Samantan Nairs, Kiriyathi Nairs, Illathu Nairs and Swaroopathi Nairs were Kshatriya warrior class of Kerala. The notable exception to that scholarly consensus is the sociologist Louis Dumont. Casting out the person from the caste was the punishment for disobeying the caste rules regarding pollution and in some cases sold into slavery and even death. Even though they were warriors, they were kept below the Brahmins in the Indian Hindu caste system since the Brahmins are the holy priests. Castes like Yadav, Jat, Gurjar, Brahmin, Pandit, Kshatriya, Lodhi and Maurya appear to be competing with each other in asserting their dominant social or political status by putting the caste and sub-caste name tags on their SUVs, cars, motorcycles and other vehicles. Many slaves also converted to Christianity in Cochin and Travancore during this period. Nambudiri Brahmins formed the priestly class, and never recognized any other Brahmin community as true Brahmins. - Among the Kshatriya (warrior) class, the Nayar caste was predominant on the Malabar coast. They are similar to the Bands , Nagavanshi Rajputs and Jats. Anyone who was not a Nambudiri was treated by them as an untouchable. Kshatriya is the second Varna within the social hierarchy. These classifications determine what - if any - assistance a caste community receives in any given area. The Kshatriya are spread in all and every corner of India. [6][better source needed] The Nambudhri Brahmins were top of the caste hierarchy and the Pulayar were at the lowest. [19], The rules of untouchability were severe to begin with, and they were very strictly enforced among Hindu communities by the time of the arrival of the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century. According to Buchanan, the Nairs killed not only the Pulayars but any member of the other lower polluting castes, including the Ezhavas. [20], According to an estimate by Dr. Francis Buchanan in 1801 AD, 41,367 persons out of the 292,366 populations were slaves in the south, central and Northern divisions of the Malabar. The Chera Dynasty and Pandyan Kingdom of … The usual four-tier Hindu caste system, involving the varnas of Brahmin (priest), Kshatriya (warrior), Vaishya (business person, involved in trading, entrepreneurship and finance) and Shudra (service person), did not exist. Tamilians naturally resisted Brahmin supremacy in olden as well as medival and modern times. The roles left empty by the absence of these two ritual ranks were taken to some extent by a few Nairs, Muslims and by Syrian Christians, respectively.[24]. Lower castes can pollute a Brahmin or Nair, not by mere touch but also coming within certain feet from them. state stateid Caste Subcaste castecode KERALA 01 ACHARI KONGU VELLALA 01001 KERALA 01 ACHARI VISHWAKARMA 01002 KERALA 01 ACHARI 01003 KERALA 01 ADI DRAVIDA PARAYA 01004 ... KARNATAKA 02 KSHATRIYA KSHATRIYA 02125 KARNATAKA 02 KSHATRIYA MARATHA 02126 KARNATAKA 02 KSHATRIYA NAIK 02127 . "[3], An alternative theory, also explained by Pullapilly, states that the system was introduced by Nambudiri Brahmins themselves. [4] Robin Jeffrey, who is a professor specialising in the modern history and politics of India, quotes the wife of a Christian missionary, who wrote in 1860 that: .mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, ... a Nair can approach but not touch a Namboodiri Brahmin: a Ezhava must remain thirty-six paces off, and a Pulayan slave ninety-six steps distant. While the Indian caste system generally modeled the four-fold division of society into Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras, in Kerala the Nambudiri Brahmins formed the priestly class and only rarely recognized anyone else as being other than Shudra or untouchables, the latter being outside the caste system entirely. Thus, the Kerala caste system was ritualized but it was not the varna model found elsewhere. Buddhist temples and monasteries were either destroyed or taken over for use in Hindu practices, thus undermining the ability of the Buddhists to propagate their beliefs. From the Brahmin caste, 13 sub-castes have been identified by the commission. [5], The entire Malabar region had strict pollution rules that were considered by the observers to be the most extreme in all of India. The Nambudiris had control of 64 villages and asserted that they had powers given to them by the gods, so much so that they considered even other Brahmin groups to be outside the caste hierarchy. Their purpose in the society is to fight as warriors during war and govern in time of peace. [32] The Census recognised 35 Scheduled Tribes, comprising 1.14% of the population and with 93.7% being Hindus. The Caste system in Kerala is the result of the subjugation of indigenous Dravidian Tamil people by the Aryans and Nagas who migrated from Ahichatra in the Indo-Nepalese Border. [9] Pollution rules were also observed in touching and sexual intercourse with the lower castes. Lower castes, especially members of scheduled castes, remain badly treated by those of higher castes. Not all Nairs were Kshatriyas. The Maniyani are the Kshatriyas of Kerala, India. This argues that the Jains needed protection when they arrived in the area and recruited a group of local sympathizers to provide it. Formal classification lists are compiled for the latter three groups; any community which is not listed in any of those categories is, by default, a Forward Class. Despite their nomenclature suggesting that they are a part of the Kshatriya class in the Hindu ritual ranking system known as varna, that system has never existed in South India. The 14 sub-castes of the Ambalavasi Hindus and six for the Kshatriya caste are there on the list. The Nair sub-castes include Menon, Pillai, Unnithan, and Shudra. KeralaMatrimony, a part of BharatMatrimony - the pioneer in online matrimony, is the most trusted matrimony service for Lakhs of Malayalis worldwide. [14][15][16] Anand Amaladass says that "The Syrian Christians had inserted themselves within the Indian caste society for centuries and were regarded by the Hindus as a caste occupying a high place within their caste hierarchy. The safeguards enshrined in the Constitution stipulate that governments should take special care to advance the educational and economic interests of Scheduled Castes, that untouchability is unacceptable and that all Dalit communities should have unrestricted entry in Hindu temples and other religious institutions. [31] The 2001 Census of India recognised 68 Scheduled Castes, who comprised 9.8% of the population. During the 1882 Christian Mission Conference, it was reported that the population of Muslim Mapillas were increasing rapidly due to the conversion from the lower strata of the Hindu society, and in such a phase, the entire west coast could become Muslim.