Identifier: castestribesofso06thuruoft (find matches)
Title: Castes and tribes of southern India. Assisted by K. Rangachari
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Thurston, Edgar, 1855-1935 Rangachari, K
Subjects: Caste -- India Madras (Presidency) Ethnology -- India Madras (Presidency) India -- Social conditions
Publisher: Madras Government Press
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Wanny was governedby native princes styled Wannyahs, and occasionally byfemales with the title of Wunniches. The terms Sambhu and Sambhava Rayan areconnected with the Pall is. The story goes that Agniwas the original ancestor of all kings. His son wasSambhu, whose descendants called themselves Sambhu-kula, or those of the Sambhu family. Some inscriptions §of the time of the Chola kings Kulottunga HI and RajaRaja in record Sambukula Perumal Sambuvarayan andAlagiya Pallavan Edirili Sola Sambuvarayan as titles oflocal chiefs. A well-known verse of Irattayar in praiseof Conjeeveram Ekamranathaswami refers to the Pallavaking as being of the Sambu race. The later descendantsof the Pallavas apparently took Sambuvarayar and its * History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan,1861. t Geographical, statistical, and historical description of Hindostan andthe adjacent countries, 1820. % Ceylon, i860. § South Indian Inscriptions, i, 86-7, 105, 136, and III, I, 121, 123.
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usi y. y. 9 PALLI OR VANNIYAN allied forms as their titles, as the Pallis in Tanjore andSouth Arcot still do. At Conjeeveram there lives thefamily of the Mahanattar of the Vanniyans, which callsitself of the family of Vira Sambu. The name Vanniyan, Mr. H. A. Stuart writes,*seems to have been introduced by the Brahmans,possibly to gratify the desire of the Pallis for genealogicaldistinction. Padaiyachi means a soldier, and is also oflate origin. That the Pallis were once an influentialand independent community may be admitted, and intheir present desire to be classed as Kshatriyas theyare merely giving expression to this belief, but, unlessan entirely new meaning is to be given to the termKshatriya, their claim must be dismissed as absurd.After the fall of the Pallava dynasty, the Pallis becameagricultural servants under the Vellalas, and it is onlysince the advent of British rule that they have begun toassert their claims to a higher position. Further, Mr.W. Francis writes t that this

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