Father Finicio of Calicut

Father Giacomo Finicio was an Italian priest of the Order of Society of Jesus who lived and died in Calicut in the 16th Century. Born in Capua, Italy in 1588, he joined the Order and, after training, was deputed to Calicut where the Jesuits had established themselves firmly with Portuguese support.

Although the Portuguese had long given up their efforts to locate the mythical King Prester John, a local version of the same chase was being enacted when Finicio reached Calicut. The Syrian Catholic Bishop of Angamaly diocese had received reliable information that some Christians who had strayed from the path were leading a life of neglect and isolation in the Nilgiri Hills. They knew 'nothing of Christianity except the bare name', the report said. Curious about this lost Christian tribe, the Bishop sent in 1602 a team to find out facts and report to him.

The team had a strange composition. Apart from a priest and a deacon, the team also consisted of a cousin of the ruling Zamorin of Calicut. The mission was, however, a failure as it could not locate any such community.

It was then that the Bishop turned to Father Finicio of Calicut for help. A team under the Father set out in 1603, consisting of six Nairs, four Christians and the Zamorin's cousin who had been on the previous mission.

Finicio and party travelled from Calicut to Tanur and then to Mannarkkad. From there they trekked to Chavadiyur. After three days of strenuous trekking through the Attappadi and Sundappatti hills they reached Melur, a Badaga village in the Nilgiris.

At the end of the trip all that Father Finicio and his team could find was a tribe of innocent Badagas and Todas who worshipped the buffalo. The pious priest stayed among the Todas for two months braving the biting cold, trying to convince the Todas on how they could be saved by becoming Christians. In return, the head priest of the Todas extolled on the virtues of the Bufalo God!

Fr. Finicio might have failed in converting the Todas, but he contributed greatly by telling the world outside about the existence of such a tribe. More important, his report dissuaded further attempts at their conversion till at least for the next 200 years when the Basel Mission went up the Blue Mountain.

Fr. Finicio was the first westerner to locate the Todas and to provide a satisfactory ethnographic account of the community. Anthropologists have acknowledged his pioneering contribution. Finicio died in Calicut in 1632.

400 years after the Finicio Expedition, a group of some 20 adventurers under the auspices of an environmental NGO, Save Nilgiris Campaign, retraced the 'Finicio Trail' in 2004. Their account can be read athttp://hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2004/02/22/stories/2004022200130200.htm

Syphilisation of Calicut

When Vasco Da Gama reached Calicut, his audience with the Zamorin was delayed as the gifts he had brought with him were considered worthless by the Palace hangers-on. In place of gold and precious stones, the visitor had brought cheap trinklets and wash basins! It took all the charm that Gama was capable of to persuade them to permit him to have an audience.

But, while the Nairs and Muslim merchants were squabbling over the gifts, Gama's mariners were distributing a gift among the women folk which their husbands would remember for a long time. Starved of female company for more than a year, the Portuguese sailors rushed to the fleshpots of Calicut -there were many, according to contemporary accounts- and infected the Calicut women with the dreaded Great Pox, as Syphilis was then known.

Syphilis was a relatively new disease, but one which was spreading with devastating outcome, much like the AIDS during the late 1980s. Its origin is disputed (as indeed of HIV/AIDS) but most agree that it flared up in Europe during the last decade of the 15th century. The first reported epidemic was in the Spanish port city of Cadiz to which Columbus had returned in 1493 and had dismissed his crew. The expedition had reportedly picked it up from Haiti. Within the next 15 years the disease had killed 10 million people in Europe.

It was Ludvico Di Varthema, the Italian adventurer who had reported the spread of Syphilis in Calicut in 1505 - just 7 years after Gama had landed. Varthema called it the 'French' disease, although the French were to reach the shores of Calicut much later. Varthema being Italian, called it the French disease, as it was known in Italy and Germany. The French, however, called it the Italian disease. The Turkish called it the Christian disease or the Frank disease from which the Malayalam name Parangippunnu came about.

