Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s2.8.2

c48.s2.8.2

In the Tamil country, especially in the south, the line of demarcation between the military castes and the others is more easily traced than amongst the Telugu masses, but there seems to be this noteworthy difference between the two regions, that the immigrant peasantry of the south rank higher in the present day than the castes once dominant, so that, setting aside the Chieftains and Zamīndārs, there is the tendency for a landowner of the latter, as he advances in prosperity, to get merged in the ranks of the former. The popular version of this inclination runs: "The Kaḷḷan became a Maṟavan; the Maṟavan became an Agamuḍaiyān, and the Agamuḍaiyān is now a Veḷḷāḷan". The explanation seems to be that the formerly dominant classes obtained their position by predatory, rather than military, prowess under the weak governments of the past, and retained with their independence their original religion and customs. In the piping times of the pax Britannica, however, Brāhmanic influence is permeating the masses, and as its ceremonial is the touchstone of respectability, the more aspiring remnants of the earlier civilisation affiliate themselves to a body already in full touch with the refinement aimed at, in preference to taking up the invidious position of innovator in the community of their birth. The principal tribe coming under this head is the Kaḷḷan, which happens to be the Tamil for thief.