Brahman-Kanada,Brahman-Karnatic: Deccan

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

Brahman-Kanada,Brahman-Karnatic

This article is an extract from THE CASTES AND TRIBES OF H. E. H. THE NIZAM'S DOMINIONS BY SYED SIRAJ UL HASSAN Of Merton College, Oxford, Trinity College, Dublin, and Middle Temple, London. One of the Judges of H. E. H. the Nizam's High Court of Judicature : Lately Director of Public Instruction. BOMBAY THE TlMES PRESS 1920 Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this article. Secondly, this has been scanned from a book. You can help by sending the corrected version/ additional information to the Facebook page, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be duly acknowledged.

They rank as the fourth of the five Dravidas living to the south of the Vindhya range. Their name is derived from the Carnatic country, or the country of the Canarese speaking people which, in the Nizam's territory, embraces the Districts of Raichur, Gulbarga and Bidar. In their appearance, physical characteristics and dress, they differ little from the Deshastha Brahmans, except in the turban, which they wear lower and in a less rounded form. Intermarriages are allowed between the Carnatic Brahmans and the Deshasthas on one side and the Telugu Brahmans and the Carnatic Brahmans on the other, so that the classification of the Southern India Brahmans into the Maharashtra, the Andhra (Telugu) and the Carnatic are in this respect more of a provincial or linguistic character than of an ethnographic one.

Internal Structure

The Carnatic Brahmans belong either to the Shakal Shakha of the Rigveda or to the Taitariya Shakha of the Black Yajurveda and are divided, like the Deshasthas, into numerous gotras or exogamous groups — a list of which may be found in the Dharma-Sindhu. They allow a man to marry his sister's daughter, although such marriages are not sanctioned by the Hindu legislators (shastris). Their tutelary deities are Narsinha at Kuppu and Hanuman.

The Carnatic Brahmans are divided into the sects of Shankara- charya and Madhwacharya. A few only are Shri Vaishnavas, the followers of Ramanujacharya. The principle matha, or monastery of the Madhawas, is the great temple of Krishna at Udupi in the South Canara district of the Madras Presidency. Besides this, there are eight subordinate temples in which are set up images of different forms of Vishnu and which are placed under the superintendence of eight san^asis called Wadiyarus. Each Wadiyaru in turn officiates for two years as superior of the principal monastery at Udupi.

Occupation

The majority of the Carnatic Brahmans are agri- culturists and hold lands on various tenures ; they also follow other secular pursuits. It was in connection with the Carnatic Brahmans that Abbe J. A. Dubois has made his sarcastic remarks which are, however, hardly justified by facts. ("Abbe Dubois," pp. 144-145.) Almost aU the revenue officers under Tippu Sultan were Brahmans of this secf, who were favoured by Tippu's government as the only men of business in the country (Dr. Buchanan's " Journeys," Vol. 1, p. 47). Concerning them Dr. Buchanan remarks that they were very fortunate under the Vijayanagar Rajas. Krishna Rayalu is said to have granted them a tenth of his land revenue.