The disease did spread quickly, and if Varthema were to be believed, it did not even spare the ruling Zamorin, Manavikrama Raja (1500-1513). Varthema could not meet the Zamorin in 1505, 'in consequence of his being at war with the King of Portugal and also because he had the French disease and had it in the throat'.

The Ruler of Calicut was in august company: King Henry VIII, who had been crowned King of England in 1509, was also suffering from Syphilis and had passed on the disease to all his children, except the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I.

Varthema attempts to soften the blow of his revelation: You must know that I have seen the disease three thousand miles beyond Calicut, and it is called 'pua' and they say it is about seventeen years since it began, and it is much worse than ours.

Whether the Zamorin did indeed have Syphilis or not, we can say on the testimony of Alfonso de Albuquerque that he died of poisoning. Writing to the King of Portugal shortly after the death of the Zamorin in 1513, Albuquerque calimed credit for this: I hold it for certain that the Nambiadiri slew the Zamorin with poison, because in all my letters I bid him do so and that in a peace treaty I will come to an agreement with him...

Albuquerque died in 1515 in Goa and there is no record of his having paid back the Nambiadiri. Just possible that the Zamorin did indeed die of Syphilis and the Portuguese general was claiming credit! Anyhow, the era of syphilisation of Calicut had begun with the first Portuguese mariner rolling in the Calicut sand!

The Land of Many Hills

Calicut is famous as an ancient Port City, also known during the Zamorins' heyday as The City of Truth. But one would not ordinarily describe Calicut as a city of many hills - till one gets either an aerial view of the city as the plane maneuvers to land on the Karippur runway OR a view of the city from the Arabian Sea in an approaching ship or boat.

This is the view described by early mariners who would approach the shores of Calicut. They would first sight the Nilgiri hills at a distance and Wynad hills further to the north. As one gets closer, the undulating hillocks in and around Calicut come into focus. This is the impression of Calicut port as portrayed in contemporary paintings and engravings of the 15th - 18th Centuries. The accompanying engraving which figures in the Oriental Memoirs by Forbes (1810) is an instance.

A graphic description of Calicut from the sea is provided by Richard Burton in his book, Goa and the Blue Mountains (1851) : Seen from the sea, all the towns on

this coast (of Calicut) look like straggling villages, with a background of distant blue hill and a middle space of trees, divided by a strip of sand from the watery plain. He explains further what he meant by the 'distant blue hill' in a foot note : The mountains distinctly visible from the sea off Calicut in clear weather, are the Koondah range of the Neilgherries, or Blue Hills.

Come to think of it, Calicut has a large number of places with 'hill' suffixed - the most obvious are West Hill, East Hill, Silver Hills and Florican Hills (Florican, incidentally is a bird of the bustard family which is virtually extint now in Calicut). Then there are the vernacular names : Pokkunnu, Eravath kunnu, Katcheri kunnu, Kariyakkunnu, Kalathilkunnu etc.

Interestingly, there is an ancient Nair family in Calicut called Palakunnath (literally, Of Many Hills). Its original location is near Chevaur (Kovoor) and the many branches of this family used to hold possession of several hillocks around stretching from Chathamangalam to Kuttikkattor.

Today, the hillocks of Calicut have been overshadowed by the high-rise apartments, as seen in the accompanying picture!

Gama Ko Gussa Kyon Aaya? (What Made Gama Angry?)

A 17th Century engraving of vasco Da Gama

Although Gama was feted in Lisbon as the conqueror of the east, he was still seething with ager at the lukewarm reception that he got from the Zamorin and the hostile treatment at the hands of the Moors. The instructions to the second expedition led by Cabral were clear and unambiguous: if the Zamorin would not quietly consent or give sufficient lading to the ships, he should wage cruel war upon him for his injurious conduct to Vasco Da Gama.

