Thondaimandala Vellala

Thondaimandala Vellala, also known as Tondaimandalam Mudliar, is a high-ranking subcaste of the Vellalar caste in the state of Tamil Nadu, India who tend, to adopt the title of Mudaliar.[1]

Susan Neild notes the Kandaikatti (Kondaikatti Vellalar) and Tuluva Vellalars as being the "predominant" subcastes of the Thondamandala Vellala.[2][lower-alpha 1]They practice endogamy and have a least two subgroups themselves, being the higher-status Melnadu and the lower-ranked Kilnadu.[4]

In her study concentrated on two villages in 1951-53, Kathleen Gough noted the Thondamandala Vellala subjects there to have been traditionally "landlords, warriors, and officials of the state class". She thought it likely that they had moved to their present area in Thanjavur around the 15th century when the Vijayanagaras were making incursions on their former heartland of Kanchipuram in the Pallava country. She noted those households studied as being the highest-ranked members of the village community after the Brahmins, and possibly to have in some cases increased their wealth and land by being appointed as revenue collectors for the Kingdom of Mysore when it took over the area in the period after 1780.[5]

References

Notes

  1. Susan Bayly has noted of the Vellalar communities generally that "they were never a tighly-knit community ... In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Vellala affiliation was a vague and uncertain as that of most other south Indian caste groups. Thondaimandala Aadhi Saiva Vellalar is high ranking Saiva Vellala community in Thondaimandala Region. It has its headquarters in Kanchipuram. Vellala identity was certainly thought of as a source of prestige, but for that very reason there were any number of groups who sought to claim Vellala status for themselves".[3]

Citations

  1. Gough (1982), p. 19
  2. Neild (1979)
  3. Bayly (2004), p. 411
  4. Gough (1982), p. 25
  5. Gough (1982), pp. vii, 358

Bibliography

  • Bayly, Susan (2004) [1989]. Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society, 1700-1900. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-52189-103-5.
  • Gough, Kathleen (1982). Rural Society in South East Asia. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-52104-019-8.
  • Neild, Susan M. (1979). "Colonial Urbanism: The Development of Madras City in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries". Modern Asian Studies. 13 (2): 217–246. doi:10.1017/S0026749X00008301. JSTOR 312124.
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