Social Compass, XXVIII, 1981/2-3, 163-199

Geneviève LEMERCINIER

Relationships between Means of Production,

Caste and Religion
The Case of Kerala between the 13th and the 19th Century*

L’auteur explique comment le système des castes s’est établi

au Kerala à partir du IXe siècle, suite à une migration de Brahma-
nes du Nord et à des guerres incessantes entre deux royaumes du
Sud, celui des Cholas (Tamilnadu) et des Choras (Sud Kerala
actuel) à propos des épices et autres produits naturels vendus aux
pays méditerranéens. On passa alors de l’organisation clanique de
la production dans des royaumes tributaires à une appropriation
progressive de la terre par les Brahmanes, agents religieux, les
divers clans faisant don de leurs terres aux divinités, afin de les
soustraire au pillage.
Il en résulta une organisation en caste, intégrant d’une part
les clans existants dans une hiérarchie nouvelle (les hors-castes
étant les tribus pré-dravidiennes) et formant d’autre part des grou-
pes sociaux nouveaux (castes), comme intermédiaires-
gestionnaires des agents religieux et comme réserve d’épouses
(polyandrie) pour les enfants mineurs des Brahmanes, seul l’aîné
pouvant se marier dans sa caste, afin de conserver le patrimoine
terrien.
Ce système déboucha sur une série de pratiques sociales éta-
blissant des distances entre chaque groupe, chacun d’entre eux
sauf les esclaves hors-castes, ayant toujours un groupe inférieur
en-dessous de lui. Les diverses jatis permirent aussi une division
fonctionnelle du travail qui se construisit sur les anciennes appar-
tenances ethniques.
II apparait clairement que le système des castes ne peut être
expliqué par le simple recours au religieux, mais que ce dernier
doit être resitué dans l’ensemble des rapport sociaux et des expres-
sions symboliques
.

*
This article is an extract of a research presented as the Ph D thesis in Sociology at the Catho-
lic University of Louvain, with as title: Religion and Ideology in Kerala, under the direction of F.
Houtart.

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 The social formation we are about to study is the one which became
dominant in Kerala in the 9th century . and persisted practically unaltered
until the early 19th, the period which saw the beginnings of British coloniza-
tion. We might briefly characterize it as one in which the religious system was
dominant. In a first part we shall analyse the genesis of this new mode of
social organization. We shall also inquire into the factors which caused their
hierarchization on the new basis. This means that we must search for the
determinant, or determinants, which assigned differentiated objective posi-
tions in the social space to the various groups, positions which, transposed
into the plance of representations, governed the practices corresponding to the
ladder of social status.
The second part will be concerned with the study of the structures of
caste-society in Kerala, paying special attention to the relations existing bet-
ween the groups, and the specificity of the new symbolic construction which
expressed them. Those social forms existed till their fundamental alteration by
the British legislative system, and the imposition of the capitalist mode of pro-
duction. Our historical leap (from the 13th to the 19th century) is justified by
the fact that we are not attempting to reconstruct the evolution of the structu-
res, but only to analyse some of transition periods from one mode of produc-
tion to another. For if the British colonization disturbed the structures of this
social formation, our analysis of its results obviously requires that we should
first understand how the different elements of this type of society were articu-
lated with one another. And this underlines the necessity of a structural analy-
sis of the caste system in Kerala as it had then been reproduced by seven centu-
ries of institutionalization.
This mode of social organization, in Malayalam «Chaturvarnya»,
appears in historical studies as succeeding the Kulasekhara empire. During the
12th C., indeed, the old Chera dynasty seems to have completely disappeared
from the political scene in Kerala, and historians agree in seeing in this epoch
the final success of Aryanization. In other words, the social ensemble was
then dominated by a religious system, the agents of which were the Brahmin
group. Certain schools of thought, confounding myth with objective reality,
see in this Brahmin triumph the concrete expression of the will of the gods;
others reject the myth altogether. Both, however, accept the fact that the
Brahmin group imposed on Kerala the traditional social divisions wich were in
force in the north of India, based on the four varnas. [According to Hindu
religious images, these varnas had been produced by Brahma the Creator.
First of all came the Brahmins, issuing from the mouth of the deity; to them
were assigned religious functions, as well as the six duties: study, teaching,
sacrifice, assistance to the rest in the sacifices, almsgiving and the right to
receive gifts so that the Vedas might continue to be transmitted to posterity.
Next came the Kshatryas, issuing from Brahma’s arms, whose special gift was
power; their duties were to studie, to offer sacrifice, to give alms, to fight, and
to protect treasures and life so as to ensure good government. The Vaishyas
were born from the thighs of the god, and had received the stength to work
and the obligation to study, to offer sacrifice, to give alms, to cultivate the
land, to engage in trade and to raise livestock so that labour might be produc-
tive. Finally, to the Sudras, born from brahma’s feet, was assigned the duty of
serving the three other varnas.
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 In this way we may sum up the contents of the famous «Laws of Manu»,
which are exceedinly detailed code establishing the social
completed by an
position of individuals born of unions between persons belonging to different
varnas. These social regulations were considered by the Brahmins as revealed
truth; hence they had an absolute value for the group. It was this social model
which was conveyed by the ideology of the Nambudiris, and which was enfor-
ced the Kerala social ensemble from the 12th century onwards.
on
Most probably this ideology had already been infused into Kerala culture
from the time of the major migration of the Aryan Brahmins from Tegulu at
the beginning of the group and the building of many temples. However, the
mode of social organization of the Kulasekharas was too solidly established to
be immediately vulnerable to this new ideological current. For the social
model inculcated by the Nambudiris was based on the dominance of the group
of religious agents. But in the Kerala of that time the dominance of the politi-
cal system was supreme. Besides which, Hinduism did not yet hold a mono-
poly in the symbolic universe. So if the ideology of a case society succeeded in
imposing itself a few centuries later it was presumably because the Nambudiris
had been able by that time to assert themselves, not only as religious agents
but also as the group in power. The question that remains to be debated is how
and why the monarchical regime progressively lost its hegemony. We must
inquire into the nature of the social production which was born of the encoun-
ter between the traditional structures and the structural model which the Nam-
budirsi succeeded in imposing.

I. War as a contingent factor in social transition

Nothing existing in the Kerala social ensemble could have forecast the
desintegration of the political structures of the Kulasekhara monarchy. The
foundation of the system the merchant economy - was in full expansion,
-

thanks to the entry into it of the Chinese and the Arabsl as principal partners
in the spice trade. In the rural areas the only new element in the local structu-
res was the Nambudiri group. But these were geographically dispersed, on
account of their dependance on the usufruct of lands granted to them by the
crown or by the naduva.zhis. Their influence, at this period, was limited essen-
tially to the cultural plane.
The factor which played the part of a progressively erosive force in this
whole edifice was exogenous: the expansionist designs of the Cholas, and the
escalation of hostilities. The intensity of these increased at the end of thet 11the
century, and had the final effect of destroying forever the political unity of
Kerala, at least in its monarchical form2.
Already in the Sangam period the Chola kingdom had beeen a permanent
threat to its western neighbours. The two centuries of peace which the Kula-
sekhara monarchy had experienced were due uniquely to the ruin inflicted by
the Pallavas on the Chola monarchs of the 8th century. But by the beginning
of the l lth the latter were once again in a position to resume their objectives
of conquest. Their aim was to build up a vast empire which would unify the