Cabral's impetuous actions further eroded what little goodwill the Portuguese had in Calicut. Cabral's report on his return to Portugal was not very encouraging, but King Manuel was still hopeful that apart from financial rewards from the voyage, it would also bring spiritual dividends through conversion of the infidels into Christianity. He turned once again to the great Captain Major, Vasco Da Gama to lead another expedition. Thus it was that Gama landed in Calicut once again on the 29th October 1502 - eager to wreak vengeance on a people who had fooled him into believing themselves to be Christians.

This time, there was no mistaking, for he was carrying on board Catholic priests to ensure that the heathens were shown the true path. King Manuel had also made his intentions clear: in a despatch to India he wrote - we are sending (in this expedition) religious persons and men well-versed in the Christian faith and religion that they may celebrate the divine worship and administer the sacraments, so that you may be able to see for yourselves what is our religion and faith which was established by Jesus Christ.

Gama's cruelty to the people of Calicut has been characterised by the Encyclopedia Brittanica (1953 edition) as 'savagery too horrible to describe'. He set the standards for dealing with the heathens in the name of the Chruch. Sir James Tennant, in his work, Ceylon quotes from a contemporary account of Portuguese cruelty : Jerome Azavido, a soldier less distinguished by his prowess than infamous for his cruelties, was despatched to Ceylon in 1594 to avenge the iniquities endured by his fellow countrymen ... In the height of his success there, he beheaded mothers after forcing them to cast their babies between millstones... He caused soldiers to take up children on the point of spears... He caused many men to be cast off the bridge at Malwane for the troops to see the crocodiles devour them, and these creatures grew so used to the food, that at a whistle they would lift their heads above the water!

Portuguese government was shamed into punishing Commander Azavido. Sitting in his Lisbon dungeon, Azavido pondered upon the fickleness of a system that condoned similar behaviour earlier by a patriot called Vasco Da Gama but used him as a scapegoat to appease public conscience!

Not too long after the massacre and the vigorous effort to Christianise India, landed Francis Xavier, the co-founder (along with Ignatius Loyola) of the Society of Jesus. He was scandalised as much by the Jewish wickedness of not observing the Sabbath as by the Muslim abhorrence for pork and Roman Catholics.

He was kept so busy converting the heathens of Malabar (Cape Comorin area) into Christianity, that he wrote in one of his prolific letters: ... it often happens to me to be hardly able to use my hands from the fatigue of baptizing; often in a single day I have baptised whole villages. Sometimes I have lost my voice and strength altogether with repeating again and again the Credo and the other forms.

He realised the truth of the dictum, catch 'em young, and recruited infants and young children into the proselytising mission. He wrote: The fruit that is reaped by the baptism of infants, as well as by the instruction of children and others, is quite incredible. These children, I trust heartily, by the grace of God, will be much better than their fathers. They show an ardent love for the Divine law, and an extraordinary zeal for learning our holy religion and imparting it to others. Their hatred for idolatry is marvellous. They get into feuds with the heathen about it, and whenever their own parents practise it, they reproach them and come off to tell me at once. Whenever I hear of any act of idolatrous worship, I go to the place with a large band of these children, who very soon load the devil with a greater amount of insult and abuse than he has lately received of honor and worship from their parents, relations, and acquaintances. The children run at the idols, upset them, dash them down, break them to pieces, spit on them, trample on them, kick them about, and in short heap on them every possible outrage.

source: Wikipedia

Not content with this, Francis Xavier wrote on May 16, 1545, to D Joao II, King of Portugal: The second necessity for Christians is that your majesty establish the Holy Inquisition, because there are many who live according to the Jewish Law and according to the Mahomedan sect, without fear of God or shame of the world.

The anger of Gama at being duped by the Malabaris into believing them to be Christians, seems to have played out for a long time, leading to frequent massacre of innocent lives and forced conversion. Trade was all but forgotten in this proselytising zeal. This perhaps hastened the eclipse of Portugal after 1580 when it became part of the Spanish empire and inherited all the traditional enemies of Spain like the Netherlands and England.

