
The first recorded history of Kerala appears in the inscriptions of the Mauryan Emperor, Ashoka (269-232 b.c.).In these inscriptions, Ashoka refers to four independent kingdoms that lay to the south of his empire. These were the kingdoms of the Cholas, the Pandyas, the Keralaputrasand the Satiyaputras.Among them, the Keralaputras or the Cheras, as they were called, reigned over Malabar, Cochin and...