Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 5 of 7

by Edgar Thurston

Nambiyatiri (a person worthy of worship).—A synonym of Elayad.

Nambūtiri Brāhman.[16]—The name Nambūtiri has been variously derived. The least objectionable origin seems to be nambu (sacred or trustworthy) and tiri (a light). The latter occurs as an honorific suffix among Malabar Brāhmans, and other castes above the Nāyars. The Nambūtiris form the socio-spiritual aristocracy of Malabar, and, as the traditional landlords of Parasu Rāma’s land, they are everywhere held in great reverence.

A Nambūtiri, when questioned about the past, refers to the Kēralolpatti. The Nambūtiris and their organization according to grāmams owe their origin in legend, so far as Malabar is concerned, to Parasu Rāma. Parasu Rāma (Rāma of the axe), an incarnation of Vishnu, had, according to the purānic story, slain his mother in a fit of wrath, and was advised by the sages to expiate his sin by extirpating the Kshatriyas twenty-one times. He did so, and handed over the land to the sages. But this annoyed the Brāhmans exceedingly, for they got no share in the arrangement; so they banished Parasu Rāma from the land. By the performance of austerities he gained from the gods the boon to reclaim some land from Varuna, the sea god. Malabar was then non-existent. He was allowed to throw his axe from Cape Comorin, and possess all the land within the distance of his throw. So he threw his axe as far as Gokarnam in the South Canara district, and immediately there was land between these two places, within the direct line and the western ghāts, now consisting of Travancore and Cochin, Malabar, and part of South Canara. To this land he gave the name Karma Bhūmi, or the country in which salvation or the reverse depends altogether on man’s individual actions, and blessed it that there be plenty of rain and no famine in it. But he was alone. To relieve his loneliness, he brought some Brāhmans from the banks of the Krishna river, but they did not remain long, for they were frightened by the snakes. Then he brought some Brāhmans from the north, and, lest they too should flee, gave them peculiar customs, and located them in sixty-four grāmams. He told them also to follow the marumakkattāyam law of succession (in the female line), but only a few, the Nambūtiris of Payyanūr, obeyed him. The Brāhmans ruled the land with severity, so that the people (who had somehow come into existence) resolved to have a king under whom they could live in peace. And, as it was impossible to choose one among themselves, they chose Kēya Perumal, who was the first king of Malabar, and Malabar was called Kēralam after him. The truths underlying this legend are that the littoral strip between the western ghāts and the sea is certainly of recent formation geologically. It is not very long, geologically, since it was under the sea, and it is certain that the Nambūtiris came from the north. The capital of the Chēra kingdom was very probably on the west coast not far from Cranganore in the Travancore State, the site of it being now called Tiruvānjikkulam. There is still a Siva temple there, and about a quarter of a mile to the south-west of it are the foundations of the old palace. The rainfall of Malabar is very high, ranging from 300 inches in the hills to about 120 inches on the coast.

“It is said that Parasu Rāma ruled that all Nambūdri women should carry with them an umbrella whenever they go out, to prevent their being seen by those of the male sex, that a Nāyar woman called a Vrishali should invariably precede them, that they should be covered with a cloth from neck to foot, and that they should not wear jewels. These women are therefore always attended by a Nāyar woman in their outdoor movements, and they go sheltering their faces from public gaze with a cadjan (palm leaf) umbrella.”[17]

The Kēralolpatti relates the story of the exclusion of the Panniyūr Brāhmans from the Vēdas. There were in the beginning two religious factions among the Nambūtiris, the Vaishnavas or worshippers of Vishnu in his incarnation as a boar, and the Saivas; the former residing in Panniyūr (boar village), and the latter in Chovūr (Siva’s village). The Saivas gained the upper hand, and, completely dominating the others, excluded them altogether from the Vēdas. So now the Nambūtiris of Panniyūr are said to be prohibited from studying the Vēdas. It is said, however, that this prohibition is not observed, and that, as a matter of fact, the Panniyūr Nambūtiris perform all the Vēdic ceremonies.

