It is on record that the Pearl Fishery was going on from the first century after Christian era.

One famous Greek Mariner by the year 80 A.D. went round the whole Arabian Sea from the mouth of the Red Sea to the Bay of Bengal and wrote the details of this circumnavigation in a book known as Periplus Maris. This book describes the Paralia as starting south of Quilon and proceeding to the Korkai emporium through the Cape of Comarin. The ghats ridges are called Pyrrhos. He calls Korkai, the head quarters of the pearl fishery. We have gone through the Christian centuries,but before Christ the Pearl Fishery did exist on the Paralia.

The Geographer Ptolemy who wrote by the year 130 AD assures us that the Korkai emporium is mentioned in all ancient geographies and repeats what has been said by Periplus that the emporium is the headquarters to the King of Pandiya. It has been proved historically that the king of Pandiya had sent an embassy to the Emperor Augustus of Rome.

It is also incontestable that the Greeks were in constant touch with Paralia at least 400 years before Christ. The Embassy of Selukas Nicator to the Pandiya king is an historical fact and Periplus frequently refers to the writings of Megastenes who was the personage deputed by the successor of Alexander the Great, to India by the year 305 BCc . Megastenes narrates what he saw, the pearl fishery is held in the Pandiyan kingdom and the Malabar coast also belongs to Pandiyan king. Had not the Paralia been known to the Greeks, there should have been no reason to send an ambassador to Pandiyan.

We possess historical proof in favour of the acquaintance of the Phonetians with the Paralia in our sacred writings both in the third book of Kings and in the second book of the Paralipomenon. We see Solomon constructed a fleet at Asiongabar on the banks of the Red Sea ;and this fleet, once in three years was going to Ophir with the Phenitians who were the most experienced navigators of the world. Salianus states that Ophir is the same as Taprobanum and we know that Taprobanum is the Greek name of Tambaraparani at the mouth of which stood the emporium of Korkai. Besides in both the aforesaid books, it is stated that the vessels when coming back from Ophir were carrying amongst most valuable products splendid pears, gemmas, precious issimas.

The Queen of Saba or Arabia had also offered to Solomon beautiful pearls , and Marco Polo says that all the pearls of the world were coming from Paralia and that there was constant mercantile exchange between several people of Arabia and the people of Paralia. Again in the same holy books it is said that all the the princes of Arabia were paying tribute to Solomon.

Therefore we are irresistably brought to the conclusion that thousand years before Christ there were fishers of pearls and the sailors of Indian ocean were the inhabitants of the Paralia and the sailors of Indian ocean were inhabitants of the Paralia and were keeping commercial intercourse with the mariners of Phenicia who once in three years were coming for exchanging products.The fact of going along the coast rendered at that time the navigation between the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea most barbarous and tedious. But the Greek Mariner Hippalus having successfully attempted to go straight assisted by South West monsoon , the Greeks from the time were used to go frequently to India. Did the Phenitian navigators exist or learn the profession of mariners before the Paravas , this is what could not be decided historically.Were the Paravars merely a colony of Phoenicians who after the discovery of the richness of
The Gulf of Mannar settled themselves on that coast. This is merely possible but it seems more probable that the discoverers of the pearls were the aboriginal fishers of that coast. None could conceive the fishery of pearls and the Paralia without Paravas.

(Paralia ;- The coast between Trivancore back waters near Kanyakumari and as far as Adams Bridge. )
[The spellings and words are reproduced as found written by Father. Ed]