[23]. ... Tamil Nadu Divorcee Matrimony Pondicherry Divorcee Matrimony Karnataka Divorcee Matrimony Kerala Divorcee Matrimony Maharashtra Divorcee Matrimony View All. In Southern India, only in Kerala did there appear warrior lineages approximate to the Kshatriya model. [13] Among Christians, the established Syrian Christians also practiced the rules of untouchability. They were 99.9% Hindu, with a negligible number of Sikhs and Buddhists. [9] A lower caste person could pollute a higher caste person by merely coming within a certain distance from him or in extreme cases the pollution is transmitted even by simply seeing a lower caste person. Nair Kshatriya hood is based on special ecological conditions and it is a case of elevated sudra to Kshatriya status. They were historically ruling elites and feudal land owners in the Kingdom of Cochin and Kingdom of Travancore. If a Nambudhiri Brahmin woman is accused of illegitimate sexual relations, she is kept in a separate hut as her presence could pollute other members of her family before being interrogated by a caste court, the system is known as smarttivicaram. While the Indian caste system generally modelled the four-fold division of society into Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras, in Kerala the Nambudiri Brahmins formed the priestly class and only rarely recognised anyone else as being other than Shudra or untouchables, the latter being outside the caste system entirely. Barendse explains this development: ... it turned to gross unrequited exploitation only in the nineteenth century when the British colonial pacification removed the threat of the peasant harvests being ravaged by armies or robbers and their huts being burned to the ground. The caste system in Kerala differed from that found in the rest of India. The Ambalavasis were kept between the Brahmins and the Nairs. Both writers consider this to be the traditional Nambudiri myth of origin. In Travancore, only the Koil Thampurans (10 families) had the Samanta Kshatriya status. Sri.Elamkulam Kunjan Pillai had recorded that in olden times when people lived in the Western Ghats, categorization on the basis of work done by them was in practice. Nair warriors could kill a lower caste Pulayar on sight if they met with one of them on the highway. Nambudiri Brahmins formed the priestly class, and never recognized any other Brahmin community as true Brahmins. Registered users can view profile details, search by name, id and avail many other services. [citation needed]. Viswanathanin & Shramakrishnan (2006), p. 6. International Institute for Asian Studies, "Excerpts from The Constitution of India", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Caste_system_in_Kerala&oldid=998042357, All articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases, Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from July 2020, Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2012, All articles containing potentially dated statements, Articles lacking reliable references from June 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2012, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 3 January 2021, at 14:40. They were historically ruling elites and feudal land owners in the Kingdom of Cochin and Kingdom of Travancore. In this post we shall learn what is kshatriya caste means. New Delhi: Poet, scholar and activist Dr. Meena Kandasamy took to Twitter to respond to Malegaon bomb blast accused and BJP MP Pragya Thakur's controversial remark on caste names. [1], One theory that explains the origins of the caste system in the Kerala region – which prior to the independence of India comprised the three areas known as Malabar District, Travancore and Cochin[2] – is based on the actions of Aryan Jains introducing such distinctions prior to the 8th century CE. Kshatriya caste list You may heard from some peoples that "we are kshatriya". Caste is not disappearing, nor is "casteism" - the political use of caste — for what is emerging in India is a social and political system which institutionalizes and transforms but does not abolish caste. Kerala Kshatriya Matrimony - Find lakhs of Kerala Christian Brides and Grooms on KeralaMatrimony, the most trusted wedding destination to find your special someone. The custom for removing pollution is a bath by complete immersion in water. Samuel Mateer, noted that even in the working fields the slaves were supervised from a distance. The King of Travancore and the nine Raja families didn't had anything other than Samanthan status. Throughout post-independence India, including in Kerala, there exists a framework of reservation which is fluid in nature and attempts to recognise the socio-economic disparities between various castes. The subjugation of indigenous Dravidians - Tamil Kingdoms by Aryans, Nagas and Foreigners. [21] In the census of 1836, 164,864 people out of the 1,280,668 were slaves in Travancore. Weiner points out that despite the ideological demise: ... as a lived-in social reality it is very much alive. The caste system amongst Hindus in Kerala can not be categorised strictly with what is popularly known as the fourfold division of Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya, and Sudra. - Kalarippayattu is traditionally associated with the Nayar caste, which corresponds, in Kerala, to the Ksatriya military caste of the classical Indian tradition. The Nambudiri , also transliterated Nambūdiri , Namboodiri , Namboothiri , and Nampūtiri , are a Malayali Brahmin caste, native to what is now the state of Kerala , India. Just submit your biodata to contact Kerala Kshatriya community brides or grooms instantly. TLDR; Kerala Caste system is way more complex than the North Indian one. Cochin and Kingdom of Cochin and Kingdom of … Nairs are a branch of Nagavanshi Kshatriyas found in Kingdom... Eligible marriage seekers can register their biodata on a Kshatriya Raju matrimonial website to find suitable... Out that despite the ideological demise:... as a lived-in social reality it is to use caste an... 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