Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c8.1243

c8.1243

NAMBŪTIRIS. (Malayāla Brahmins). Logan says that the Nambūtiris were the batch of Aryans that settled down in Kerala after the Nairs. The historians like Śaṅkuṇṇi Menon and others have stated that the Nambūtiris had come to Kerala from the banks of the rivers Godāvarī, Narmadā and Kāverī. Famous historians have inferred that the progress of the Aryans to the south took place between 1000 and 325 B.C. But Thomas Fawlks thinks that there were Nambūtiri priests and hermits in South India, during the time of Buddha. N.K. Datta, the author of the book "Aryanisation of India", is of opinion that during the time of the invasion of Alexander, the Aryans had spread all over India and Ceylon. Thus historians have not yet come to an agreement as to the correct period of the exodus of the Aryans to the south. Anyhow in the Geography of Ptolemy mention is made that half a degree east to Taibis there was a place called Brahmagāra. It may be assumed that Brahmagāra may be Brahmagāra (settlement of Brahmins). It has been decided definitely that the period of Ptolemy was A.D. 2nd century, and in that case the Brahmins must have settled in the south before that period.