How Calicut Remained 'Christian' for Three Years

Even after the Crusades had ended, its spirit pervaded much of Christendom in the Europe of the 14th and 15th Centuries. On this was superimposed the jealousy at the unholy alliance between the Venetian-Genoese cartels and the Moors and Persians who, between them, had monopolised the profitable trade in spices from the east.

No wonder, then, that the mandate given to both Christopher Columbus and Vasco Da Gama was identical: re-discover the fabled Indies of Marco Polo; convert the natives to Christianity and bring home spices which were essential for preserving meat in winter.

Prester John (source: Wikipedia)

Vasco Da Gama had a clearer mandate as regards Christians. He was to locate and make friends with the legendary Prester John, the Christian King of the East who was believed to be the descendant of one of the three Magi. This mythical King had occupied the imagination of the crusading Europeans ever since the 12th Century. Christendom had long dreamt of this champion of Christianity who would deliver them from the advance of Islam. Although his exact domain was in the realm of speculation, it was thought that it extended from Babylon to the Indies.

The Papal Bull dated 4th May 1493 (further clarified by the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494) had effectively partitioned the world between Spain and Portugal and since the latter was given the eastern part, it was in the fitness of things that the exporer of the east, Vasco Da Gama, should be carrying a letter to King Prester John from King Manuel of Portugal!

Vasco Da Gama who was looking for Christians found them wherever he went. While his fleet was anchored at the East African Port of Malindi, he noticed four vessels in the harbour which were said to belong to 'Indian Christians' - who curiously did not like to eat beef! Some of these 'Christians' boarded the Portuguese ship Sao Raphael and prostrated themselves before an altar-piece 'representing Our Lady at the foot of the Cross with Jesus Christ in her arms and the apostles around her'.

Again, in Calicut, no sooner had he embarked on his first trip in a palanquin to meet the Zamorin, and where should he find himself - in a shrine of Santa Maria. For, he had no doubt in his mind that the Durga Temple at Puthoor on the northern boundary of Calicut was a beautiful shrine dedicated to Our Lady, and he bowed reverentially before the altar and received the sprinkling of the holy water from the priest. It was left to the humble clerk of Sao Raphael to doubt whether the grotesque pictures of 'saints' on the shrine's walls were indeed oriental representation of Christian martyrs. Even while following the Captain Major in bowing down, he was heard to mutter a prayer :If these be the devils, I worship the true God!

The triumphant return of Vasco was much celebrated in Portugal - for not only had he found the source of spices but had forged an alliance with the Christian King of Calicut. Pedro Alvares Cabral who led the next expedition to India was also briefed that the King of Calicut was 'Christian', but an 'imperfect one'.

Within a month of the return of Vasco Da Gama to Lisbon, King Manuel was writing to Ferdinand and Isabella (of Spain) : The Christian people whom these explorers reached are not as yet strong in the faith, nor thoroughly conversant with it....But when they shall have been fortified in the faith, there will an opportunity to destroy the Moors of those regime...

King Manuel did take the business of 'fortification of the faith' of the Zamorin and his subjects quite seriously. The fleet of Cabral was carrying some Christian priests who would teach the people of Calicut true faith. In his letter to the Zamorin which Cabral was carrying, Manuel wrote, as one Christian King to another: (God) considers Himself better served by the fact that the holy Christian faith is communicated and joined between you and us as it was for six hundred years after the coming of Jesus Christ, until there arose some sects and contrary heresies as predicted...and these sects occupy a great part of the Earth between your land and ours. Here was the King of Portugal attempting to 'de-toxify' the Zamorin from the heresies of the Mappilas and the Arabs!

