I. Smartha—(a) Vadama.—The Vadamas claim to be superior to the other classes, but will dine with all the sections, except Gurukkals and Prathamasākis, and, in some places, will even eat with Prathamasākis. The sub-divisions among the Vadamas are:—

All these are Smarthas, who use as their sect mark either the ūrdhvapundram (straight mark made with sandal paste) or the circular mark, and rarely the cross lines. They worship both Siva and Vishnu, and generally read Purānas about Vishnu. Some Vadamas use the Vaishnava nāmam as their sect mark, and are called Kiththunāmakkārar. They follow the Smartha customs in every way. There is a common saying “Vadamam muththi Vaishnavam,” i.e., a Vadama ripens into a Vaishnava. This is literally true. Some Vadama families, who put on the ūrdhvapundram mark, and follow the Smartha customs, observe pollution whenever a death occurs in certain Sri Vaishnava families. This is because the Sri Vaishnavas are Vadamas recently converted into Vaishnava families.

(b) Kēsigal.—The Kēsigals, or Hiranyakēsikal (men of the silvery hair), as they are sometimes called, closely resemble the Vadamas, but are an exclusive endogamous unit, and highly conservative and orthodox. They are called Hiranyakēsikal or Hiranyakēsis because they follow the Grihya Sūtras of Hiranyakēsi. It is noted, in the Gazetteer of the Tanjore district, that they “are peculiar in all having one common Sūtram called the Sathyāshāda after a common ancestor.”

(c) Brahacharnam (the great sect).—The Brahacharnams are more Saivite, and more orthodox than the Vadamas. They put on vibhūti (sacred ashes) and sandal paste horizontal lines as their sect mark. The sub division Sathyamangalam Brahacharnam seems, however, to be an exception, as some members thereof put on the Vaishnavite sect mark at all times, or at least during the month of Purattāsi, which is considered sacred to the god Venkataramana of Tirupati. The more orthodox Brahacharnams wear a single rudrāksha bead, or a necklace of beads, and some make lingams out of these beads, which they put on the head during worship. They generally worship five gods, viz., Siva in the form of a lingam, spatika (crystal) lingam, Vishnu, Ganēsa, and Iswara. It is said that Brahacharnam women can be distinguished by the mode of tying the cloth, which is not worn so as to reach to the feet, but reaches only to just below the knees. The Brahacharnams are sub-divided into the following sections:—

It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Tanjore district, that “one ceremony peculiar to the Milaganur Brahacharnams is that, before the principal marriage ceremonies of the first day, a feast is given to four married women, a widow, and a bachelor. This is called the adrisya pendugal (invisible women) ceremony. It is intended to propitiate four wives belonging to this sub-division, who are said to have been cruelly treated by their mother-in-law, and cursed the class. They are represented to have feasted a widow, and to have then disappeared.”

(d) Vathima.—The Vathimas, or Madhimas, are most numerous in the Tanjore district, and are thus described in the Gazetteer:—“The Vattimas are grouped into three smaller sub-sections, of which one is called ‘the eighteen village Vattimas,’ from the fact that they profess (apparently with truth) to have lived till recently in only eighteen villages, all of them in this district. They have a marked character of their own, which may be briefly described. They are generally money-lenders, and consequently are unpopular with their neighbours, who are often blind to their virtues and unkind to their failings. [There is a proverb that the Vadamas are always economical, and the Vathimas always unite together.] It is a common reproach against them that they are severe to those who are in their debt, and parsimonious in their household expenditure. To this latter characteristic is attributed their general abstinence from dholl (the usual accompaniment of a Brāhman meal), and their preference for a cold supper instead of a hot meal. The women work as hard as the men, making mats, selling buttermilk, and lending money on their own account, and are declared to be as keen in money-making and usury as their brothers. They, however, possess many amiable traits. They are well known for a generous hospitality on all great occasions, and no poor guest or Brāhman mendicant has ever had reason to complain in their houses that he is being served worse than his richer or more influential fellows. Indeed, if anything, he fares the better for his poverty. Again, they are unusually lavish in their entertainments at marriages; but their marriage feasts have the peculiarity that, whatever the total amount expended, a fixed proportion is always paid for the various items—so much per cent. for the pandal, so much per cent. for food, and so on. Indeed it is asserted that a beggar who sees the size of the marriage pandal will be able to guess to a nicety the size of the present he will get. Nor, again, at their marriages, do they haggle about the marriage settlement, since they have a scale, more or less fixed and generally recognised, which determines these matters. There is less keen competition for husbands among them, since their young men marry at an earlier age more invariably than among the other sub-divisions. The Vattimas are clannish. If a man fails to pay his dues to one of them, the word is passed round, and no other man of the sub-division will ever lend his money. They sometimes unite to light their villages by private subscription, and to see to its sanitation, and, in a number of ways, they exhibit a corporate unity. Till quite recently they were little touched by English education; but a notable exception to this general statement existed in the late Sir A. Seshayya Sāstri, who was of Vattima extraction.”

The sub-divisions of the Vattimas are:—