The traditional dosai dates back at least two millennia, being documented in ancient literature and passed down through the generations, with the South Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka both claiming it as their own. In his book The Story of Our Food, food historian K T Achaya says that King Someshwara III (who ruled parts of the present-day Karnataka state) mentions dosai as “dosaka” in the 12th-Century Sanskrit literary work Manasollasa. However, ancestors of the dosai such as mell adai (a pancake made of lentils and rice) and appam (a rice pancake soaked in coconut milk) were being consumed in the Tamil region much earlier. “Appam and mell adai do find a mention in Madhuraikanchi, a Sangam age literary work from the 3rd or 4th Century,” said Jayakumar S, a researcher of South Indian history and founder of Courtyard Tours. “But, the actual term “dosai” seems to have been added much later into the lexicon.” He further explained that Senthan Divakaram, an ancient Tamil lexicon (some ascribe it to the 10th Century) attributes dosai to one of the varieties of appam that’s often eaten with the coconut milk on the side. Despite any debate over who owns the dosai, chefs from the Udupi region in Karnataka were credited with the crispy version we know now somewhere in the 19th Century. Until then, the dosai was more of a soft, fluffy and lacy crepe.
Meenakshi J, ‘Dosa: India’s wholesome fast food obsession’, BBC