That this fiction of a Christian Calicut was maintained for a couple of years in Portugal is evident from the correspondence of Girolamo Sernigi, an Italian investor with business interests in Lisbon. In one of his letters he wrote to Florence on the basis of information gathered from the first ship in Gama's convoy that Calicut was peopled by Christians, although rather odd ones: In this city are churches with bells but there are no priests, and the divine offices are not performed, nor masses celebrated, but in each church there is a pillar holding water in the manner of the fonts holding our holy water, and a second pillar with balm.

He added, this King of Calicut eats neither meat nor fish nor anything that has been killed, nor do his barons, courtiers or other persons of quality, for they say that Jesus Christ said in his law that he who kills shall die.

However, the deception could not be continued for long. The truth came out in the most dramatic fashion. There was a Polish Jew, a trader from Alexandria who spoke fluent Venetian. He was in the service of the Muslim Sultan of Bijapur. He was found by the Portuguese back in India roaming around the Portuguese vessels with an intention to spy on them. He was caught and flogged till he confessed. He was carried by the Portuguese with the returning fleet, was converted to Christianity and later did yeoman service to Potugal as Gaspar da Gama. Vasco Da Gama was so pleased with him that he agreed to be his Godfather and lent his surname!

Although Gaspar publicly repeated the official version about Christian Calicut, the Jew who was forcibly converted to Christianity wanted to take revenge by leaking the truth.

When the story of Calicut came out from the mouth of Gaspar, it must have created quite a commotion in diplomatic and ecclesiastical circles. Our Florentine investor could be seen to quickly correct himself in his subsequent letter, quoting none other than Gaspar himself: He says that in those countries there are many gentiles, that is idolators, and only a few Christians, that the supposed Chruches and belfries are in reality temples of idolators and that the pictures within them are those of idols and not of saints. To me this seems more probable than saying that there are Christians but no divine ministrations, no priests and no sacrificial mass. He does not believe that there are any Christians of account other than some so called Jacobites and those of the Prester John, who is far from Calicut on this side of the gulf of Arabia.

The mood in Lisbon was upbeat after the return of Da Gama and they did not spare other nationalities. The joke making the rounds was that now that a new trade route had been discovered, Venetians would soon have to become fishermen, as they had no future in trade. The eagerness of the Florentine to puncture the ego could have been jealousy at the Portuguese achievement. If so, Sernigi was not alone - there was a fellow Florentine who felt the same way. Amerigo Vespucci wrote to his patron Lorenzo de Medici in 1500, deprecating the fuss being made about Vasco Da Gama's so called discovery:Such a voyage as that I do not call discovery, but merely a going to discovered lands, since as you will see by the map, they navigate continually in sight of land, and sail along the southern part of Africa, which is to proceed upon a way discussed by all the authorities in cosmography.

Facts support Vespucci - Da Gama had taken the same chief pilot who had accompanied Bartholomeo Diaz and was familiar with the route till the Cape; from Malindi Da Gama took the veteran pilot Ibn Majid. Where, indeed, was the discovery? Christians in Calicut??

Reference:

Sanjay Subrahmaniam : Career and Legend of Vasco Da Gama, CUP

Joan-Pau Rubies: Travels and Ethnology in the Renaissance South India through Eurpoean Eyes, 2002, CUP

Zamorin's Wars Abroad II

The Zamorin's forces - mostly the navy under the Marakkars - were deployed outside Calicut's territories on the western coast during the first half of the 16th Century. One such instance was in defence of the brave Queen of Ullal, Abbakkadevi - a story which our north-centric historians have largely ignored.

Our knowledge about Queen Abbakka and her valiant fight against the Portuguese comes mostly from Arab and Portuguese sources. It appears the Italian traveller Pietro Della Valle who toured India during this period had heard about the brave queen from no less a person that the Persian Emperor Shah Abbas who was all praise for the queen's courage in foiling the Portuguese bid to occupy the Ullal Port. (The accompanying picture commemorates Pietro meeting the Queen)

After the fall of Vijayanagar in 1565 the region was fragmented, with many local chieftains asserting sovereignty. Thus came into being on the western coast alone, several tiny prinicipalities like the Santras of Karkala, Bangas of Mangalore, Sawants of Mulki, Chowthas of Mudibidri, Ajilas of Venur etc.

