Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 6 of 7 — Reading Companion

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In Category - Customs Everyday Life

Authors: Thurston, Edgar, 1855-1935, Rangachari, K. [Contributor] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2013 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Caste -- India, South; Tribes -- India, South; Ethnology -- India, South; India, South -- Social life and customs Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 145,926

Reading time 635 min

Text sections 18

This digital edition of Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 6 of 7 — Reading Companion is described by source-level measurements including 145,926 words, 10 hr 35 min estimated reading time, and 18 detected text sections.

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Source: Project Gutenberg record #42996

This volume of Thurston's ethnographic survey examines castes from P to S, blending census data, colonial reports, and caste origin narratives. The entry on Pallis details their claims to Kshatriya status and temple rights, while footnotes reveal the work's reliance on sources like district gazetteers and missionary accounts.

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as supplied by Mr. V. Govindan. If the deceased was a married man, the corpse is placed in a sitting posture in a booth made of twigs of margosa and milk-hedge (Euphorbia Tirucalli), and supported behind by a mortar. The widow puts on all her ornaments, and decorates her hair with flowers. She seats herself on the left side of the corpse, in the hands of which some paddy (unhusked rice) or salt is placed. Taking hold of its hands, some one pours the contents thereof into the hands of the widow, who replaces them in those of the corpse. This is done thrice, and the widow then ties the rice in her cloth. On the way to the burial ground (sudukadu), the son carries a new pot, the barber a pot of cooked rice and brinjal (Solanum Melongena) fruits and other things required for doing puja. The Paraiyan in charge of the burial ground carries a fire-brand. The mats and other articles used by the deceased, and the materials of which the booth was made, are carried in front by the washerman, who deposits them at a spot between the house of the deceased and the burial ground called the idukadu, which is made to represent the shrine of Arichandra. Arichandra was a king, who became a slave of the Paraiyans, and is in charge of the burial ground. At the idukadu the corpse is placed on the ground, and the son, going thrice round it, breaks the pot of rice near its head. The barber makes a mark at the four corners of the bier, and the son places a quarter anna on three of the marks, and some cowdung on the mark at the north-east corner. The widow seats herself at the feet of the corpse, and another widowed woman breaks her tali string, and throws it on the corpse. Arrived at the grave, the gurukal (priest) descends into it, does puja and applies vibhuti (sacred ashes) to its sides. The body is lowered into it, and half a yard of cloth from the winding-sheet is given to the Paraiyan, and a quarter of a yard to an Andi (religious mendicant). The grave is filled in up to the neck of the corpse, and bael (Ægle Marmelos) leaves, salt, and vibhuti are placed on its head by the gurukal. The grave is then filled in, and a stone and thorny branch placed at the head end. As the son goes, carrying the water-pot, three times round the grave, the barber makes a hole in the pot, which is thrown on the stone. The son and other relations bathe and return to the house, where a vessel containing milk is set on a mortar, and another containing water placed at the door. They dip twigs of the pipal (Ficus religiosa) into the milk, and throw them on the roof. They also worship a lighted lamp. On the third day, cooked rice, and other food for which the deceased had a special liking, are taken to the grave, and placed on plantain leaves. Puja is done, and the crows are attracted to the spot. If they do not turn up, the gurukal prays, and throws up water three times. On the seventeenth day, the son and others, accompanied by the gurukal, carry a new brick and articles required for puja to the river. The brick is placed under water, and the son bathes. The articles for puja are spread on a plantain leaf, before which the son places the brick. Puja is done to it, and a piece of new cloth tied on it. It is then again carried to the water, and immersed therein. The ceremonial concludes with the lighting of the sacred fire (homam).

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Volume VI of Castes and Tribes of Southern India opens with an extended entry on the Palli or Vanniyan caste, immediately foregrounding a pattern that recurs throughout the volume: the interplay between colonial administrative records and indigenous caste claims. Thurston reproduces petitions, published treatises such as the Vannikula Vilakkam, and assertions of royal lineage—including the claim that the Pallis descend from the fire races of Kshatriyas and that one of their kings was Kulasēkhara, a Travancore ruler and revered Ālwar. The text does not adjudicate these claims but instead documents them alongside census returns and temple practices, such as the Pallis’ right to present the camphor offering at the Mylapore Siva temple. This approach makes the volume less a neutral catalogue and more a layered record of how caste identities were negotiated in early twentieth-century South India.

Census Petitions and Caste Mobility

The Palli entry illustrates how census operations became arenas for social assertion. Thurston notes that in 1871 a petition was submitted to Government requesting classification as Kshatriyas, and that by 1891 a book by T. Aiyakannu Nayakar supported this claim. A later 1907 publication, Varuna Darpanam, attempted to link the caste with the Pallavas. These details show that the volume’s catalog subjects—Caste, Ethnology, Social life and customs—are not static categories but sites of active contestation. Thurston’s method is to present these claims without endorsement, often referring readers to the original texts (“for details concerning which claim I must refer the reader to the book itself”). The footnotes, drawn from sources like the Madras Census Report and district gazetteers, anchor the discussion in official documentation, yet the excerpts leave unclear how far Thurston verified the caste histories he summarizes.

Temple Rights and Ritual Precedence

Thurston records specific ritual privileges held by the Pallis: they celebrate the anniversary of Kulasēkhara at the Parthasārathi temple in Triplicane, which inscriptions identify as a Pallava temple, and they manage a dedicated Sabha for this purpose. The Pallis also have the right to present “the most important camphor offering” at the Mylapore Siva temple. These observations ground abstract caste identity in concrete religious practice. The volume’s catalog subject “India, South — Social life and customs” here takes the form of documented temple usages, though the excerpts do not reveal how these rights were contested or maintained. The entry on Puthukka Nāttār, a sub-division of Idaiyan, and the note on Pūtiya Islām among Mukkuvans further suggest that the volume tracks both long-standing divisions and recent conversions, but the brevity of these entries leaves their significance unexplored.

Footnoted Authorities and Colonial Knowledge

The volume’s apparatus of footnotes—numbering over seventy in the opening pages alone—reveals the range of sources Thurston synthesized: district manuals, census reports, archaeological surveys, missionary records, and travel narratives. Citations such as “Manual of the North Arcot district” and “Gazetteer of the South Arcot district” appear repeatedly, indicating a reliance on British administrative compilations. Other references, like “Journey through Mysore, Canara, and Malabar” or “Native Life in Travancore,” introduce ethnographic travel writing. This mosaic of authorities gives the volume an encyclopedic character, but it also means that the voices of the castes described are filtered through colonial intermediaries. The catalog subject “Ethnology — India, South” is thus realized as a composite of official reports and outsider observations, with the excerpts offering little direct testimony from the subjects themselves.

Readers approaching this volume should attend to the tension between its catalog subjects—which imply systematic coverage—and the fragmentary, contested nature of the evidence Thurston presents. The entries on Pallis, Paraiyans, and others are best read as documents of colonial knowledge production rather than transparent descriptions. The footnotes reward scrutiny: they map the institutional and textual networks that shaped early twentieth-century ethnography in South India.

Poring over Thurston's census tables and priestly footnotes, I kept thinking how every claim to Kshatriya lineage was really a quiet plea for a place to belong. That same longing surfaces in Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines — A Reader’s Guide, where walls and hearths speak of kinship as tenderly as any temple record. Some things resist classification, even in the most meticulous volumes.