The regionalisation of the itihāsa-purāṇa tradition: the case of Paraśurāma’s land creation, from Konkan to Kerala

This paper aims to clarify, on the basis of the available textual evidence, how the figure of the Bhārgava brahmin-and-warrior Rāma of the Axe became, in the course of time, intimately associated with the legendary origins of the historical kingdoms constituting Kerala, and when Kerala as the realm of the brahmins began to be identified with the sacred territory that Paraśurāma once made rise from the sea. The creation of a new piece of land for Rāma Jāmadagnya on the Western coast of India was first told in the Mahābhārata. In that case, the coastal land concerned was clearly the Konkan region, as it is confirmed by the allusions in Kālidāsa's Raghuvaṃśa (canto 4, critical edition with Vallabhadeva’s commentary, contra the order of the stanzas in the vulgate edition). However, from the eleventh century onwards textual testimonies are found which declare that the whole Western coast of India is the land of Paraśurāma, or that the Bhārgava gives his peculiar protection to the kingdoms of the Keraḷas or the Mūṣikas, or even that the Kerala territory itself, as a single entity, was “given to” or “established”/“created by” the sage, before the epic consecration of such a geographical exploit found in the Jaiminīyasaṃhitā of the Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa (Kerala, ca 1300). It can be also suspected that the noteworthy slight change in the order of the stanzas appearing at the same time in the Southern recension of the Raghuvaṃśa, canto 4, was intentionally made by commentators for allowing Kālidāsa’s allusions to fit perfectly well with the newly consecrated Kerala version. [This paper was originally delivered at the 9th International Indology Graduate Research Symposium, UGent, 23 septembre 2017 (Keynote concluding lecture); an updated version was presented at the Three-Day International Conference on Sanskrit in Medieval India: Retrieving Lost Traditions, Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady, 10-12 December 2019 (Chair and Key paper), and at the Sree Neelakantha Government Sanskrit College, Pattambi, 13 December 2019 (International Lecture Series)