Kerala Holidays

Kerala is on the southern most tip of India. It stretches along the coast of the Arabian Sea and is separated from the rest of the sub continent by the steep Western Ghats. The state lies between 80 18 ' and 120 48 ' north latitude and 740 52' and 77

0 22' east longitude. The breadth of the state varies from 32 kms in the extreme north and south to over 120 kms in the middle.
Kerala attracted the notice of people in other parts of India even from time immemorial. It is evident from the many reference to the land of in ancient Sanskrit works. The Aitareya Aranyaka is the earliest Sanskrit work, which specifically mentions Kerala. The great Epics Ramayana and Mahabharatha, show awareness of Kerala on the part of their authors. Katyayana (4th century BC) and Pathanjali (2nd Century BC) show their acquaintance with the geography of Kerala. Kautilya’s Arthasastra mentions Kerala. The puranas also mention Kerala.Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsa has given a beautiful description of Kerala.

Kerala looms large in the accounts of classical writes of Greece and Rome. The anonymous author of the Periplus (1st century AD) and Ptolemy (2nd century AD) are the most outstanding classical writes who give information about Kerala. Later foreign writes like Sulaiman (9th Century AD), Masudi (10th century AD) Al Kazwini (13th century AD), Marco Polo (13th century), John of Monte Corvino (13th century), Friar Jordanus of Severic (14th century) Ibn Batuta (14th century), Ma Huan (15th century), Nicolo Conti (15th century) and Abdul Razzack (15th century) are some of the other foreign travellers of the early period who give interesting glimpses of trade and other aspects of Kerala.

Kerala stands in the forefront of Indian states in the matter of literacy and education. According to the census of 1991 the rate of literacy in Kerala is 94.59 per cent. This literacy rate is more than double that of the country. It is significant that Kerala is almost on a par with the most advanced countries of the world in point of literacy.
Malayalam as a distinct language had its origin in the ninth century AD. Till then the people on either side of the Western Ghats spoke the same language, with dialectal variations with in itself. There is general agreement among ethnologists that the first component of the word, viz., and ‘mala’ means hill or mountain, but in regard to the second component, viz.,’alam’ there is a difference of opinion, According to one view the word is identical with ‘azham’, meaning “sea” or “deep”, which would make Malayalam the land lying between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea. In the other view Malayalam means “a land abounding in hills”.