Mādhva Brāhman.

Branding for religious purposes is confined to Srī Vaishnavas and Mādhvas. Srī Vaishnava Brāhmans are expected to undergo this ordeal at least once during their life-time, whereas Mādhva Brāhmans have to submit to it as often as they visit their guru (head of a mutt). Of men of other castes, those who become followers of a Vaishnava or Mādhva Āchārya (guru) or mutt, are expected to present themselves before the guru for the purpose of being branded. But the ceremony is optional, and not compulsory as in the case of the Brāhmans. Among Srī Vaishnavites, the privilege of branding is confined to the elder members of a family, Sanyāsis (ascetics), and the heads of the various mutts. All individuals, male and female, must be branded, after the Upanayanam ceremony in the case of males, and after marriage in the case of females. The disciples, after a purificatory bath and worship of their gods, proceed to the residence of the Āchārya or to the mutt, where they are initiated into their religion, and branded with the chakra on the right shoulder and chank on the left. The initiation consists in imparting to the disciple, in a very low tone, the Mūla Mantram, the word Nāmonarāyanāya, the sacred syllable Ōm, and a few mantrams from the Brahma Rahasyam (secrets about god). A person who has not been initiated thus is regarded as unfit to take part in the ceremonies which have to be performed by Brāhmans. Even close relations, if orthodox, will refuse to take food prepared or touched by the uninitiated. Concerning Mādhvas, Monier Williams writes as follows[108]: “They firmly believe that it is a duty of Vaishnavas to carry throughout life a memorial of their god on their persons, and that such a lasting outward and visible sign of his presence helps them to obtain salvation through him. ‘On his right armlet the Brāhman wears the discus, on his left the conch shell.’ When I was at Tanjore, I found that one of the successors of Mādhva had recently arrived on his branding visitation. He was engaged throughout the entire day in stamping his disciples, and receiving fees from all according to their means.” Mādhvas have four mutts to which they repair for the branding ceremony, viz., Vayasaraya, Sumathendra and Mulabagal in Mysore, and Uttarāja in South Canara. The followers of the Uttāraja mutt are branded in five places in the case of adult males, and boys after the thread investiture. The situations and emblems selected are the chakra on the right upper arm, right side of the chest, and above the navel; the chank on the left shoulder and left side of the chest. Women, and girls after marriage, are branded with the chakra on the right forearm, and the chank on the left. In the case of widows, the marks are impressed on the shoulders as in the case of males. The disciples of the three other mutts are generally branded with the chakra on the right upper arm, and chank on the left. As the branding is supposed to remove sins committed during the interval, they get it done every time they see their guru. There is with Mādhvas no restriction as to the age at which the ceremony should be performed. Even a new-born babe, after the pollution period of ten days, must receive the mark of the chakra, if the guru should turn up. Boys before the upanayanam, and girls before marriage, are branded with the chakra on the abdomen just above the navel. The copper or brass branding instruments (mudras) are not heated to a very high temperature, but sufficient to singe the skin, and leave a deep black mark in the case of adults, and a light mark in that of young people and babies. In some cases, disciples, who are afraid of being hurt, bribe the person who heats the instruments; but, as a rule, the guru regulates the temperature so as to suit the individual. If, for example, the disciple is a strong, well-built man, the instruments are well heated, and, if he is a weakling, they are allowed to cool somewhat before their application. If the operator has to deal with babies, he presses the instrument against a wet rag before applying it to the infant’s skin. Some Matathipathis (head priests of the mutt) are, it is said, inclined to be vindictive, and to make a very hot application of the instruments, if the disciple has not paid the fee (gurukānika) to his satisfaction. The fee is not fixed in the case of Sri Vaishnavas, whereas Mādhvas are expected to pay from one to three months’ income for being branded. Failure to pay is punished with excommunication on some pretext or other. The area of skin branded generally peels off within a week, leaving a pale mark of the mudra, which either disappears in a few months, or persists throughout life. Mādhvas should stamp mudras with gōpi paste (white kaolin) daily on various parts of the body. The names of these mudras are chakra, chank or sankha, gātha (the weapon of war used by Bhīma, one of the Pāndavas), padma (lotus), and Narāyana. The chakra is stamped thrice on the abdomen above the navel, twice on the right flank, twice on the right side of the chest above the nipple, twice on the right arm, once on the right temple, once on the left side of the chest, and once on the left arm. The chank is stamped twice on the right side of the chest, in two places on the left arm, and once on the left temple. The gātha is stamped in two places on the right arm, twice on the chest, and in one spot on the forehead. The padma is stamped twice on the left arm, and twice on the left side of the chest. Narāyana is stamped on all places where other mudra marks have been made. Sometimes it is difficult to put on all the marks after the daily morning bath. In such cases, a single mudra mark, containing all the five mudras, is made to suffice. Some regard the chakra mudra as sufficient on occasions of emergency.

