“So you could steal from him the only thing he would never give you — the ring with the jewel men call the Star of Khorala — the star stolen from the queen of Ophir, who would pay a roomful of gold for its return.”

–”The Man-Eaters of Zamboula”

Like Kyros, Khorala is something of a mystery in the Hyborian Age. It doesn’t have hints and references spread through Howard’s work like eastern Khitai, nor does it even have contextual evidence like Sabatea. There is no definite quantification of its nature: is Khorala a place, a person, a state of being? Looking into history, there are clues to be found. With a bit of application, one could make some intriguing suppositions about Khorala, and the place it has in the Hyborian Age.

Though an argument could be made that Khorala is a (Hyborian era) historical person, a god, a mythological being, or even some fancy word for “heaven” or “the plane of inner peace,” my hunch for Khorala’s identity is a place. The name Khorala is heavily Indo-European in tone: “Khor” appears everywhere from Turkey to Thailand: Khorasan, Khorugh, Khorramabad, Khorramshahr, Khor Virap, even the name Khor itself. There are over forty places with “khor” in their names in Afghanistan. Khor in Howard’s “King of the Forgotten People” is located in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. The Hyborian Age has its own variants: Khoraja on the Kothian border, Khorosun in Turan, Khorbul in Ghulistan, the Khorotas River in Aquilonia, and Khorshemish in Koth, found all across the continent. From that point of view, Khorala could be anywhere from Aquilonia to Vendhya and everywhere in between. Is there any way to narrow it down?

One clue is in the name. Many famous named jewels are named for places: the Star of Africa, for instance. The Star of India and the Star of Bombay (pictured right) are two “star sapphires” noted for the unusual star-shaped structures in the gem. It isn’t said what kind of jewel the Star of Khorala is, all that is mentioned is a gleam that “snared the starlight in a shimmering iridescence.” Iridescence is a phenomenon found in opals, topaz, moonstone, feldspar, or ammolites, though it could also be a mysterious gem unique to the Hyborian Age like the Puntan fire-stones alluded to in “Red Nails.”

There’s also phonetic transliterations. Howard was fond of altering letters of historical places into a new form: Khorshemish from Carchemish, for example. A possible candidate for “Hyborianisation” is Kerala, the homeland of the Malayali people, and part of the ancient Chera Dynasty. The Chera Dynasty is well known to historians for being trade partners with the ancient European civilizations.

I’m uncertain if Howard knew about Kerala and the Chera Dynasty specifically, but he certainly had a great knowledge of Indian history reflected in his work: lost Nagdragore of “The King’s Service,” the eastern adventures of El Borak and Kirby O’Donnell, not to mention the many parallels with India in his Vendhya. His letters also reveal his wealth of information, including theories on the Dravidian origin of the Elamites (which has some support in modern linguistics), a fascination with the Mongols’ invasions of India, and references to an “old interest in India.” One of his many desired subjects for historical fiction was an account of Babur “the Tiger,” the founder of the Mughal Empire of India. I certainly think there’s a possibility Howard knew of Kerala.

All things considered, I’m of the opinion that Khorala is in the east, specifically in the region of Vendhya. First, the “Khor-” name has precedence in the region. Secondly, the idea of the Queen of Ophir having a gemstone from an exotic, faraway local seems to fit with similar stars in history–such as the aforementioned Star of Bombay. The phonetic similarity to Kerala is the third and strongest link, and the primary reason I would consider a location in or near Vendhya as opposed to, say, Koth or Aquilonia. So, if Khorala is indeed in the region of the Devis, whereabouts is it? I’m reluctant to place it in Vendhya itself, since there is no mention of it in “The People of the Black Circle.” However, that story does offer a neat group in which to place it: the Golden Kingdoms.

“As the girl’s mind cleared, her first sensations were furious rage and shame. She was appalled. The rulers of the golden kingdoms south of the Himelians were considered little short of divine; and she was the Devi of Vendhya!”

–”The People of the Black Circle”

Save for that sentence, these mysterious golden kingdoms are never referred to again. The Himelians of the Hyborian Age were the primal ancestors of the Himalayas, with “The People of the Black Circle” taking place in what would become the Hindu Kush range. Of these nations south of the Himelians, only Vendhya appears to be named: what, then, were the rest? There is a possible counterpart to the golden kingdoms in history: the Mahajanapadas, or “great realms,” was a name given to a number of important nations mentioned in Buddhist historical texts. Kerala was not one of the sixteen nations of the Anguttara Nikaya; however, it was counted among the Janapadas–predecessors of the Mahajanapadas–in the legendary sanskrit epic, the Ramayana. I think Khorala fits the bill nicely: this way, it’s in roughly the same historical region as Kerala, just as Vendhya is in what would become India, and both can be considered “golden kingdoms” just as Kerala was a Janapada.

Since Kerala is in the western portion of India, it would follow that Khorala is west of Vendhya. Kerala has a mythological foundation, in the warrior-wizard Parashurama. Parashurama is surely a Howardian kinda guy. He was one of the ten avatars of Vishnu, whose name means “Ram with Axe. ” His foes were the Kshatriyas, the ruling cast of India, and he was born in order to relieve the oppressed from their arrogant and cruel reign: the devastating wars that ensued were gargantuan. Parashurama himself filled five lakes with the blood of fallen Kshatriya. His heart heavy with guilt from his bloodshed, Parashurama sought penance for the wholesale slaughter of the Kshatriya kings. His absolution: all the lands he had conquered would be given to the Brahmins, the priestly caste of India.

