Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c18.s1.94

v2.c18.s1.94

There were other people who proved a fruitful field of enterprise among the Christian missionaries. These were the Paraiyans. It is difficult to determine when these people were driven to the position of an untouchable class, whose presence caused pollution as bewailed by Vēmana.³ What status these occupied along with the Bōyees, the Erkelas,⁴ and the Kallars also cannot be found out. These last are mentioned in an effaced epigraph dated only in the cyclic year Bhāva but assigned to the times of Virūpaṇṇa. It tells us that the fees to be paid to the temple of Parvatagīrśvara at Kuṇṇāṇḍār-Kōyil, Pudukkoṭṭai State, by Kaḷḷa Vēḷaikkārar for the protection afforded to them, were fixed.⁵ We are also unable to find out much about the Bēḍars (or Vēdars), some of whom, as related above, caused commotion in the Karṇāṭaka,⁶ and about the Pāntacurhis. About the latter we have the following in tradition: They were originally Jainas but were destroyed by the Brahmans in the times of Adondai; and some embraced the Brahmanical system. They had the custom of putting their old people, when very infirm, into vessels of baked earth, and leaving them to die." They were found mostly round Paduvur.¹