God’s Own Land: A Reading of Land and Religion in Kottarathil Sankunni’s Aithihyamala

Abstract

Aithihyamala (or The Garland of Legends) is a popular classic that has an indispensable place in the literary history of Kerala. This voluminous compilation of 126 legends, authored by Kottarathil Sankunni (1855-1937), encompasses the literary manifestation of the socio political and cultural associations of the land. The paper probes into the issues of land, the problematics of its ownership, the reforms, and the subsequent repercussions, and how they had been handled in Aithihyamala. It also analyzes the role of the authorial markers into the present, in revealing the class ideologies. Sankunni’s authorship imparts an ideological dimension to the text that elevates it beyond a mere compilation of legends. 
This paper analyses Aithihyamala, the compilation of legends penned by Kottarathil Sankunni (1855-1937) and the social history of Kerala. The legends taken up for the discussion on land relations are listed below. The names are as they appear in Aithihyamala.