On Kiriyathil Nairs and Nair Aristocracy
Posted by Labels: kiriyam, kiriyath, kiriyathil, Malabar, Malabar - English period 1800-1900, nair
The position of Nairs in the caste and ruling structures of
medieval Kerala is a very peculiar one, and this resulted in so many
anthropological studies into it. Volumes have been written by people who
understood it in parts, for decoding the structure and its peculiarities is not
easy. I don’t claim to know even parts of it, but I thought I will cover a
little bit of my gatherings on the specific aspects of Kiriyam and Kiriyathil
nairs here and in particular, as related to Malabar, not Travancore.
During wedding planning in families which attach much importance to
caste, an alliance is carefully checked to see what caste classification the prospective
bride or groom belongs to. If they are both Nair’s they check to see what kind
of a Nair the other is. So now that explains that there are different types of
Nairs. It is a subject by itself which I will not get into, but briefly, there
are quite a few and decided by pedigree as well as profession, social status
and also positions granted by a sovereign in those old times. Some say there
are close to 64 or so of such sub classifications. Examples are Illathu,
Swaroopathu, Pattola, Maran, Idachery Nairs, Odathu, Athikurichikal,
Chembukottikal, Chalia Nairs, Kalamkotti Nair, Pallichal Nairs, Veluthedathu
Nairs, Vilakkithala Nairs and so on and so forth. Whatever said and done, the
top position of differing tables created in Malabar, Cochin and Travancore
regions are held by the Kiriyathil Nair. So what is a Kiriyath Nair supposed to
be?
Note first of all that Kiriyam as terminology is not
exlusive to Nairs. It is a term used by many other communities such as the
Thiyyas, Kanakkans, Kurups and so on. Kiriyam can actually be said to mean
clan. Illam as a family home or homestead is also not exclusive to Nambuthiris
(Kulam is another nonexclusive term). The normal definition, dating back to
Fawcett goes thus - The Kiriyattil, or
Kiriyam, said to be derived from the Sanskrit word graham, a house (a doubtful
derivation) is the highest of all the clans in South Malabar, and is supposed
to comprise or correspond with the group of clans just named of North Malabar.
In the old days every Nair chief had his Charnavar, or adherents. The Purattu
Charna are the outside adherents, or the fighters, and so on, and the Akattu Charna
are inside adherents, clerks and domestics. The clan from which the former were
drawn is superior to the latter.
What brings these Kiriyathils Nairs to a primary position is
the fact that they were not obliged to serve upper caste Namboothiris or the
ruling Kshatriaya families (The Illath Nair or Illakar on the other hand served
in Nambuthiri homes while the svarupakkar served the royal households e.g.
Kolathiri, Perumbadappu etc). The Kiriyathil nairs tended to matters of their
houses or estates, and were allowed to collect taxes on land holdings of
Sthanis whom they were aligned to. Only the Kiriyam Nair was allowed to wear
bracelets on both arms and they were also not classified as Sudra Nairs (not in
the eyes of the Namboothiris though) whereas all other Nair classifications
were.
Kanippayur provides two comparisons to explain the
difference, firstly comparing the Tripunithara Rajas and the Kodungallur Chazhur
kovilakom. Both were Kshatriya families in principle but the former were higher
in social status, being the ruling elite. The males the royal house are called Thambrakkal
whereas the males of Chazur are Thambakkal. The females are Thambrattimar and
Thambattimar respectively. Similarly the Zamorins (Samoothirimaar) and other
Eradi families are of the same category but the former are Rajas and their
home, Kovilakoms. The Zamorin can sit and eat with a Namboothiri, but the Eradi
could not.
In the old times, the
land was divided into Naadu’s and Desam’s. Their rulers or chieftains were
termed Naaduvazhi and Desavazhi respectively and were always of Kiriyath nair
stock. Kiriryam therefore is considered to be the corrupted dialectic
equivalent of the Sanskrit term ‘graham’ or homestead. The graham name and the
land around it, owned by the owner is one that had been formally endorsed by
the local Thambran. As the titles of Desavazhi and Naduvazhi lost prevalence
when time passed, the honorific Kiriyam titles remained, thus creating the
group of those aristocratic families and their descendants. Note here that the
name of the home or in today’s terms the family name had to be kept intact to
provide a manner of proof of the Kiriyam lineage.
Interestingly in the Cochin area, some of these Kiriyam Nairs
were also called Vellayma Nairs, signifying the connection to Vellala or
Valluvan of the Tamil lands. If you recall, I had mentioned earlier (On the
origin of Nairs) an article by U B Nair alluding to the advent (based on Oppert’s
claim) of Vellalas into Malabar. It appears that 64 families of karakattu
vellalars formed the original Kiriyathil Nair group. They were the groups which
won distinction from the Pandya king for guarding the clouds and were
apparently the ones brought in by Parasurama into Malabar. However this is
debunked by UB Nair himself on the basis that Parasurama existed before the
advent of Vellalas to Kaveripattinam and as he had brought Nairs to Kerlam, Nairs
predated vellalars.
