 The idea was to make Chalai bazar the central point for the supply of commodities to the Travancore kingdom.The Killi and Karamana rivers nearby was used to transport goods to the market.However, Mathilakom records of the Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple talk of a large market place that existed ‘near’ the temple, at least a century and a half before.Going further back to the 13th century, the composition Ananthapuravarnanam, which describes the capital city in detail, vividly describes a bustling marketplace with a fish market, textile market, provision market and so on.Merchants used to come in ships to trade at the market.