valentijn (1726) calls the country Sjola,
and defines it as extending from Negapatam to Orissa, saying that it derived its name from a certain
kingdom, and adding that mandalam is kingdom.5 So that this respectable writer had already distinctly
indicated the true etymology of Coromandel.
Some old documents in Valentijn speak of the old city of
Coromandel. It is not absolutely clear what place was so called (probably by the Arabs in their fashion
of calling a chief town by the name of the country), but the indications point almost certainly to Negapatam.6
The
oldest European mention of the name is, we believe, in the Roteiro de Vasco da Gama, where it appears
as Chomandarla. The short Italian narrative of Hieronymo da Sto. Stefano is, however, perhaps earlier
still, and he curiously enough gives the name in exactly the modern form Coromandel, though perhaps
his C had originally a cedilla (Ramusio, i. f. 345v.). These instances suffice to show that the name
was not given by the Portuguese. Da Gama and his companions knew the east coast only by hearsay,
and no doubt derived their information chiefly from Mahommedan traders, through their Moorish interpreter.
That the name was in familiar Mahommedan use at a later date may be seen from Rowlandsons Translation
of the Tohfat-ul-Mujahidin, where we find it stated that the Franks had built fortresses at Meelapoor
(i.e. Mailapur or San Tomé) and Nagapatam, and other ports of Solmundul, showing that the name
was used by them just as we use it (p. 153). Again (p. 154) this writer says that the Mahommedans of
Malabar were cut off from extra-Indian trade, and limited to the ports of Guzerat, the Concan, Solmondul,
and the countries about Kaeel. At page 160 of the same work we have mention of Coromandel and
other parts, but we do not know how this is written in the original Arabic. Varthema (1510) has Ciormandel,
i.e. Chormandel, but which Eden in his translation (1577, which probably affords the earliest English
occurrence of the name) deforms into Cyromandel (f. 396b). [Albuquerque in his Cartas (see p. 135
for a letter of 1513) has Choromandell passim.] Barbosa has in the Portuguese edition of the Lisbon
Academy, Charamandel; in the Span. MS. translated by Lord Stanley of Alderley, Cholmendel and
Cholmender. DAlboquerques Commentaries (1557), Mendez Pinto (c. 1550) and Barros (1553) have
Choromandel, and Garcia De Orta (1563) Charamandel. The ambiguity of the ch, soft in Portuguese
and Spanish, but hard in Italian, seems to have led early to the corrupt form Coromandel, which we
find in Parkess Mendoza (1589), and Coromandyll, among other spellings, in the English version of
Castanheda (1582). Cesare Federici has in the Italian (1587) Chiaramandel (probably pronounced
soft in the Venetian manner), and the translation of 1599 has Coromandel. This form thenceforward
generally prevails in English books, but not without exceptions. A Madras document of 1672 in Wheeler
has Cormandell, and so have the early Bengal records in the India Office; Dampier (1689) has Coromondel
(i. 509); Lockyer (1711) has the Coast of Cormandel; A. Hamilton (1727) Chormondel (i. 349); ed.