“Tradition,” Mr. N. Subramani Aiyar writes, “as recorded in the Kēralamahatmiya, traces the Nambūtiris to Ahikshētra, whence Parasu Rāma invited Brāhmans to settle in his newly reclaimed territory. In view to preventing the invited settlers from relinquishing it, he is said to have introduced, on the advice of the sage Nārada, certain deep and distinctive changes in their personal, domestic, and communal institutions. The banks of the Nerbudda, the Krishna, and the Kāveri are believed to have given Brāhmans to Malabar. I have come across Nambūtiris who have referred to traditions in their families regarding villages on the east coast whence their ancestors originally came, and the sub-divisions of the Smarta caste, Vadama, Brihatcharanam, Ashtasahasram, Sankēti, etc., to which they belonged. Even to this day, an east coast Brāhman of the Vadadesattu Vadama caste has to pour water into the hands of a Nambūtiri Sanyāsi as part of the latter’s breakfast ritual. Broach in Kathiwar, one of the greatest emporiums of trade in the middle ages, is also mentioned as one of the ancient recruiting districts of the Nambūtiri Brāhmans. Broach was the ancient Bhrigucachchha, where Parasu Rāma made his avabhritasnāna (final bathing) after his great triumph over the Kshatriyas, and where to this day a set of people called Bhargava Brāhmans live. Their comparatively low social status is ascribed to the original sin of their Brāhman progenitor or founder having taken to the profession of arms. The date of the first settlement of the Nambūtiris is not known. Orthodox tradition would place it in the Trētāyuga, or the second great Hindu cycle. The reference to the grāmams of Chovvur and Panniyūr contained in the Manigrāmam Syrian Christian grant of the eighth century, and its absence in the Jewish, have suggested to antiquarians some time between the seventh and eighth centuries as the probable period. The writings of Ptolemy and the Periplus furnish evidence of Brāhman settlements on the Malabar coast as early as the first century, and it is probable that immigrant Brāhman families began to pour in with the ascendancy of the Western Chalukya kings in the fourth and fifth centuries, and became gradually welded with the pre-existing Nambūtiris. All these Nambūtiris were grouped under two great sections:—(a) the Vaishnavites or Panniyūr Grāmakkar, who came with the patronage of the Vaishnavites of the Chalukya dynasty with the boar as their royal emblem; (b) the Saivites or Chovvūr Grāmakkar, who readily accepted the Saivite teachings from the Chēra, Chōla, and Pāndya kings who followed the Chalukyans. They included in all sixty-four grāmams, which, in many cases, were only families. Of these, not more than ten belong to modern Travancore. These grāmams constituted a regular autocracy, with four talis or administrative bodies having their head-quarters at Cranganore. It appears that a Rāja or Perumāl, as he was called, from the adjoining Chēra kingdom, including the present districts of Salem and Coimbatore, was, as an improved arrangement, invited to rule for a duodecennial period, and was afterwards confirmed, whether by the lapse of time or by a formal act of the Brāhman owners it is not known. The Chēra Viceroys, by virtue of their isolation from their own fatherland, had then to arrange for marital alliances being made, as best they could, with the highest indigenous caste, the Nambūtiris, the males consorting with Sūdra women. The matriarchal form of inheritance was thus a necessary consequence. Certain tracts of Kērala, however, continued under direct Brāhman sovereignty, of which the Ettappalli chief is almost the only surviving representative.”

Writing in the eighteenth century, Hamilton observes[18] that “the Nambouries are the first in both capacities of Church and State, and some of them are Popes, being Sovereign Princes in both.” Unlike the Brāhmans of the remainder of the Madras Presidency, who so largely absorb all appointments worth having under Government, who engage in trade, in, one may say, every profitable profession and business, the Nambūtiris hold almost entirely aloof from what the poet Gray calls “the busy world’s ignoble strife,” and, more than any class of Brāhmans, retain their sacerdotal position, which is of course the highest. They are for the most part landholders. A very large portion of Malabar is owned by Nambūtiris, especially in Walluvanād, most of which tāluk is the property of Nambūtiris. They are the aristocracy of the land, marked most impressively by two characteristics, exclusiveness and simplicity. Now and then a Nambūtiri journeys to Benares, but, as a rule, he stays at home. Their simplicity is really proverbial,[19] and they have not been influenced by contact with the English. This contact, which has influenced every other caste or race, has left the Nambūtiri just where he was before the English knew India. He is perhaps, as his measurements seem to prove, the truest Aryan in Southern India, and not only physically, but in his customs, habits, and ceremonies, which are so welded into him that forsake them he cannot if he would. It is noted, in the Gazetteer of Malabar, that “as a class, the Nambūdiris may be described as less affected than any other caste, except the very lowest, by western influences of whatever nature. One Nambūdiri is known to have accepted a clerical post in Government service; a good many are Adhigāris (village headmen), and one member of the caste possesses a Tile-works and is partner in a Cotton-mill. The bicycle now claims several votaries among the caste, and photography at least one other. But these are exceptions, and exceptions which, unimportant as they may seem to any one unacquainted with the remarkable conservatism of the caste, would certainly have caused considerable surprise to the author of the first Malabar Manual.”