Parashurama hurled his battle-axe into the sea, and a great stretch of land rose from the water: this land would become Kerala. It’s easy to see a Hyborian analogue here, where the geological upheaval of the Cataclysm would be dimly remembered in folklore and legend, possibly resulting in a similar myth–one that could have persisted into modern times. The wars between Parashurama and the Kshatriya may well be based on actuality. Just as Howard’s account of the Norse Ragnarok was turned into a prehistoric war which was viewed through the foggy lense of folk memory in “The Valley of the Worm,” could the origin theory of Kerala have a similar basis in Hyborian “fact”? Might Parashurama have been a warrior-king of a people akin to the early Vendhyans, who battled with the early Kshatriyas of Vendhya, before settling in a newly surfaced land?

If Khorala is anything like its modern namesake, it is a land of rich biodiversity, glorious landscapes and mighty rivers: the Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve is a world heritage site. Elephants play a central role in Kerala culture; it would be fitting for it to be the same in Khorala. One can only wonder at the flora and fauna that might’ve haunted the rainforests and mountains of the land: perhaps some giving rise to later Indian mythological beings like the dreaded vampiric Yakshis? One of Khorala’s most ancient and revered traditions is Koodiyattam, a dance believed to be over 2,000 years old: could it have origins in the Hyborian Age?

Khorala’s placement west of Vendhya would place it as an important trade hub between east and west, either forming a land barrier between Vendhya and Iranistan, or as a coastal region. In the latter case, it could be a port on a Hyborian Age equivalent of the Sindhu Sagar, connecting trade with Iranistan, Zembabwei and beyond. Perhaps, like its descendant, it was a major exporter of spices: Kerala was one of the busiest ports in the world, and it influenced trade throughout the globe. This would naturally make it a tantalizing target for pirates: the Red Brotherhood might have a branch prowling the “Bay of Khorala,” perhaps with a certain Cimmerian among the plunderers. It could even be the milieu of a Hyborian Age Sinbad, seeing as the original Arabian legend traveled throughout the modern counterpart of this region.

The historical Kerala, like many smaller states packed next to other smaller states throughout history, constantly warred with its neighbours: in Kerala’s case, The Chola Empire and the Pandyan Dynasty, while it was part of the Chera Empire. Was Khorala similarly sanguinary, or did it rely on trade to keep the peace? If it came to matters of war, I wouldn’t doubt Khorala had the resources to defend itself, either through mercenaries funded by their speculative spice trade, or home grown soldiers. Kerala had a hand in the downfall of the Dutch East India Company at the Battle of Colachel, one of the first times a European force was defeated in battle by a South Asian one. If Khoralan elephants were as great a part of daily life as they are in Kerala, they might even be found in Khorala’s armies.

L. Sprague De Camp came to a similar conclusion as myself: his Khorala is indeed found in what would become the Indian subcontinent. However, rather than make them one of the “golden kingdoms,” De Camp chose instead to make it a ancient, ruined city akin to Burrough’s Opar, or Vijayanagar today. While I can’t really fault De Camp’s decision on speculative grounds, I think it would’ve been a great opportunity to flesh out the Hyborian Age without resorting to making up names wholesale. It also means that when the time came to give Vendhya a neighbor, he could’ve used a name that actually appeared in a Howard story, instead of making one from whole cloth–like Uttara Kuru, who happens to be an “ancient foe of Vendhya” even though we never hear about them in “The People of the Black Circle.” Or Venjipur, aka ‘Namallagori, of the infamous Conan the Hero. Wouldn’t linking a name to a real, original Howard story like “The Man-Eaters of Zamboula” and, by extension, “The People of the Black Circle,” add that extra bit of resonance and power, instead of just keeping it as a piece of throwaway fluff linked to a ring?

Khorala is just one of those “missed opportunities” I think De Camp fell prey to in his pastiches. So many footballs Howard hurled into his stories, so many De Camp didn’t catch, or even notice flying in the air. When he wasn’t dumping them in Shem as he did with Akbitana, Kyros, Ghaza and Sabatea–Hyrkania in the case of “Bakhaurus”–he was ignoring them or wasting them. I suppose it’s all a matter of taste, but I would prefer to flesh out one of Howard’s countries through imagination than relegate it to a “lost city” status without context or even a reason for it. Perhaps if Conan went on a journey to jungle-lost Khorala, it would justify it–but he didn’t, neither in a pastiche nor any comic I’m aware of. Khorala only appears in passing in “The Star of Khorala” and Conan the Raider, in addition. Poor Khorala is relegated to “also ran” status, while entire novels are spent in Venjipur, Drujistan, Uttara Kuru, Kambuja, Kushan and other original creations.

Yet as I’ve shown, it would be so easy to flesh out the names in Howard stories into a fairly rounded, solid entity, with resonance through history and mythology, with the added bonus of being connected to honest-to-Crom REH material. Of course, since Howard never wrote any of this, it certainly doesn’t occupy any sort of canon: all I can hope is that it shows how anything REH didn’t specify is fair game, no matter how “official” the work is. Why settle for what De Camp, or Thomas, or Funcom, or what I just wrote, when you can use your own imagination? This is what Khorala is to me: whether it’s Khorala to you, or whether it’s still the lost city of Conan the Raider, or something else entirely, is part of the magic of Robert E. Howard.