The god Hanumān (the monkey god) is specially reverenced by Mādhvas, who call him Mukyaprānadēvaru (the chief god).

V. Tulu.—The Tulu-speaking Brāhmans are, in their manners and customs, closely allied to the Carnatakas. Their sub-divisions are—

The following interesting account of the Tulu Brāhmans is given by Mr. H. A. Stuart[109]:—

“All Tulu Brahmin chronicles agree in ascribing the creation of Malabar and Canara, or Kērala, Tuluva, and Haiga, to Parasu Rāma, who reclaimed from the sea as much land as he could cover by hurling his battle-axe from the top of the Western Ghauts. According to Tulu traditions, after a quarrel with Brahmins who used to come to him periodically from Ahi-Kshētra, Parasu Rāma procured new Brahmins for the reclaimed tract by taking the nets of some fishermen, and making a number of Brahminical threads, with which he invested the fishermen, and thus turned them into Brahmins, and retired to the mountains to meditate, after informing them that, if they were in distress and called on him, he would come to their aid. After the lapse of some time, during which they suffered no distress, they were curious to know if Parasu Rāma would remember them, and called upon him in order to find out. He promptly appeared, but punished their thus mocking him by cursing them, and causing them to revert to their old status of Sudras. After this, there were no Brahmins in the land till Tulu Brahmins were brought from Ahi-Kshētra by Mayūr Varma of the Kadamba dynasty. A modified form of the tradition states that Parasu Rāma gave the newly reclaimed land to Nāga and Machi Brahmins, who were not true Brahmins, and were turned out or destroyed by fishermen and Holeyas (Pariahs), who held the country till the Tulu Brahmins were introduced by Mayūr Varma. All traditions unite in attributing the introduction of the Tulu Brahmins of the present day to Mayūr Varma, but they vary in details connected with the manner in which they obtained a firm footing in the land. One account says that Habāshika, chief of the Koragas (Pariahs), drove out Mayūr Varma, but was in turn expelled by Mayūr Varma’s son, or son-in-law, Lōkāditya of Gōkarnam, who brought Brahmins from Ahi-Kshētra and settled them in thirty-two villages. Another makes Mayūr Varma himself the invader of the country, which till then had remained in the possession of the Holeyas (Pariahs) and fishermen who had turned out Parasu Rāma’s Brahmins. Mayūr Varma and the Brahmins whom he had brought from Ahi-Kshētra were again driven out by Nanda, a Holeya chief, whose son Chandra Sayana had, however, learned respect for Brahmins from his mother, who had been a dancing-girl in a temple. His admiration for them became so great that he not only brought back the Brahmins, but actually made over all his authority to them, and reduced his people to the position of slaves. A third account makes Chandra Sayana, not a son of a Holeya king, but a descendant of Mayūr Varma and a conqueror of the Holeya king. Nothing is known from other sources of Lōkāditya, Habāshika, or Chandra Sayana, but inscriptions speak to Mayūr Varma being the founder of the dynasty of the Kadambas of Banavāsi in North Canara. His date is usually put down at about 750 A.D. The correctness of the traditions, which prevail in Malabar as well as in Canara, assigning the introduction of Brahmins to the West Coast to Mayūr Varma who was in power about 750 A.D., is to some extent corroborated by the fact that Brahmins attested the Malabar Perumal’s grant to the Christians in 774 A.D., but not that to the Jews about 700 A.D. The Brahmins are said to have been brought from Ahi-Kshētra, on the banks of the Gōdāvari, but it is not clear what connection a Kadamba of Banavāsi could have with the banks of the Gōdāvari, and there may be something in the suggestion made in the North Kanara Gazetteer that Ahi-Kshētra is merely a sanskritised form of Haiga or the land of snakes. The tradition speaks of the Brahmins having been brought by Lōkāditya from Gōkarnam, which is in the extreme north of Haiga, and in the local history of the Honalli Matha in Sunda in North Canara, Gōkarnam is spoken of as being Ahi-Kshētra. Gōkarnam is believed to have been a Brahmin settlement in very early times, and there was probably a further influx of Brahmins there as Muhammadan conquest advanced in the north.

