The city of Calicut on the Malabar coast, was the seat of the King of Malabar, the Zamorin. His subject esteemed him above the Brahmins and considered him second only to the invisible Gods. (An opinion NOT shared by the Brahmins who treated the King as a Sudra!)

The Mamangam and the Zamorins Kings

The divine King usually retained his office till some outward defect, some visible symptom of failing health or advancing age manifested itself. When the appearance of said symptoms, warned his subjects that he could no longer discharge his duties as King effectively, he was put to death. Such was the practice. However, some people thought it unsafe to wait for even the slightest symptom of decay. They thought it would be prudent if the king were killed while he was still in the full vigour of life.

Accordingly, a term was fixed for the rule of a particular King, at the end of which he would die by his own hand. The period fixed was 12 years. The King’s supreme sacrifice was celebrated as a grand jubilee in honour of the God or Goddess of the land. The great feast at the temple was attended by thousands of people and much money and food was distributed to the Brahmins. This festival was called the 'Mamangam'.

A wooden scaffolding spread over with silken hangings was made for the King. On the last day of his life, he would bathe in a tank with great ceremonies and sound of music. After that he would pray to the idol and then mount on to the scaffolding. Before all the people, he would take some very sharp knives, and cut off his nose, and then his ears, and his lips, and all his members.  He would cut as much flesh off himself as he could. Just before collapsing from the enormous loss of blood, he would slit his own throat. Whoever desired to rule in his place (and 12 years later undertake the same martyrdom for the idol) would have to watch the entire process. After this, the successor was crowned king.

Later the practice was modified a little. The Zamorin first made a feast for all his nobility and gentry (who were very numerous. After the feast he saluted his guests, and went on the scaffold, and very decently cut his own throat in the view of the assembly. A little while later his body was burned with great pomp and ceremony, and the nobles elected a new Zamorin. If however, the Zamorin died during his term, it saved him the troublesome ceremony of cutting his own throat.

However, this custom too gave way to another variation on the original theme. At the end of 12 years, the ‘modern’ Zamorin, proclaimed a jubilee throughout his kingdom. A tent was pitched for him in a spacious plain, and a great feast was celebrated for ten or twelve days, with mirth and jollity, guns firing night and day.  At the end of the feast any four of the guests that wished to gain a crown, had to fight their way through 30 or 40,000 of his guards, and kill the Zamorin in his tent. He that succeeded in this attempt became the next Zamorin.

The festival at which the king of Calicut staked his crown and his life on the issue of battle was known as the “Great Sacrifice.” The date of the festival was determined by the position of upiter in the sky. It fell every twelfth year, when the planet Jupiter was in retrograde motion in the sign of the Crab, and it lasted twenty-eight days, culminating at the time of the eighth lunar asterism in the month of Makaram. The ceremony was observed with great pomp at the Tirunavayi temple, on the north bank of the Ponnani River.

A story is told of an incident that took place during the jubilee celebrations held in 1695. That year, there were but three men that would venture on that desperate action. With sword and shield, they took on the king’s guards and began to fight their way to the king. Eventually, after killing and wounding many, they themselves were killed. One of the desperados had a nephew of fifteen or sixteen years of age, that kept close by his uncle in the attack on the guards. When he saw his uncle fall, the youth managed to get through the guards to the King’s tent and made a stroke at his Majesty’s head. The young man would certainly have succeded in his attempt if a large brass lamp which was burning over his head had not marred the blow. But, before he could make another, he was killed by the guards. And the Zamorin kept his throne.

There were many such tragic stories, where following magnificent displays of gallantry and swordsmanship, countless lives were sacrificed to tradition. These were men who were content to die, not for the shadow of a crown, but for the mere sake of proving their dauntless valour and swordsmanship to the world. Yet perhaps no sacrifice is wholly useless which proves that there are men who prefer honour to life.