The Chowthas of Mudibidri were a Jain ruling dynasty, although their family deity was Somanatheswara of Ullal, a Hindu temple. Ullal was the most important port of the principality and Rani Abbakkadevi II was crowned the Queen of Ullal by her uncle, Thirumala Raya, in the tradition of the matrilineal system which the Chowthas followed. She was given in marriage to Lakshmappa Bangaraja of the mighty Banga dynasty of Mangalore. But the political alliance did not last long and the Rani left her pro-Portuguese husband and shifted to Ullal with her three minor children. Her husband did not forgive her for this, as subsequent events would show.

The Portuguese who had established themselves in Goa were plotting to expand southwards and re-establish their monopoly of the spice trade by trying to subjugate the coastal rulers. They were able to win over the Mangalore Prince by offering sops, but the Rani of Ullal would not give in. Ullal Port was a prosperous trade centre and used to export spices and other produce to the Middle East under the protection of the Zamorin's fleet. Often goods from these ports were transported and aggregated in Calicut for export.

The Portuguese seized one of Ullal's ships in mid-sea in 1555 and Abbakka retaliated by attacking the Portuguese factory in Mangalore. Although the Potuguese responded in force, Abbakka managed to organise a band of Mogaveer (fishermen) raiders aided by Moplah soldiers to raid Portuguese warships at night and set them afire, killing any sailor who attempted to jump out into the sea.

After an interval, the Portuguese again rose against the Queen in 1568 (? the dates are a bit hazy in the Abbakka story), worried by the increased volume of trade through Ullal port which did not honour the Protuguese system of cartaz. They issued an order that her alliance with the Zamorin was illegal and that her direct trade with Persia was an unfriendly act. When the Portuguese finally attacked again, the queen defended her territory valiantly and preferred to die fighting rather than surrender to the enemy. (There is a Portuguese version which says that she was captured but died fighting while in captivity - much like the contemporary 'encounter' stories put out by our Police!)

The Zamorin's General Kutty Pokkar Marakkar led the naval forces in this final battle against the Portuguese and managed to destry their fort at Mangalore. But he was killed by the Portuguese while returning triumphantly from Mangalore.

It is sad that so little is known about the efforts of the Zamorins to maintain free trade on the seas against attempts to monopolise by the Portuguese, the Dutch and finally by the English. These wars of attrition went on till spices lost their importance and territorial colonisation took over. This perhaps explains why the English colonial historians did not highlight these battles. We hope the Kerala historians take up these strands and provide flesh and blood to the skeletal history of Calicut!

Zamorin's Wars Abroad

Historians of Calicut have dwelt at length on the internecine wars which the Zamorin had fought with other rulers in Kerala, leading in many cases to mutually assured destruction. Some of these stories may be apocryphal such as the 48 year-war which the Nediyiruppu Eradi (who later on became the Zamorin) fought against the Porlathiri - a narrative replete more with details of marital infidelity than with martial valour!

We also have detailed accounts of the Zamorin's annexation of much of Valluvanad by propitiating the Thirumandhamkunnu Bhagawati. The wars with Cochin which occurred regularly have been well-documented. The occasional forays into Kolathiri and Palakkad territories - the last one proving fatal - are also described in considerable detail.

However, we do not find mention of the wars that the Zamorin's forces waged beyond the Indian shores or of the battles fought in territories not contiguous with the Zamorin borders.

We discuss briefly one episode of the Zamorin fighting a war abroad.

Sri Lanka was unified as one island kingdom by King Parakramabahu VI of the Kotte Kingdom in the early 15th century. But this did not last long, as the Jaffna kingdom had revolted in 1467 leading up to a break up. The threat from the Portuguese ( who had landed in the island in 1501) increased with a large fleet landing at Colombo in 1518 and their attempt to build a fort there named Santa Barbara.