Concerning the occupations of the Nambūtiris, Mr. Subramani Aiyar writes that “service in temples, unless very remunerative, does not attract them. Teaching as a means of living is rank heterodoxy. And, if anywhere Manu’s dictum to the Brāhman ‘Never serve’ is strictly observed, it is in Malabar. Judging from the records left by travellers, the Nambūtiris used to be selected by kings as messengers during times of war. Writing concerning them, Barbosa states that “these are the messengers who go on the road from one kingdom to another with letters and money and merchandise, because they pass in safety without any one molesting them, even though the king may be at war. These Brāhmans are well read ... and possess many books, and are learned and masters of many arts; and so the kings honour them as such.” As the pre-historic heirs to the entire land of Kērala, the Nambūtiris live on agriculture. But inefficiency in adaptation to changing environments operates as a severe handicap in the race for progressive affluence, for which the initial equipment was exceptionally favourable. The difficulties incidental to an effete landlordism have contributed to making the Nambūtiris a litigious population, and the ruinous scale of expenditure necessary for the disposal of a girl, be it of the most plebeian kind, has brought their general prosperity to a very low level. The feeling of responsible co-operation on the part of the unmarried males of a Nambūtiri household in the interests of the family is fast decreasing; old maids are increasing; and the lot of the average Nambūtiri man, and more especially woman, is very hard indeed. As matters now stand, the traditional hospitality of the Hindu kings of Malabar, which, fortunately for them, has not yet relaxed, is the only sustenance and support of the ordinary Nambūtiri. The characteristic features of the Nambūtiri are his faith in God and resignation to his will, hospitality to strangers, scrupulous veracity, punctiliousness as regards the ordinances prescribed, and extreme gentility in manners. The sustaining power of his belief in divine providence is so great, that calamities of whatsoever kind do not exasperate him unduly. The story is told with great admiration of a Nambūtiri who, with his large ancestral house on fire, his only son just tumbled into a deep disused well, while his wife was expiring undelivered, quietly called out to his servant for his betel-box. Evening baths, and daily prayers at sunrise, noon and sunset, are strictly observed. A tradition, illustrative of the miracles which spiritual power can work, is often told of the islet in the Vempanat lake known as Patiramanal (midnight sand) having been conjured into existence by the Tarananallūr Nambūtiripād, when, during a journey to Trivandrum, it was past evening, and the prayers to Sandhya had to be made after the usual ablutions. To the lower animals, the attitude of the Nambūtiri is one of child-like innocence. In his relation to man, his guilelessness is a remarkable feature. Harshness of language is unknown to the Nambūtiris, and it is commonly said that the severest expression of his resentment at an insult offered is generally that he (the Nambūtiri) expects the adversary to take back the insult a hundred times over. Of course, the modern Nambūtiri is not the unadulterated specimen of goodness, purity, and piety that he once was. But, on the whole, the Nambūtiris form an interesting community, whose existence is indeed a treasure untold to all lovers of antiquity. Their present economic condition is, however, far from re-assuring. They are no doubt the traditional owners of Kērala, and hold in their hands the janmom or proprietary interest in a large portion of Malabar. But their woeful want of accommodativeness to the altered conditions of present day life threatens to be their ruin. Their simplicity and absence of business-like habits have made them a prey to intrigue, fraudulence, and grievous neglect, and an unencumbered and well ordered estate is a rarity among Malabar Brāhmans, at least in Travancore.”

The orthodox view of the Nambūtiri is thus stated in an official document of Travancore. “His person is holy; his directions are commands; his movements are a procession; his meal is nectar; he is the holiest of human beings; he is the representative of god on earth.” It may be noted that the priest at the temple of Badrināth in Gurhwal, which is said to have been established by Sankarāchārya, and at the temple at Tiruvettiyūr, eight miles north of Madras, must be a Nambūtiri. The birth-place of Sankara has been located in a small village named Kāladi in Travancore. It is stated by Mr. Subramani Aiyar that “at some part of his eventful life, Sankara is believed to have returned to his native village, to do the last offices to his mother. Every assistance was withdrawn, and he became so helpless that he had to throw aside the orthodox ceremonials of cremation, which he could not get his relations to help him in, made a sacrificial pit in his garden, and there consigned his mother’s mortal remains. The compound (garden) can still be seen on the banks of the Periyār river on the Travancore side, with a masonry wall enclosing the crematorium, and embowered by a thick grove of trees.”

Every Nambūtiri is, theoretically, a life-long student of the Vēdas. Some admit that religious study or exercise occupies a bare half hour in the day; others devote to these a couple of hours or more. It is certain that every Nambūtiri is under close study between the ages of seven and fifteen, or for about eight years of his life, and nothing whatsoever is allowed to interfere with this. Should circumstances compel interruption of Vēdic study, the whole course is, I believe, re-commenced and gone through da capo. A few years ago, a Nambūtiri boy was wanted, to be informally examined in the matter of a dacoity in his father’s illam; but he had to be left alone, as, among other unpleasant consequences of being treated as a witness, he would have had to begin again his whole course of Vēdic study. The Nambūtiris are probably more familiar with Sanskrit than any other Brāhmans, even though their scholarship may not be of a high order, and certainly none other is to the same extent governed by the letter of the law handed down in Sanskrit.