Continuing on, these lords or chieftains or Sthanis (Nadu
Vazhi and Desavazhi) had additional titles such as Kurup, Kaimal, Nambiar, Kartha,
Vazhunnavar etc. This authority to govern was the reason why the Kiriyathil
nair families considered themselves superior to other Nairs. They were
considered to be the aristocrats, they had the status, the upbringing, the
standing, bearing and so on and were also authorized to settle dispute in their
respective territories.
In general they are involved with agriculture, work as a Sthani’s
or chieftain’s officer or as accountants. Should there be a dispute to
adjudicate, representative from four kiriyams hear it and if they cannot
resolve it, the matter is passed on to the Nambudiri (regional nambudiri
council?). In those times, the Kiriyam nair married only from another kiriyam. It
was also their responsibility to maintain the rules of pollution, for example,
if a death occurred in a lower class Nair’s house and people including upper
classification Nairs were attending, all the cooking could only be done by a
Kiriyathil Nair. They were called Ejamanan and according to Kannipayur, prominent
Kiriyathil Nair families preferred sambandham only from Nambudiri men for the women
in the family. As days went by and the English came to take control of
administration, the Kiriyathil Nair did not have much to do unlike the other
Nairs who had held on to their hereditary professions. All they did therefore
was living a life of landlords with revenues from the land tilled by their
tenants.
Looking at Bhaskaran Unni’s magnum opus, ‘Kerala of the 19th
century’, we see that the definition has changed. Quoting Chathurvarnakarmam,
he states that while Kiriyam Nairs were aristocrats, there were also soldiers
in their midst and adds Nairs, Kurups, Nambiar, Panickkar and Menon to this Kiriyam
list.
We also observe that while Kiriyathil is the name of the
highest class sub-caste of the Nair caste, they are found confined to the
regions of Malabar and Cochin mostly and are rarely seen in Travancore where
the second in line in Nair sub caste i.e. Illathu Nairs, take predominance.
Francis H Buchanan (vol2 p408) traveling through Malabar in
1800 affirms the above in his records - The
Nair, or in the plural the Naimar, are the pure Sudras of Malayala, and all
pretend to be born soldiers; but they are of various ranks and professions. The
highest in rank are the Kiriam, or Kiriyat Nairs. On all public occasions these
act as cooks, which among Hindus is a sure mark of transcendent rank; for every
person can eat die food prepared by a person of higher birth than himself in
all disputes among the inferior orders, an assembly of four Kiriams, with some
of the lower orders, endeavour to adjust the business. If they cannot
accomplish this good end, the matter ought to be referred to the Namburis, The
Kiriat Nainmar support themselves by agriculture, or by acting as officers of
government, or accountants. They never marry a woman of any of the lower Nairs,
except those of the Sudras, or Charnadu, and these very rarely.
Kannipayur points out another interesting observation
connected with Kiriyath Nair’s. If a Nair ate in a Nambudiri’s illam, he had to
remove his banana leaf after the meal, himself. The women of the Illam are not
allowed to dispose of these. However a Kiriyam Nair invitee also desists from
doing this himself. Instead he brings along a Nair servant to do that menial
service, demonstrating his higher status of Sthani Nayanmar. It is also
believed that important Kiriyam Nair families, until about the end- of last
century did not accept husbands from the Samanthan castes such as Nedungadi and
Kartavu.
Kannipayur believes that the Nairs came to the fore after
the 12th century and following the defeat of the Cheras, to further
split into multiple swaroopams. The Kiriyathil Nair from that point on was the
eye and the hand of the overlord, and was the clan who administered smaller
principalities (The Desavazhi was akin to a Village Munsif of British times). A
desam incidentally is a village or the smallest administrative unit and had at least
one Kiriyam Nair resident, who was therefore the village authority.
While this was what was in practice, it would be interesting
to check what the lore and legend was in connection with the Nairs. In the
words of Kerololpathi: “Parasu Rama having sent for Sudras from various
countries, made them settle and prescribed various rules of conduct for them.
He created adima and kudima in the Desom, protected Adiyans and Kudians,
established Taras and Sankitams, separated the Nairs into Taras, and ordered
that to them was to belong the duties of supervising (lit. the eye) executing
(lit. the hand) and giving orders in such a manner that rights should not be
curtailed or suffered to fall into disuse. To the kudians the kilkur (inferior
share), to the Brahmins the melkur (superior share); to the former the kanom
and to the latter the jenmam; and so the law of kanam and jenmam and the rules
of conduct for the Brahmins and customs for the Sudras were ordained.”