1
See above, chapter II.
2
The present State of Kerala was officially recognized on November Ist, 1956.

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Pandyan kingdom, the Ceylonese kingdom and the Chera empire, that is to
say all the political units which were engaged in commercial activities, and
with this as a basis to establish trading posts all along the coasts of the Bay of
Bengal, Malaysia, Indonesia and Indo-China. This would give them the control
over the trade-routes between China and India, and so halt the increasing ascen-
dancy of the Arabs. From the economic point of view the Chola Kingdom was
certainly at this time the least favourably placed among those forming the
Indian ’cone’ of the southern Deccan. Their own commercial relations with
the trading partners common to all were limited to the sale of the fine pearls
which abounded in the waters off the Coromandel coast.
In addition, the silting-up of the estuaries of their rivers was making their
own ports ever more difficult of access. And finally their agriculture suffered
from difficulties connected with the necessary irrigation. After defeating the
Pandyans in 955, and conquering the kingdom of Ceylan in 10933, the Cholas
turned their attention to the most powerful of their enemies, the Cheras. The
war between the two kingdoms continued for over a century, though the figh-
ting was not, of course, continuous. During the earlier decades attacks, victo-
rie and defeats oscillated between one side and the other, interrupted by truces
during which both sides prepared for a renewal of the struggle. But at the end
of the 11 th C. the balance tilted strongly in favour of the Cholas. The Chera
empire was invaded several times and its capital was destroyed4. True, the ter-
ritory was partially rconquered after each major offensive, but it was not until
the end of the 12th C. that the Cholas were definitively driven out, thanks to
the intervention of new army units, the suicide-squads, whose members - the
Chavers - swore an oath either to win the day or to die in battle5.
The detailed vicissitudes of the war would be of little interest for this
study. More important from our point of view are the structural changes
which came about during this century as direct of indirect consequence of the
fighting.
In the political field, first of all: it will be remembered that the strength of
the political system. on the plane of relationships between the sovereign and
the naduvazhis, depended on the distribution of economic surpluses and of
authority, which left an almost total autonomy to the provincial rulers. In
return for this they were responsible for the whole burden of organizing the
local army units. The relationships of dependence between the provincial
rulers and the central power, which were in actual fact very loose, were far
more rigid on the symbolic level; allegiance, status symbols depended on the
position they occupied in the polical structure in relation to the sovereign,
etc... Moreover, the power of the monarchy, weak on the formal level, was
compensated for by the development of an ideological production centred
round the concepts of the father-king, the protector-king, descendant of the

3
Vidya Dhar Maharajan, History of India, from the beginning to 1525 a.d ., S. Chand &
Co., New Delhi, 1975, p. 348-363.
4
The ruins of Mahodayapuram which today’s excavations are bringing to light are the
results of this destruction. See V.T. Induchudan, Archeological Excavations in Kondugallur, in
Journal of Indian History, 170-188.
5
Elakulam Kunjan Pillai, Studies in Kerala History, National Book Stall, Kottayam, 1970,
284-291; Streedhara Menon, A Survey of Kerala History. Sahitya Pravarthaka Coop. Society,
National Book Stall, Kottayam, 1967, p. 166.

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 dynasty of the sun and the moon - which saw him as something of a superman.
The war, and more particularly the serious defeats inflicted on the Chera
monarch, directly attacked both these structures. We can well imagine how
the shock of seeing the capital city, including the royal palace and the temple
of the war-gooddess, destroyed by the enemy would react on the ideology of
the «king-as-universal-protector.» Inevitably, it brought about the collapse of
the whole symbolic support of the monarchy.
On the other hand, the involvement of the whole territory in the fighting
obliged not only the naduvazhis, but in many cases the desavazhis also (as
commanders of military units within the provinces), to organize their own
defences, without being able to appeal for help to any higher authority. So
that the conditions brought about by the war also contributed to the weake-
ning of the central power. They account for the development of the separtist
tendencies which appeared, at the end of the hostilities, in the emergence of
small principalities and chieftainships whom no political authority was capable
of unifying. So much so indeed that from the 12th to the 18th century Kerala
was nothing but an agglomeration of more than forty tiny kingdoms (swaru-
pams), more or less united by ties of vassalage to three larger political units,
the kingdom of Venad (later, Travancore), the Perumpadappu Swarupam
(the future kingdom of Cochin), and the Nediyiruppu Swarupam - whose
ruling family, the Samuri, are better known under the European form of their
name: The Zamorins of Calicut.
However, while the atomizing of the old political system was proceeding,
the Nambudiris group, dispersed over the whole territory but well organized
around the structure of its various lineages (or illams) and of its councils of
elders (the Taliyazhvans), was the one element which succeeded in mobilizing
the energies of the basic social units in order to drive out the enemy. The Vedic
schools attached to the larger temples were transformed into military acade-
mies, from which young Brahmins skilled in the profession of arms were sent
out to train, in their turn, the sons of the tarawads - the extended families of
the rural regions in the kalaris (village schools), and also to assist the politi-
-

cal authorities. The part played by the Nambudiris group during the last deca-
des of the war was the source of the real power they enjoyed after the conflict
was over. In fact, of course, they never seized the formal political power, but
continued to respect that of the local authorities. Nevertheless, at the end of
the fighting, it was they alone who possessed a superstructure covering the
entirety of the political units. Moreover the fact that some of their members
had sacrificed their exclusive religious functions in order to save the commu-
nity ensured them a great stock of credibility among the other social groups. It
gave them a privileged position, enabling them to impose on the country the
model of social organization whose ideology constituted an essential part of
their religious discourse6.
6
, the epic story of the Nambudiris’ history, relates that Parasurama, the
The Keralolpatti
mythical incarnation of Vishnu, after giving the territory of Kerala to the Nambudiris, personally
organized an army of 36,000 Brahmins to save the country. It is well known that ever since the
Vedic period the Brahmins have been forbidden to injure life in any way. This is why he profes-
sion of arms was assigned to the Kshatriyas
. Hence the fact that the Brahmins in Kerala had been
directly involved in military operations could ne reconciled only by the construction of a myth in
which the deity intervened directly to give the group the order to fight. Nevertheless those who
had actually done so, & their descendants, were no longer authorized to recite the Vedas nor to
offer sacrifice. Even today they form a particular sub-caste, that of the Samtamgakars, including
18 extended families.
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II. Brahmin appropriation of the land and its effect on the struc-
ture of social relations of production
1. The gift of land to the Temples
We should fail to understand the ascendancy of the Namburdiris group in
the post-war Kerala ensemble if we did not take into account the effects of the
war in the economic field.
It is a foreseable phenomenon that a war should have direct consequences
on the volume of production. But the phenomenon is a temporary one, espe-
cially when the production is agricultural. Besides, since Kerala and (to a les-
ser extent) the neighbouring kingdoms had at this time the monopoly of spice-
production, we should expect that any negative effects suffered by the com-
mercial activities would be of short duration. An in fact the writings of Euro-
pean travellers of the 12th and 13th centuries describe a flourishing economic
situation’.
But some other effects were irreversible. These concerned the organiza-
tion of production, and they gave rise to a chain-reaction of consequence, espe-
cially on the plane of relations between the social groups. We refer to the fun-
damental change which took place in the system of land tenure, and also to
the conversion to other sectors of activity of groups which had been attached
to certain types of occupation ever since the clan period of their history.
We have already emphsized on several occasions the characteristic con-
cept of land-ownership which prevailed in Kerala before this period. It will be
remembered that at the time of the erection of the Chera monarchy in the first
Sangam period the political structure had left intact the existing clan type of
organization. The relationship between the political authority and the social
groups bore some resemblance to the contractual type, since these groups paid
in kind for the protection extended to them by the sovereign through the
army. This social formation had retained in its ideology the clan concept of
soil-ownership, considered as a fact natural to the group, their occupation of
their territory being collective evidence of it. In this context even war did not
imply the conquest of an enemy’s land but merely the appropriation of its pro-
duce.

7 The
Venotian, Marco Polo, who visited Quilon at the end of the 13th C., records that «the
merchants form Manzi (China) and the Levant come here with their ships & make a great deal of
profit from: their imports and exports... The population can procure all the necessities of life
cheaply and in abundance». S. Menon, op. cit (5), 69.
Another passage apparently refers to Calicut: «Eli is a kingdom in the west, about 300 miles from
Kumari. The people are idolaters; the king pays tribute to no one and speaks a different language.
There are no ports in this country. but there are several big rivers with wide, deep estuaries. Pep-
per, ginger and other spices grow here in great abundance. The king is rich but his army is weak.
Nature herself protects this kingdom from attack and so the king is afraid of no one... The ships
from Manzi and other countries come here in summer & discharge their cargoes in six or eight
days. They raise their anchors as soon as possible since there is no proper port, only a bad roads-
tead and a sandy shore, which makes the venture dangerous.» S. Menon, op.cit (5), 176 & 177.

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 The tributary organization of the kulasekaras too had respected this rea-
lity. For the Cheras of that epoch the appropriation of the whole territory by
the sovereign denoted only his right to dispose of part of the harvest in
exchange for his protection. The system on which the political structure was
based was built up on the delegation to local rulers of a share in this right to
dispose of the surpluses, and on their responsability for assuring, in exchange,
the protection of the groups providing the surpluses. For the basic groups (the
tarawads or extended families) the ownership of the soil, still collective, conti-
nued to constitute, as in the past, a right without any juridical connotation,
for the simple reason that it could never have occured to anyone to consider
the land -
the means of production - as a possession which could be aliena-
ted. This can easily be understood in a state without a monetary economy.
In the later period, however, a new custom had arisen, that of granting to
religous institutions the surplus produced by groups living on the «temple
lands». We must understand, of course, that this alienation of surpluses did
not in any way imply the transfer of landed property. It was merely the perma-
nent gift of part of the produce of the soil. made to the advantage of the local
deity, in order to «supply his personal needs» and those of the religious
agents, who were at the service boh of the god and of the local population.
One result of the war was to increase the recourse to this custom, not only
on the level of the political agents but also, and above all, on that of the basic
groups. Was this in recognition of the fact that the political system was no
longer in a position to defend them? Or was it in function of pressure from the
religious agents themselves? The question is difficult to answer. In any case,
the tarawads now began to dispose of their lands, granting them in Devatha-
nam, in the form of a «grant to the deity of the temple». The analysis of the
epigraphic documents of this period brought Elamkulam K. Pillai to conclude
that this was in fact an arrangement advantageous to the tarawads, since «in
most cases the lands continued to be cultivated by those who had donated
them. Moreover, the tax payable to the political authority corresponded to
1/5 of the harvest (1/10 to the naduvazhi & 1/10 to the desavazhl), while that
payable to the temple amounted to only 1/6 or 1/8, the donor no longer being
obliged to pay anything to the civil authority. In addition, «salvation» was
assured, and on very favourable terms. When this easy road to paradise was
opened, most of the land became Devathanam8.
The detailed study of the documents here reveals a new compromise bet-
ween two conceptions of land ownership, that of the donors (the local
group) and that of the recipients (the Nambudiris, acting in the name and place of
the god or goddess). In an inscripition in the temple at Perunna, for instance,
dating from the 11 th century, it is laid down, on the one hand, that Navakkad
Ethrian Kaviran «cedes all his lands to the deity of the temple to feed a thou-
sand Brahmins during the month of Kanni every year, while Ethiran Kaviran
and his descendants will continue to cultivate the land as in the past. But ano-
ther clause was added: «If Ethiran Kaviran or his successors fail to deliver the
grain to the temple in good time, the temple council will enforce their right of
eviction». The document ends with a prayer from the donor to the council,

8
Elakulam K. Pillai, op.cit (5), 345.

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begging it «To protect Ethiran Kaviran and his wife, because the lands gran-
ted to the temple belong to his wife and his children»9. So that although, for
the donor, the grant was understood only as the payment to the temple of a
tax in kind, the right of eviction indicates, on the part of the chief beneficia-
ries, a conception of the grant including the right to dispose of the land itself.
The donor must have had a presentiment of this difference in their understan-
ding of the gift and of the consequence which it entailed; and this would explain
the prayer at the end of the text.
As a matter of fact, all the documents of this epoch conclude with a
prayer of this type, which turns the donor into a suppliant. It will be recalled
that in the time of the Kulasekharas the rights of the occupants of any lands
granted to a temple were protected by the ooralas, a council nominated by the
king or the naduvazhi, which was not composed exclusivly of Brahmins, but
included delegates of the political authority and of the local kuttams. After
the weakening of the political power these councils were no longer renewed10,
and the Nambudiris responsible for the temple became the sole managers of its
possessions.
It is from this time that the epigrphic texts show a real evolution in the
relationships between local authorities and religious authorities in matters con-
cerning gifts of landed property. The earlier charters clearly stipulated that the
grant to the temple could be annulled by the civil authority if the occupants
were ill-treated, but from the 11 th century onwards the local authority confi-
ned itself to hoping for the goodwill of the Nambudiris towards the cultivtors
of the soil, while it laid down severe penalties for the latter (fine, imprison-
ment) in the event that they were late with the payment of their surpluses.
Finally, from the 13th C. on, the documents indicate that the local Rajahs (the
title applied to the former naduvazhis and desavazhis, after the collapse of the
monarchy), under pressure from the religious leaders, ceded to them, in token
of penitence, the last acres of land from which they still drew any revenues, -

i.e. those which the tarawads themselves had not yet handed over. From this
time there was no longer any question of protecting the occupantsll.
Simultaneously with this evolution in the form of the grant, we notice a
regressive movement in the compensation which the Nambdiris were supposed
to provide. It will be recalled that the function of these gifts was originally to
provide a material basis for the religious institutions in view of the numerous
services they provided for the population in the cultural and medical spheres.
It was natural that the war should have paralysed most of these activities, but
they were never restored. When the basic groups (the tarawads) offered their
lands to the temples during the years of fighthing, it was understood that the
surpluses were granted in return for some very specific activity, most fre-
quently the daily celebration of a puja (the liturgy of adoration of the deity by
one of the Brahmins attached to the temple) on behalf of the donor. But this
practice too gradually fell into disuse, with the development of the idea

9
T.A.S., Vol. V, 35.
10
11
Elakulam K. Pillai,
op.cit., (5), 345.
Sec the Archives of Mathilakam and the charters granted by Vira Marthanda Varma
(1382), Vira Iravi Varma (1416), etc. all rajas of Venad, quoted by Elakulam K, Pillai, op. cit. (5),
347.

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(already present in the tradition) that these liturgies, if they were to attain their
utmost value, must be carried out by of the gods themselves. So the Nambudi-
ris no longer officiated at them, apart from particular occasions, and the res-
ponsibility for the daily pujas was delegated to Indra.
2. From custody to appropriation: the jenmis
The consequence of this double evolution was that the system of land
tenure had been totally transformed by the end of the 13th century From
being the managers of the surpluses attributed to a deity, the Nambudiris had
first become responsible for the temple lands, and then proceeded to establish
themselves as great landed proprietors with hereditary rights the jenmis. -

The change which took place in the meaning of this term is also significant.
When the temple councils had first been set up, the members, named for a
limited time, were said to hold their position «in janman», that is to say for a
part of their life-time. But when the war prevented the renewal of these coun-
cils, the term janman took on the sense of life-tenure, and the title of Janmi,
or jenmi, came to indicate one who possessed such a right. As the Nambudiris
progressively annexed the landed property themselves, the title became
synonymous with hereditary right. From this time the ancient custom of
paying part of the harvest to the political authority vanished of its own
accord. It was then that the local Rajahs, deprived of their revenues, instituted
a series of taxes (still in force at the beginning of this century), such as dues
paid on the occasion of weddings, customs dugs, taxes on slaves, a head-tax
on every member of a family, and the like.
The progressive appropriation by the religious agents of the means of
production (the land) was to have considerable consequences in the mode of
the organization of production. For it meant, after a certain time, the deve-
lopment of a structure based essentially on the relationship
proprietor/tenants, although both poles of this relationship continued to be
represented by groups raher than by individuals: that is, by extended families.
These were the illam, or extended Nambudiri famiy, as the jenmi, and the
tarawad as tenant.
The structure, of course, was never quite as simple as this, becase of the
religious character of the jenmis. It is well known that in Vedic Hinduism
every secular activity linked with the economy is forbidden to the group of
religious agents. Hence they could not appear as directly involved in land tran-
sactions. Moreover, the ideology preached by the group devalued all manual
work as opposed to the profession of arms, and more especially as opposed to
intellectual activities oriented towards the religious. It was the combination of
these two factors which caused the complexity of the structure underlying, at
this period, the repartition of the use of the means of production. In the
system which finally emerged, the whole of the landed property was rented
out in Kanan, that is to say leased to a principal lessee for a period of 12 years, gene-
rally renewed from generation to generation 12 . The Kanandars, or extended

12
The empirical data on these economic structures have been borrowed from the following
works: Adrian C. Mayer, Land & Society in Malabar, Oxford University Press, London, 1952
and T.C. Verghese, Agrarian Change and Economic Consequences - Land Tenure in Kerala,
1850-1960, Allied Publishers, Bombay, 1970, Chapters 2, 3, and 4.
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family to whom the land was leased, paid the jenmi a deposit or guarantee,
renewable every 12 years, the interest on which was deducted from the rent
due every year in kind or in service. This family then performed the functions
of a landed proprietor towards the next category, by subletting parts of the
land to subtenant kanandars under the same conditions. These subtenants
themselves did not cultivate the land, but leased out even smaller portions, in
their turn, this time in verumpattam, i.e. on the basis of tacit agreemens rene-
wable every year, in theory, but permanent in practice. The verumpattam
lands were cultivated by the smallest lease-holders, with the help of agricultu-
ral labourers, or coolies, usually slaves bound to the land.
The appropriation by the Brahmins of the «temple lands», together with
their almost western conception of private property, naturally had repercus-
sions on the level of the economic foundation underlying the political power.
Cultivated lands which had not been ceded to the temples, together with
the forests and the uncultivated areas, became «Crown lands», and then -

following an evolution similar to that which had developed, as we have seen,

in the temples became the private property of the Rajah’s family. From this
-

time the structure of the political system was no longer linked.ith the grant
of the usufruct of land. The territory of the kingdoms was divided, according
to the old method, into nads, administrative units responsible for the collec-
tion of taxe due to the crown, for the administration of justice (in the case of
offences between social groups) and for the organization of the army -
whose function now became more that of a police than of a defensive arm.
The basic administrative unit, the village, was entrusted to desavazhis, respon-
sible for the maintenance of local order, and to kanandars (principal tenants)
of either the Nambudiris or the Rajans, according to whether the village lands
belonged to the one or the other.
Administrptive and military functions were entrusted to particular fami-
lies, and were hereditary. They were recompensed by the rent of the lands sub-
let in verumpattam. Whether in the case of Brahmin or of royal lands, the sum
payable by the kanadars was quasi-nominal, although they were also obliged
to provide a number of services either to the crown or to the Nambudiris and
the temple. The rents in kind, due from the verumpattam tenants, were also
very low, which-says T.C. Verghesei3 explains why the farmers who had
-

been robbed of their lands did not realize the significance of the change until
the period of British colonization, when fairly heavy payments were imposed
on the tenants.

3. The social relations of production

Obviously, in this non-monetary economy, the payment of rent in kind
was of little importance to the landlord. Hence the system of land tenure was
the foundation of a very reasonale mode of organizing the use of surpluses.
On the one hand it ensured the supply of consumer goods and necessary servi-
ces to threee kinds of groups - the religious leaders, the political leaders and
the officials who were not themselves engaged in production; and on the
-

13
T.C. Verghese, op.cit., (12), 16.

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other hand the farmers had enough for their own needs and for the subsis-
tance of their slaves.
Moreover the possibility of the eviction of tenants (since the leases were
for 12 years in the case of the principal lessees and for one year in the case of
the farms), although it was rarely invoked, effectively guaranteed to the pro-
prietors, whether religious agents or political authorities, a real power over the
other groups. It is clear, however, that this relation of dominance was never
directly organized from top to bottom. The Nambudiris and the royal families
-
whor were referred to by the traditional designtion of Kshatryas had a -

direct and asymmetrical relationship with the group of kanandars and offi-
cials-
known collectively as Nayars. The Nayars, as principal lessees, esta-
blished in their turn a relationship of dominance towards the farmers (the
Izhavas), while these played the part of a dominant group towards the slaves,
although the latter actually belonged to the owners of the land... We begin to
see the logical link between the structure of the social relations of production,
the organization of the political system and the social system, at least on the
level of the hierarchization of the social groups... But now we must clarify the
character of these groups.
We have shown above that the appropriation of the land and its distribu-
tion had always followed the traditional divisions between extended families.
In the time of the Kulasekharas, these extended families formed socially
homogeneous units because of their original membership in the same clan.
The lineage of the former clan chieftains already at the time formed dynasties,
in the case of both the naduvazhis and the desavazhis. Naturally it was these
same families which becsame the ruling dynasties in the little kingdoms that
grew up after the 11 th century. But after a century of warfare and structural
transformations these families, formerly belonging to different clans, had
come to be considered (under Brahmin influence) as forming a single group,
that of the Kshatryas, the ruling caste in Hindu sacred literature. Their des-
cent from the sun and the moon was accepted, both by themselvers and by the
Nabudiris. The Chera rulers had, it will be recalled, already justified their
power in this fashion. Hence there was nothing abnormal - indeed rather the
contrary in that these rajahs, who had promoted themselves to royal status,
-

should easily adopt the Brahmin ideology which sanctioned their position.
In the Chera empire the army was the hereditary preserve of certain fami-
lies, so that in wartime these families naturally played an important part as the
seed-bed of military leaders. Their members were to be found among the high
officials of the crown, the army officers, and the kanandars of both royal and
temple lands. They now formed the rural aristocracy, and were commonly
designated by the generic name of Nayars. Consequently this caste name,
adopted throughout Kerala society, came to designate a group of tarawads of
varying clan origins (depending on their regions of origin). By extension, the
other extended families in these same regions, which had not traditionally pro-
vided military contingents except in wartime, but which belonged to the same
clan stocks as the military tarawads, were automatically integrated into this
caste. They generally occupied positions of secondary importance in the admi-
nistration of the kingdom and of the temples. The Nayars caste, therefore,
like all the others
-
with the exception of the Kshatryas, who were too few to
be able to respect the usual laws of kinship structure consisted of a number
-

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of groups, each of their jatis to which they belonged. Since the Nayars were
employed in the direct service of the Brahmins or the Kshatryas, Brahmin
orthodoxy could only class them in the category of the Sudras, that is to say
on the lowest rung of the ladder established by the laws of manu, whatever
their function in the economic or political order might be.
From the point of view of localization in the social space, every indivi-
dual was therefore firmly fixed in his place by four coordintes: that imposed
by the Brahmin ideology; the varna, or caste, which established his status in
the social hierarchy; the jatis, or group to which he naturally belonged, deter-
mining the kinship structure within which he might marry, and finally the
tarawad, the group he mixed with in daily life, the economic unit in which he
was a co-owner and which decided his occupation.
Most of the smaller plots of land, coconut gardens or paddy fields, were
leased to families of rural origin, whose activities were mixed; cultivation, but
also coconut plucking and the manufacture of toddy (a fermented drink).
Several clans of the Chera period belonged in this professional category,
which became in the south of Kerala, the Izhava caste; in the centre that of the
Chokons; and in Malabar, the Thiyas. As among the Nayars, each caste was
subdivided into a certain umber of jatis which regulated kinship relations. It is
commonly held that it was because of their occupation, concerned with the
production of alcohol, that these groups were considered as out-castes (out-
side the Hindu caste system), and so not belonging to any varna. But we may
well wonder whether this was the only reason. For in so far as the appropria-
tion of the soil was the privilege of the dominant group and one of the marks
of status, it was obviously difficult to classify the principal leaseholders in the
same social category as those who had only an exiguous portion of land.
Hence if the Nayars occupied the bottom rung of the ladder of varnas because
they served the political and religious leaders, the Izhavas and their equals had
necessarily to be considered as out-castes.
4. The new hierarchy of the social groups in castes
Within this very wide category itself however the Izhavas occupied the
highest position, for their work was free. The coolies, on the contrary, were
bound to the stand. Who were these groups? The greatest number of them
consisted of the extended families of the former Pulayas clan. It will be recal-
led that these were originally an aboriginal tribe who had come down from the
mountains to the plains during the wars with the Pandyans and the Pallavas.
According to historical studies dealing with the groupl4, the Pulayas were not
slaves at the time of the Kulasekharas. Nor were the other groups, the
Parayas, the Velluvas or the Panas (all the poets and the minstrels of the San-
gam period belonged to this last clan). All these groups were reduced to sla-
very when the Brahmins established their hegemony. This means that they
constituted the rural labour force hired out to the other groups together with
the land they tilled. It was only later, from the period of Portuguese coloniza-

14
K.K. Kusuman, Slavery in Travancore, Kerala Historical Society, Trivandrum, 1973, 25.

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tion, that these slaves became an «export commodity», and were sold to the
Portuguese and the Arabs, and later to the Dutch and the French15.
We must now inquire what reasons impelled the dominant groups to ens-
lave in this way some of the old clans, most often the group referred to as Adi-
dravidas. In his study of caste relationships in a Tamil Nadu village, A.
Beteille introduces the racial element as one of the factors distinguishing the
groups. «Traditionally», he says, a fair skin was associated with the «Aryans»
from whom the Brahmins claimed to be descended, so the popular belief con-
sidered them a separate race. This idea contributed to iolate them socially in a
much more radical fashion in Tamil Nadu and in the South-East of India than
in the North»16.
Although the racial purity of the Namburdiris is arguable, the popular
belief was ideologically functional, since the group that was dominant in the
economic, social and religious fields was the only one that could lay claim to
this additional character of superiority. It is possible, however, that the value
thus given to racal characteristics by the Brahmins had its effect also on other
social groups. This may explain why the distribution of land by the tenancy
system was limited to groups of Dravidian origin, while all the pre-Dravidian
clans found themselves treated as slaves. Obviously this is nothing but a hypo-
thesis based on the parallelism between the racial divisions and those of the
main social groups; the hypothesis has some plausibility, but no more.
However this may be, we can distinguish even among the slave caste the
existence of sub-casts corresponding to the old clans, and within each of these
the division into jatis, according to lineages which guaranteed the stability of
the kinship structure.
To this structure formed by the major groups we must add others whose
occupations were not linked with agricultural or political functions. First, the
Kammalans or Panchalans, who formed the artisan caste. This included six
groups: the Marasaris (carpenters), the Kallasaris (masons), the Kollans
(smiths), the Moosaris (bell-founders), the Tattans (jewellers) and the Tolkol-
lams (tanners). These very ancient groups the Sangam literature frequently
-

refers to them - had formely been towndwellers, and probably Jains by

religion1?. When the Brahmins regime was established, all these clans were
grouped into a single caste. Each of the occupations linked with one of the old
clans, or fractions of a clan, provided the basis for an international division of
the caste, which determined the group within which the practice of endomagy
was oberved. Like the Izhvas, the Kammalans did not form part of the Hindu
caste system laid down by the Laws of Manu.
The fishing castes the Valans, lagoon fishermen, and the Arayans, the
-

Mukkavans and the Marakkans, who fished in the open ocean -, corresponded
to the old fishing clans which were formerly established along the coasts.
Partly because of their geographic location, but mainly because they took life,
they were always marginal castes.

15
F. Day, The Land of the Perumals, Madras, 1863, 183; see also K.K. Kusuman, ., op. cit
(14), 40 and 41.
16
A. Beteille, Caste in a South Indian Village, in Social Inequality, selected readings edited
by A. Beteille, Penguin Book, Harmonsworth, Great Britain, 1969, 277.
17
Elakulam K. Pillai, op.cit (5).

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 These were the main divisions among the population at the period when
the Brahmin regime was established. The Ambavalis (the caste of persons
employed in the temples) and the Kadupattans (a group with varied functions,
including school principals, ayurvedic doctors, laundryworkers for the deities
and the Brahmins, etc.) are of more recent origin. Both groups are descended
from the Nambudiri caste, from which they were excluded for not having res-
pected the laws of endogamy, or for having broken some other caste custom.
This analysis of the genetic origins of the caste system has clearly revealed
a number of characteristics which mark the Kerala system as a special case,
although it resembles in many ways the model found in the rest of India, and
above all in the South in the Dravidian region. We are referring to the supers-
tructure which was imposed on the social ensemble following the establish-
ment of their hegemony by the group of religious agents. The ideological
model conveyed by the group - and it will be remarked that this model was
explicitly described in their sacred books, which explains the persistance of the
ideology in an immigrant group after four centuries had been constructed -

from the starting point of the group itself. This means that the position of the
other groups in the social space depended entirely on respect for the interests
of the dominant group, whose dominance was established both on the ecno-
mic plane and on the level of the defence of their racial purity.
From the economic point of view, the group defined itself as non-
producing, and consequently as a social unit living exclusively on the surpluses
produced by other groups. But since they were a group whose reproduction
was ensured by natural means (unlike the Buddhist religious agents, for exam-
ple), it was to their advantage that the disposition of consumer goods should
not only be of permanent character but should also remain under their own
direct influence. This explains why they were careful to ensure for themselves
the control of the means of production - a control which, in a traditional
society, is normally an essential function of the political system. Indeed it was
on this fundation that the feudal monarchies had been established. The Brah-
mins, however, as religious agents who refused to intervene directly in the for-
mal political field, needed a political system whose functions would be limited
to the maintenance of international order and to defence against external
aggression. It was in this perspective that the functions of the Kshatryas, the
group of political agents, were defined. Their presence in the economic system
as proprietors of part of the means of production was actually only tolerated
by the Brahmins as compensation for the exercice of their political task.
Moreover, by the very fact of their religious charcter, the Brahmins could
not themselves exercise a direct control over the means of production. Hence
their recourse to a second group, the Nayars, who were also, incidentlly, the
agents of the administration of the State and the army. Structurally speaking
the Nayars therefore formed the link between the two powers; that of the reli-
gious agents and that of the political authorities, and also the link between
these two authorities and the basic groups. It was they who were directly res-
ponsible for the necessary services to the dominant groups. It was because of
this function of theirs that the Nayars had no function on the pratical level of
the production of surpluses.
The social divisions between the producing groups themselves were esta-
blished on the basis of the division of labour between the agricultural groups,

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the artisans and the fishermen. The hierarchy which grew up between these,
however, was established on a non-economic basis, that of race, cleavage exis-
ting between the Dravidian groups, considered as an inferior caste, and the
aboriginal groups as out-castes.
So the Brahmin hegemony had A double social effect. First, it unified, on
the level of macrostructures, groups which had formely practised similar
occupations but had remained distinct because of their varied clans of origin.
In the macrostructure, these elements now formed the castes. Secondly, howe-
ver, the older structures of the local groups, not having been destroyed in this
unifying process, continued to exist within the castes themselves. These units
formed the jatis, which - as in the past were built on the foundation of kins-
-

hip relations.
In addition we must note that these groups were stratified according to
the functions they performed for the dominant group, and on the basis of a
racial criterion: the cleavage being between the dominant Aryan group (or at
least the group defining itself as such), the Dravidian groups, and the aborigi-
nes.

III. Brahmin economic domination and kinship structures

In our analysis of the economic organization we stressed the fact that the
objective basis of Brahmin hegemony was the appropriation, by the group, of
the means of production: land. This type of appropriation, however, had
aroused no reaction from the other groups. This was partly because the politi-
cal agents, the Kshatriyas, had also become the owners of landed property,
and partly because the Nayars, the principal tenants of these lands, were able
to derive a profit from them as intermediaries between the great landowners
and the farmers, since the rent due to the two dominant groups was more or
less nominal. Ther farmers themselves continued, as in the past, to pay their
dues to the local kanandar, or principal tenant, and to the Rajah (in the form
of taxes) with a propotion of their harvest - the amount, in this period at least,
being no greater than what had always been due from them.
Considering this mode of organization, we might reasonably ask oursel-
ves what economic interest the Brahmins could well have had in installing
themselves as land owners. It is true that, although the direct revenues were
meagre, the group enjoyed other advantages in kind and in services, through
gifts to the temple. Besides, as K. Ananthakrisna Iyer explains, these volun-
tary contributions were considerable: «From the king down to the poorest
peasant, everyone would have deprived himself of necessities in order that the
Brahmins might live in luxury». So great is the prestige of the religious leader
in a traditional society, ! 18.
It remains a fact that in the distribution of surpluses which enabled the -

Brahmins, the Kshatriyas and the Nayars to exempt themselves from taking a
direct part in production - the Brahmins were probably the group which,
objectivey speaking, would have had the greatest difficulty in increasing the
amount of their share without endangering the stability of the whole system.

18
K. Anantha Krishna
Iyer, Cochm Tribes and Castes, Madras, 1909.

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 For they had no direct authority over the producing sub-tenants, the Izhavas,
and the only possibility they had (in theory) of increasing their revenue would
have been by raising the rent required from the Nayar kanandars, the very
group which formed the army and was therefore always a possible danger to the
Brahmins themselves.
This state of affairs presented a particular problem in view of the demo-
graphic development of the group, and the word ’development’ is used here
deliberately. For we must not lose sight of the fact that the internal structure
of the group continued to respect the concept of the extended family, and, as a
corollary, the principle of collective ownership. This meant that, although the
demographic increase, in the numerical sense of the term, was always negli-
geable on account of the high death rate, the phenomenon of the generation
by itself implied, within the unity of social life, the multiplication of married
couples and of the number of children. But then the division between new exten-
ded families, necessary not only for economic reasons but also as a mecha-
nism for regulating internal conflicts, would have demanded a parcelling out
of the family lands, and finally their atomization.
In order to solve this problem, the reaction (no socially conscious) of the
Brahmin group was to develop a very specific custom on the level of marriage
regulations within the caste: only the eldest son of the head of the family was
. permitted to contract a marriage, although the permission was extended to the
second son when this was necessary to secure the succession.
The practice had a double effect: first, the presence in the illams (the
extended familis of the Nambudiris living together) of what was sometimes
quite a large number of celibate women, and secondly, some peculiar customs
engaged in by the younger sons of the same families. Since their status as reli-
gious agents belonged to them by birth, and since, if the occasion arose, they
had to be available to ensure the natural continuity of the group, it would
have been difficult to enforce celibacy on these men. But the defence of the
racial purity of the group and of its status could not possibly accept the idea of
Brahmins contracting marriage with persons of other cast> From this
dilemma arose the custom of sambandhan. Originally this was a matter of a
free association between a Nambudiri man and a Kshatriya or Nayar woman
already married in her own caste. Later these unions, which took on a reli-
gious significance because of the religious character of one of the partnersl9,
became generalized and institutionalized into a marriage system founded on
polyandry. This then became compulsory, not only in these two castes but also
in other groups, and gave rise to a new structural mode of kinship relations.
Since the system performed an important function in the regulation of
social relations in the micro-dimension, and also brought about a fundamen-
tal transformation in the internal structure of the social groups, we must now
describe its elements as they could still observed until a short while ago in all
the towns and villages of Kerala. The practice was legally abolished only in
1936.

19
When it concerned a union with a Kshatrya woman it became natural to admit that a boy
would have a better chance of inheriting the qualities necessary to a good political leader. Among
the Mayars it was an accepted thing that polyandry was a religious obligation when the male part-
ners were Brahmins.

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 In aNayar tarawad, as in the family units of the other castes, there were
two forms of marriage. The first, the thalikattu klyanam (a term literally
signifying the imposition of the thali, a special pendant which every married
woman must wear throughout her life) was a religious ceremony undergone by
every girl before the age of puberty. In most families it was performed once
every twelve years, on which occasion every girl child below the age of 12 was
«married» to the young boys of the caste. The ceremony required the presen-
tation of the «married» couple to the Rajah and to the Brahman jenmi, in
rituals lasting for several days, and rejoicings shrared by all the allied family
lines. It ended with the return of the boys to their respective tarawads. These
boys incurred no obligation whatever towards their «wives». The latter, howe-
ver, were from this time considered to be «married», that is to say free to enter
into any union they desired, in sambandhan. From the age of puberty, their
mothers looked for «husbands» for them among the younger sons of the
Nambudiris, or in their own caste, in which latter case the choice was restric-
ted to their own jatis. These marriages (two or three at a time) were then sanc-
tioned by the council of the tarawad, which authorized the husbands to visit
their joint wife, following the time-table she laid down for them. Conse-
quently the husbands continued to reside in the tarawads in which they were
born; they undertook no obligation towards their wife or her childrn, since
paternity was difficult to prove.
This in turn explains why the children born of the marriages -- which
could be terminated at will by either partner, but which were usually highly
stable -

could trace their descent only through the female line. Hience the
Kshatriyas, the Nayars, and even the Izhavas (whenever the Nambudiris in
any area were so numerous that the Nayars had to seek for wives in another
caste) adopted the marumakkathayam, that is to say, the law of matrilineal
succession. Later, when we analyse the inner functioning of the caste itself, we
shall study in detail how this kinship structure was articulated. For the
moment, let us limit ourselves to stressing that the Brahmin hegemony and its,
safeguarding had the effect not only of producing a stratified social system
but also of overthrowing the structure of the social groups, established for so
many centuries past. However, the new model thus developed did not affect
the division into jatis; it respected, that is, the ancient groups of clan origin. It
merely modified the internal composition of the tarawads, by suppressing the
exchange of brides between the families. The women were now obliged to
spend their whole lives within the family of their birth. This applied also to a
certain extent to the men, although the Kshatriyas and the Nayars also had to
spend several months of every year in military or other service in the capitals
of the kingdoms, which had the advantage of lessening quarrels within the
groups.
The Nambudiri women were the only «gosha» in the entire social system,
since they alone were obliged to a strict respect for their marriage within the
caste, when it was possible for their marriage to be arranged at all. These regu-
lations were safeguarded by the total seclusion of the women, whence the title
of antarjanam (literally a «person inside») by which they were commonly

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known2°. In this caste there was no reason to change the internal structure.
The mode of devolution of family titles and family property cntinued to fol-
low the patrilineal succession. At her marriage the bride left her father’s illam
for that of her bridegroom, and became one of its female members.
In this marriage system it will be noted that in spite of the relative laxity
of union, and of the fact that women were permitted to marry men of higher
caste than themselves, this second latitude was never extended to the men.
Any deviation from this rule led to the most drastic punishments: the man was
put to death, and the woman reduced to an inferior caste, to become the slave
of the non-Hindu groups, Christians, Muslims or Jews. The clildren born of
these hypergamic unions formed sub-castes within the Ambalavasis group. If
their mother was a Nambudiri they were employed in the service of the tem-
ples, and were called Verivans. When the mother was a Kshatriya and the father a
Nayar, the children were taken into th Samantan caste, whose status lay bet-
ween those of the Kshatrivas and the Nayars. We see, then, that the system
not only organized its own defences but was also obliged to codify all possible
deviations. Its rigidity afforded the conditions favouring the multiplication of
these deviations, while it also made the system incapable of reducing their
effects.

IV. Brahmin hegemony and the field of representations

When group becomes dominant in any social ensemble and succeeds in
a
imposing on it a novel mode of organization, both on the plane of its economy
and on that of its social relations, and when the group is, in addition, formed of
religious agents who by their specific function «act» in the symbolic field, we
may expect (a least as a hypothesis) that the hegemony which they acquire will
hardly fail to have its effect on the ideology of the groups and on culturally
significant social pratices. Pursuing this hypothesis, we shall describe the
changes brought about in Kerala culture by the social dominance of the Nam-
budiris.
’

1. The expressed ideology

The development of political macro-structures of a tributary type in the
time of the Kulasekhara monarchy, allowed the particular form of social
organization then prevailing to respect the segmented character of the basic
groups, and more especially the internal structures inherited from the lineage
based mode of production. This had resulted in two distinct ideological levels.
We recall indeed that political system had produced an ideology based on the
idea of the «father-king» and the «protector-king»; it had even developed an
embryonic national consciousnes, but this had been profoundly shaken by
-

the war and by the later emergence of numerous petty kingdoms.

The ideology of the macro-structure was, however, of lesser importance
for the life of the groups that the imaginary structure, which they had inheri-

20 J.P. Mencher, Namburidi Brahmins: An analysis of a traditional Elite in Kerala, in Jour-

nal of Asian and African Studies, Vol. I, 1966, 183-196; see also by the same author: the Nambu-
diri Brahmins of Kerala, in Natural History, Vol. LXXXV, 135-171.

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ted from the period of their origin and remodelled as time passed in function
of new living conditions. The importance of the totem as the symbolic place of
insertion of the group in the cosmos had indeed disappeared together with the
spatial division of the clans, but the lineage based structure which determined
the internal organization, the interrelationships between groups and (most
important of all) the objective conditions of their identity, had survived, and
with it many of the elements of the old system of collective representations.
Indeed the whole social life in these extended families was dominated by a
conception of the world as divided between opposed forces, personified at the
highest level by the divine protector ruling over good and evil spirits. The histo-
ric continuity of the group was expressed through their belief in the ancestors,
«ever-present» members of the extended family, whose function was that of
protectors and examples, a function central to the temporal localization of the
group. If the protective deity was the symbol of identification on the level of
the jatis, it was the ancestors who fulfilled this role on that of the tarawads.
The penetration of Hinduim and its diffusion among the non-Brahmin
population did not impair these beliefs. It will be recalled that the Bhakti
movement was based on two elements. One of these was respect for the
Dharma, that is to say for an ethical order including both living beings and
inanimate objects, and forming a guarantee of universal well-being; it requi-
red the observance of principles specific to the different stages of life and to
the particular conditions in which each man was placed. Moreover, it was in
function of this observance, and by the practice of meditation, that the indivi-
dual integrated himself more and more into the divine order.
Translated into the popular tongue, the Dharma became the code of what
was and was not permisible, corresponding to the division on the eternal cos-
mic plane into good and evil forces. However, in religious experience the roles
were reversed. It was no longer man who sought to attain the divine, but the
divinity which descended to man’s level by mean of its numerous incarnations
in living beings and in the temple statues. From this time onward the ancient
Dravidian protecor-deities came to be considered as particular incarnations of
the great Aryan gods. The other beliefs, both those in good and evil spirits and
those concerned with the functions of the ancestors which were not inclu-
-

ded in Brahmin orthodoxy, - continued as in the past to be handed down in

every group following the modalities proper to each.
As a matter of fact, the ideological discourse of the Brahmins had pene-
trated into the various groups in Kerala well before the imposition of the caste
system. The doctrine of the Dharma and the respect for cosmic order included
almost automatically respect for the social order, since the ethical code requi-
red the observance of norms of conduct specific to every man according to his
life situation, including his social position.
Besides, in a society of this type, dominated by a religious ethos, there
was great respect for all religioux agents, both the Brahmins and those who
officiated in the traditional rites of protection. We agree that this veneration
made it easy to accept the myth of the origin of the Brahmin from Brahma’s
mouth, while the Sudra had to be satisfied with having been born of his feet,
-
but we may still wonder whether it was not rather more difficult to induce
the Sudra to accept this difference as justifying the theft of his land.

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 For that matter, even the laws of Manu did not recognize any right of the
Brahmins to appropriate land. The most they ordained was that the intellec-
tual aristocracy should receive their means of subsistence from their pupils
and from the general public, although any voluntary gifts going beyond their
necessities were to be distributed2’.
So the customs of the Nambudiris would seem to have been in contradic-
tion to their principles. It was in order to explain this away that they elabora-
ted the famous Parasurama myth, the epic story of the origin of the country,
related in the Keralolpatti. This Brahmin poem may have been actually recor-
ded in writing only in the 18th century, but the myth itself is very much older,
since, according to A. Menon 22 , elements of it are already to be found in the
Tivuvalangadu charter, dating from the 11 th century. The written text there-
fore represents the tradition which was central to the ideological production
of the social ensemble23.

21
Dr. L.A; Ravi Varma, Dharma Concept of Hinduism, in Golden Jubilee Souvenir,
S.N.D.F., Vignanaposhini Press, Quilon, 1953, 15.
22
S. Menon, op.cit (5), 10.
23
The Parasurama Myth is taken from the Keralolpatti, as quoted by UNAGAM AYIA,
, Vol. I, Travancore Government Press, 1906, 210-219.
The Travancore State Manual
Parasurama was a Brahmin sage of the race of the Bhrigu, the highest among the Rishi races.
According to , it was Parasurama who created the land of Kerala. His father
the Bhagavad-gita
was the great Rishi Jamadagni, who was looked upon as an avatar of Vishnu, and his family lived
on the banks of the river Narmada. It was there that Parasurama’s mother went dailyu to draw
water by means of a receptacle which she fashioned anew every day out of the sans, in virtue of a
miraculous power she had received from the gods in homage to her chastity. One day she found
herself unable to make her water-pot, & returned home without water. She was forced to confess
that she had allowed herself to be distracted by Gangharva, whose magnificient reflection she had
seen in the water. Hen husband believed that his wife had been false to him and ordered his sons
to behead her. Four of his sons refused to do this, thinking it a greater sin to kill their mother than
to disobey their father. But Parasurama obeyed him and killed his mother. His father wished to
reward him and asked him what he desired. parasurama then expressed the wish that the Rishi
should bring his mother back to life - which he did immediately, repenting bitterly of his anger.
But his son could not overcome the sorrow which these events had caused him. So his parents sent Parasu-
rama away to the hermitage where his grandfather Bhrigu lived, to be educated by him. After some time, the
sage sent Parasurama to the Himalayas to pray to the god Siva and to receive his blessing. He
lived there for several years, leading a life of prayer & penance. Siva, touched by his fervoir,
appeared to him & sent him to visit the sacred places of the world - which Parasurama did at once.
Meanwhile a war broke out between the Devas and the Asuras (good & evil spirits), and the for-
mer appealed to Siva for help. So Siva sent them Parasurama, armed with his own divine sword,
Parasu. Parasurama advanced to meet the Asuras, defeated them, and restored their possessions
to the Devas. Siva appeared to him again and offered him a divine chariot and a bow which ren-
der him immense service.
Parasurama then returned to Bhrigu, and thence to his parents’ home, but he found his
father’s hermitage changed into a resort of thieves & murderers. ’what had happened was that
Kartaviryarjuna, the famous Kshatrya king, had one day arrived to visit Jamadagni, who had
received him with all the honours due ro a king. But in fact this sumptuous reception given to the
king and his courtiers had been made possible only thanks to Kamadhena - a miraculous heavenly
cow which only the power of a Rishi could create, - for normally the Rishis lived very simply. The
despotic king insisted on taking possession of the cow, and carried her off by force. However,
after numerous adventures she was finally restored to her master. The king’s sons, furious at the
affront caused to their father, then invaded the Rishi’s house ans assassinated him. The Rishi’s
wife committed «sati», sacrificing herself on his funeral pyre. Parasurama returned shortly after
this tragedy, and, determined to avenge his father with Parasu, the sword given him by Siva, went
on till he had killed all the Kshatryas in the world. He had to fight 21 wars, until India, completely