“The class usually styled Tulu Brahmins at the present day are the Shivalli Brahmins, whose head-quarters are at Udipi, and who are most numerous in the southern part of the district, but the Kōta, Kōtēshwar, and Haiga or Havīka Brahmins are all branches of the same, the differences between them having arisen since their settlement in Canara; and, though they now talk Canarese in common with the people of other parts to the north of the Sītanadi river, their religious works are still written in the old Tulu-Malayālam character. Tulu Brahmins, who have settled in Malabar in comparatively late years, are known as Embrāntris, and treated as closely allied to the Nambūtiris, whose traditions go back to Mayūr Varma. Some families of Shivalli and Havīka Brahmins in the southern or Malayālam portion of the district talk Malayālam, and follow many of the customs of the Malabar or Nambūtiri Brahmins. Many of the thirty-two villages in which the Brahmins are said to have been settled by Mayūr Varma are still the most important centres of Brahminism. Notably may be mentioned Shivalli or Udipi, Kōta and Kōtēshwar, which have given names to the divisions of Tulu Brahmins of which these villages are respectively the head-quarters. When the Brahmins were introduced by Mayūr Varma they are said to have been followers of Bhattāchārya, but they soon adopted the tenets of the great Malayālam Vēdāntic teacher Sankarāchārya, who is ordinarily believed to have been born at Cranganore in Malabar in the last quarter of the eighth century, that is, soon after the arrival of the Brahmins on the west coast. Sankarāchārya is known as the preacher of the Advaita (non-dual) philosophy, which, stated briefly, is that all living beings are one with the supreme spirit, and absorption may finally be obtained by the constant renunciation of material in favour of spiritual pleasure. This philosophy, however, was not sufficient for the common multitude, and his system included, for weaker minds, the contemplation of the first cause through a multitude of inferior deities, and, as various manifestations of Siva and his consort Parvati, he found a place for all the most important of the demons worshipped by the early Dravidians whom the Brahmins found on the West Coast, thus facilitating the spread of Hinduism throughout all classes. That the conversion of the Bants and Billavas, and other classes, took place at a very early date may be inferred from the fact that, though the great bulk of the Tulu Brahmins of South Canara adopted the teaching of the Vaishnavite reformer Mādhavāchārya, who lived in the thirteenth century, most of the non-Brahmin Hindus in the district class themselves as Shaivites to this day. Sankarāchārya founded the Sringēri Matha in Mysore near the borders of the Udipi taluk, the guru of which is the spiritual head of such of the Tulu Brahmins of South Canara as have remained Smarthas or adherents of the teaching of Sankarāchārya. Mādhavāchārya is believed to have been born about 1199 A.D. at Kaliānpur, a few miles from Udipi. He propounded the Dvaita or dual philosophy, repudiating the doctrine of oneness and final absorption held by ordinary Vaishnavites as well as by the followers of Sankarāchārya. The attainment of a place in the highest heaven is to be secured, according to Mādhavāchārya’s teaching, not only by the renunciation of material pleasure, but by the practice of virtue in thought, word and deed. The moral code of Mādhavāchārya is a high one, and his teaching is held by some—not ordinary Hindus of course—to have been affected by the existence of the community of Christians at Kaliānpur mentioned by Cosmos Indico Pleustes in the seventh century. Mādhavāchārya placed the worship of Vishnu above that of Siva, but there is little bitterness between Vaishnavites and Shaivites in South Canara, and there are temples in which both are worshipped under the name of Shankara Nārāyana. He denied that the spirits worshipped by the early Dravidians were manifestations of Siva’s consort, but he accorded sanction to their worship as supernatural beings of a lower order.