It is clear from the above that the Nairs were connected with
supervisory functions of that early feudal system and William Logan rightly
observes: "they had as a guild higher functions in the body politic than
merely ploughing the rice-fields and controlling the irrigated lands”
K Raman Unni explains the two differing levels of Kiriyathil Nairs in his 1961 thesis - As an example consider this - Kolappulli is a village headed by a Sthani nair who lives in Kavalappara, a village three miles away. Barely three fourth of the lands of the village belongs to the Sthani Nair and it is one of the few villages where his retainers, the Kiriyattil Nairs, reside. In each of the three villages, families of power belong to the retainer castes.
As the numbers of Kiriyattil Nairs increased, the category
of Sthanis separated themselves from a broader group of Kiriyathil Nairs. Raman
Unni explains - The Sthanis, literally
meaning the holders of high social status are lineages of title holding and
very wealthy Nairs originally drawn from different castes of Nairs, chiefly
from the Kiriyattil Nairs. Most of them were in pre-British times Naduvaris
(district heads) and some were powerful Desavaris (village heads…... Some of
the Sthanis carry special ritual rights and privileges as a heritage from a
remote past and some of them have these bestowed by the ruler who awarded the
title.
Kiriyam Nair caste
appears to have had off-shoots of differential rank named Kakka Kiriyam, Patti Kiriyam,
Manala Kiriyam and Panom Kiriyam. The Kiriyattils in general everywhere were on
a level with the 10,000 armed retainers (Purathucharnas) under the Zamorin. Menons
in Ponnani taluk were in this manner title holders under the Raja of Cochin and
those in Walluvanad were originally clerks under their Raja drawn from Kiriyattils
and Purathucharna Nairs. Of the non-Brahmin high castes the Kiriyattil Nairs alone
are said to have a relatively good mastery of the culinary art, perhaps in line
with their tradition as 'Kitchen men' of their Sthani overlords. The Kiriyattil
men of the less wealthy tharavad, on invitation, serve as cooks at feasts of Nair
castes of the same group, a practice reported by more popular in earlier
periods. The Kiriyattils (both Nairs and Nambiars) the adukkalakkar (kitchen men)
send from each taravad at least one man to the Sthani head's house to cook
during the fourteen days of death pollution of his taravad. Nairs in a mood of
gossip or sportive ridicule would refer to the Kiriyam Nairs as
"KolliUntikal" which means feeders of fire wood, with reference to
their role of cooking for their Sthani-heads at ritual occasions.
References
Malabar and Its Folk - T. K. Gopal Panikkar
Malabar Manual - William Logan
19’aam Nootandile keralam - P Bhaskaran Unni
Aryanmarude Kudiyettam 3rd volume – Kanipayyur
Sankaran Namboothiripad
Caste in South Malabar – K Raman Unni
Census of India, 1901
Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages - Robert
Caldwell
A hand book of Malabar law and usage as administered by the
courts - B. Govinda Nambiar
Report of the Malabar Marriage Commission 1891
Notes
A peculiarity in North Malabar - There were three Kovilagams
namely Chirakkal, Kottayam and Kadathanad, in North Malabar. The term 'Kiriyam'
Nair is never used by North Malabar Nairs in speaking of themselves. Two main
divisions are into Agatha Charnavar and Puratha Charnavar. There are Charnavar
attached to each Kovilagam in North Malabar. The Nairs of North Malabar will
generally consider that they are attached to one or other of the Kovilagams. A
man will say that he is al-karan (adherent) of such-and-such a Kovilagam. If a
man is alkaran of a Kovilagam it is that Kovilagam which
L Anatha Krishna Iyer on Kiriyathil Nairs basing his comment
on Keralolpathi – The members of this subdivision are believed to have been the
descendants of the early Brahmins, in their union with the Deva, Gandharva and Rakshasa
women, bought into Kerala by Parasurama and their duty was primarily to serve
them
Robert Caldwell - The word kiriyam according to Gundert, is
a corrupted form of the Sanskrit word Kshayam which means loss, perhaps
unrelated to the discussion but explains how it is difficult to obtains
derivations for kiriyam from the Sanskrit word graham– Dr Robert Caldwell states - The hard, lingual sibilant of Sanskrit is
unknown to classical Tamil. Sometimes it is changed into s’, a change which
ordinarily takes place at the present day in the pronunciation of the lower
classes in the southern districts, sh is sometimes, though rarely, converted in
Tamil into r. Dr Gundert supplies me with some instances of this in old
Malayālam—e.g., kshaya, Sans. loss, is in old Mal. written kirayam, and the
name Lakshmanan in an old copy of the Ramayana is written Ilarkkanan. Here rkk
stands for ksh. Sometimes sh is assimilated to a succeeding n—e.g., the name
Vishnu becomes sometimes, both in poetical Tamil and in Malayalam, Vinnu.
Finally – Would these people have anything to do with the
Kiriyam and Kriyavada doctrine of Mahavira preached by Jains?? The kiriyam
doctrine teaches that the soul exists, acts and is affected by acts. Did these
clans have anything to do with the large numbers of Jains we had in Malabar at
one time? Food for thought….
WISHING ALL READERS A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR