Say Solmelu

sol · meh · loo

Solmelu is how Tuluvas greet each other. Welcome to the world of the Tuluvas!

The Land & Its Beginnings

A strip of coast between the Western Ghats and the sea, and the myths of how it came to be. Choose a tab to browse.

How Tulunadu Began: the timeline

Read from top to bottom, this is roughly the order in which things happened or were first written down. The spacing is not to scale. The dot shows how firm each entry is.

  • Found or inscribed
  • Scholarly estimate
  • Argued, not settled
  • Myth or living tradition
Deep background (not Tulunadu, and not to scale)

Older than anything dug up on this coast. Tulunadu's own story sits inside it.

  1. About 17,000 to 25,000 years ago

    The oldest mother-goddess figure found in India

    A small figurine from near Prayagraj. Whether it leads to the goddesses of today is argued. Found or inscribed.

  2. From about 5500 BCE

    Clay figures of women at Mehrgarh and later Indus cities

    Thousands of female figures. Scholars disagree about how far they connect to later Shakti worship. Found or inscribed.

  3. 4th millennium BCE

    Proto-Dravidian, the ancestor of Tulu, Tamil and Kannada

    Rebuilt by comparing languages. It starts to split into branches around the 3rd millennium BCE. Scholarly estimate.

Tulunadu's own timeline

  1. About 800 to 700 BCE

    Clay figures near Mudu Konaje

    Eight figures from a dolmen field, including a mother-goddess figure. An archaeologist links them to the later bhuta cult; that is his reading. Found or inscribed.

  2. About 800 BCE

    A burial cave near Ramakunja

    A chamber cut in rock, with a circle engraved above it, reported in 2022. Found or inscribed.

  3. About 500 BCE

    Tulu branches off from its relatives

    Three linguists put the split at about 2,500 years ago. It is an estimate, not read from a text. Scholarly estimate.

  4. 3rd century BCE

    Ashoka's edicts name the Satiyaputras

    Some scholars place that people in this region. The edicts do not name Tulu. Argued, not settled.

  5. About 200 BCE to 200 CE

    Sangam poems name Tulu Nadu and a chieftain, Nannan

    The oldest outside mention of the land. Where Nannan's kingdom lay is argued. Scholarly estimate.

  6. 1st to 2nd century CE

    Greek and Roman writers name the coast

    Pliny, Ptolemy and later writers use names that scholars match to the Netravati, Barkur and Mangaluru. Argued, not settled.

  7. 2nd century CE

    A Greek play with Indian dialogue

    The Charition Mime. Scholars have read its language as early Kannada, early Tulu or a mixture. Argued, not settled.

  8. About 450 CE

    The Halmidi inscription

    Where documents begin: the first clear mention of the Alupa line, as one Wikipedia article puts it. The date and the reading are still open. Found or inscribed.

Undated and still living

These were never dated events, so they have no place on the line above. A date attached to one marks a later sighting, not its beginning.

How Tulunadu Began: Legends, Excavations & Historical Mentions

Legends of the first lord and of a coast that rose from the sea, stones and clay dug from the ground, the language itself: the stories and the evidence of how Tulunadu began.

  • Bermer: The First Lord of Tulunadu

    Long before the great temples, the Tuluvas honoured Bermer, a god their old songs say made the land itself. Today he rides a horse in the garadis, hides behind other names, and still waits in the corners of temples and fields.

    Read more

  • Parashurama and the Coast That Rose from the Sea

    The best-known story of how Tulunadu began says the warrior-sage Parashurama threw his axe into the ocean and the land rose where it fell. It is told the length of the west coast, written into temple legends, and questioned by historians.

    Read more

  • The Mother Goddess: A Worship Older Than the Temples

    Goddesses are everywhere in Tulunadu, from grand temples to village spirits. Some scholars think a worship of the Great Mother lies beneath them all, older than the Vedas. This page sorts what is argued from what is found.

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  • Megalithic Tulunadu: Stones and Clay from Before the Written Word

    Long before any inscription or epic names this coast, people here buried their dead in stone and rock-cut chambers and left clay figures behind. A few recent finds are our only direct glimpse of them.

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  • Where Tulu Came From: The Language Before the Texts

    Tulu is one of the oldest branches of the Dravidian family, but no one has found a 2,500-year-old Tulu text. This page explains how scholars reason about it, and what is still argued.

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  • Before the Alupas: Fragments from Poems, Edicts and Greek Maps

    Before the Alupa kings give Tulunadu its first dated rulers, the coast appears only in glimpses: a Sangam poem, a Greek farce, a few foreign place-names. This page lays out the glimpses and how much weight each can bear.

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Land, Sea & Livelihood

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