Finally, a palace coup by the King's sons led to his deposition in 1521 and the break up of the kingdom into three independent units of Kotte, Sitawaka and Raigama. The powerful Kandy kingdom remained outside as an independent kingdom, as it did during most of Parakramabahu's reign.

Vijayabahu VII (1509-21) who had deposed Parakramabahu perceived that the growing power of the Portuguese would be a threat to his kingdom and, instigated by the Mappilas who shared the same threat perception, appealed to the Zamorin for help in driving away the foreign power.

But the sagacious ruler of Calicut (1513-1522) had signed a treaty in December 1513 with the Portuguese and would not like to upset the understanding which recognised the new reality of a declining influence of the Moors and the need to accept the reality of the European traders. The Zamorin refused to intervene.

Bhuvanekabahu VII who inherited the truncated Kotte kingdom was apprehensive too, this time of his brother Mayadunne who was ruling the neighbouring kingdom of Sitawaka. There is little that remains of the kingdom of Sitawaka today except the ruins of a fort and a 'kovila' in modern day Avissawella town. But when it was founded by Mayadunne, it was a land-locked territory with no access to the port of Colombo for its rich agricultural produce.

Although the Potuguese could not complete the construction of Santa Barbara fort due to local resistance, they had been permitted to station an agent at Kotte under royal protection to watch their trading interest and to counter the Mappila domination of the cinnamon trade.

In 1526, the war between the brothers broke out again and now it was the turn of Mayadunne, the ruler of Sitawaka to seek the help of the Zamorin. The wise ruler who had brought peace and prosperity to Calicut by signing the treaty with the Portuguese in 1513 had passed away in 1522. (It was a different matter that the Portuguese had reneged on the clauses of the treaty as soon as they had completed the construction of their fort at Kallayi.)

The new Zamorin was not too friendly towards the Portuguese who had annoyed everyone by their treacherous acts. The period between 1524 and 1540 (when a new treaty was signed with the Portuguese at Ponnani) was an era of turbulence in the history of Calicut - an era which witnessed the brief reappearance of Vasco da Gama only to die in Cochin and the barbarities of Viceroys like Menezes and Sampayo.

Silawaka's first foray against Kotte was in 1528 when the Zamorin's forces also fought alongside. But this and the next attack in 1537 were repulsed by the Kotte forces aided by the Portuguese. The Mahavamsa (expanded with the inclusion of the Culavamsa) which is the recorded chronicle of Sri Lankan history, describes the second war thus:

It was in 1537 AD. This time the Zamorin sent help to King Mayadunne. He sent 51 warships, 500 guns and 200 soldiers....Zamorin's armies were stationed in Vedalayi close to Rameshwaram. When Souza (the Portuguese admiral from Goa) discovered this, he began to attack them. This developed into a great sea battle. In the battle, the Zamorin armies were defeated....Whatever gifts the Zamorin had sent to King Mayadunne were also seized by the Portuguese'.

Third and final assault on Kotte took place in 1539 in which the Zamorin's force supported the Sitawaka army. The attack was yet again repulsed by the Portuguese Captain-General Miguel Ferreira who dealt a body blow to the Zamorin forces by capturing his two generals - Kulhena Marikkar and Pachi Marikkar.

The Zamorin's forays beyond the shores of Calicut were confined to the brief period between 1524 and 1540 which represented a difficult period in the relationship with the Portuguese - an era which covered the expulsion of the Portuguese from Calicut in 1525, building of the Chaliyam fort in 1531 and continuous war on land and sea between 1531 and 1540 culminating the Ponnani Treaty which was signed in 1540.

(Zamorin's army had participated in other wars outside its territory - details in the forthcoming post.)

Reference:

Wikipedia article on Sitawaka

Zamorins of Calicut by KV Krishna Ayyar

Logan's Manual

http://the sundaytimes.lk dated 12 July 2009