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 We shall not repeat here all the details of the structural analysis of this
myth. They led us to the conclusion that the function of the mythical interpre-
tation was to reconcile a triple series of contradictions existing between the
particular situation of the Brahmins in Kerala society and the norms laid

devastated, lay prostate before him. Then, struck with remorse, he repented, gathered together
the Rishi sages and asked them how he could expiate his crime. The Rishis advised him to give the
whole of his territories to the Brahmins. However, if he himself were to continue to live on this
land, the gift would not be a true Danam, that is to say a completely gratuitous gift. Parasurama
understood, and retired to the western Ghats, on the sea-shore, to lead a life of penance. Varuna,
the sea-god, and Bhuni Devi, the earth-goddess, touched by his prayers, promised to give him out
of the sea as much land as he could enclose with one sweep of his sword. So Parasurama swept his
sword out from Gokarman, and it reached as far as Kaniakumari. The land then rose up out of
the sea. Parasurama asked the Trimurti (Trinity) and the devas to give a name to this new land.
Siva called it Kerala in memory of the marriage of the sea-king’s daughter to Keralam, the son of
Jayantha. Vishnu gave Parasurama his Sudaranam (disk) and Siva gave him his Vrishabkam
(bull), which were consecrated at Trichur. Then Vishnu crowned Parasurama and asked that
24,000 temples should be built on the surrounding lands and that the territory should be governed
according to the rules of the Dharma-Sastras.
However, the new land was hardly suitable for habitation, since it quated continually. So
Parasurama sprinkled it with gold dust, and buried in it a coffin filled with gold pieces. A sacri-
fice was offered, after which the land ceased to tremble. Parasurama then brought in colonies of
Brahmins from the North, from the banks of the Ganges, from the Narmada and Kaveri, from
Madura, Mysore and Maharashtre. These Brahmins belonged to eight gotras, or jatis. After this
, and with him 18 Samanta (fami-
Parasurama went abroad again & brought back one Kshatrya
lies). Me also brought back one representative of every profession: a carpenter, a blacksmith, on
oilmiller, a jeweller, a mason, a barber and a washerman. Houses were built for each of them and
rules of conduct established, which they had to obey. Parasurama also brought back ezvery kind
of seed, especially those of the coconut palm, the banana and the jak-tree, and all were planted on
one full-moon night. Parasurama altered the customs of the Brahmins, for fear lest they should
wish to return to their own countries. They were to wear a tuft of hair on the front of the head;
only one son in each family was to marry; each could wear only one sacred thread; only one Brah-
min could be fed in the temple; everyone was to have the right to an evening collation; the women
were to be protected by a parasol when they wen out, & were not to wear jewellery byt only a
blouse and a saree.
However, a mountain tribe, the Nagas, continually harassed the Brahmins. So Parasurama
brought in another group of Brahmins from abroad, and the Nagas agreed to withdraw, In
exchange for this agreement Parasurama ordered that the worship of the sepents should be intro-
duced into the temples. These Nagas became the Nairs, and were considered to be of a higher ranf
that the other Sudras. the territory was then divided into 64 villages, and given to the Brahmins
together with flowers and water, so that ther could enjoy it as a Brahakshitran. Parasurama also
brought in other Sudras. To some of these he assigned the task of cultivating the soil, to others
that of serving the colonizing Brahmins. He brought in, too, all the animals necessary for agricul-
ture.
After consecrating the great temple at Srivardhanapuram, he also, with his sword, consecra-
ted a Kshatrya as king of Kerala. He established 108 fields, each 42 feet square, called kalaris, for
the upkeep of the army, and in each he placed the statues of the gods who were to rule the army
. He set up 108 statues of Durga along the coast and built
and to whom they were to offer puja
small temples for the serpents and the Devatas. He gave orders that rain should fall for six months
so that there might be abundant harvests, that piety might flourish, and that Iswara should be
honoured and served, that pujas should be celebrated in honour of the gods & the ancestors and
that the number of cows might increase. Then he commanded sun to shine for six months, so that
the ceremonies might be carried out. Finally Parasurama left the country, promising to continue
to assist the Brahmins. After his departure the headmen of the 64 villages, wishing to test the vali-
dity of this promise, called on Parasurama - who immediatly appeared among them. Seeing that
their call had been made for no good reason & that the Brahmins had made themselves ridiculous,
Parasurama decided that the group should never be able to meet together again. It was from this
time that the seeds of dissension were sown in Kerala, so that the villages were never able hence-
forth to meet all together.

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down in the Vedic writings. The lengthy introduction is constructed on the
basis of the fundamental opposition between the defiled and the purified
Brahmin. We recall that the setting up of the caste system, or what has been
called the «Brahminical society», was one of the indirect results of the war
between the Cholas and the Cheras, in which many Nambudiris had taken an
active part24 as military leaders. Accordint to Vedic orthodoxy, this interven-
tion in the fighting required their expulsion from the caste, or, in effect, the -

disintegration of the Brahmin extended families. The myth solves this pro-
blem by making the founder of Kerala, the Brahmin Parasurma, a man who
had been «defiled» by a series of murders committed because of his valour
and the commands of the gods. He was, however, purified by Siva himself
and by the all-India Council of Brahmins, and finally became an avatar, that
is, a divine incarnation, which would make him not only a Brahmin but a
super-man.
The second contradiction to be reconciled on the symbolic plane was the
fact of Brahmin proprietors, since Vedic tradition linked the appropriation of
the soil with the Kshatriya - held political power. The myth brought a radical
solution to this difficulty too, since one of Parasurama’s crimes was the kil-
ling of all the Kshatriyas. The punishment decreed by the Council of Wise
Man was that Parasurama should divide up the land which he had acquired by
his murders, and leave India altogether. At this point the sea-god and the
erath-goddess - Dravidian deities - intervened by raising the land of Kerala
from the waters and offering it to Parasurama. The hero then brought in
Brahmins from the north and the east, from Maharashtra, Mysore and
Madura in order to occupy it. The function of these last details, we may sup-
pose, suggesting a plurality of origins and no doubt also of races, was inten-
ded to justify the diversity existing within the Nambudiri group, and to pre-
sent as equals groups which racial differences would otherwise have caused to
be socially stratified.
The same passage, moreover, was employed to explain away another
series of contradictions centred on the oposition between the Brahmin group
and the older social groups. The fact that the Namburidis were a foreign
group, imposing themselves on a social ensemble and establishing their hege-
mony over it, here found its justification on the mythical plane. By the very
fact that the land had risen from the waters, all the groups were ipso facto
immigrants, just like the Brahmins, - besides which the hierarchy which had
been set up among them was explained by the function assigned to each group
by the semi-divine founder. The Nayars alone formed an exception in the
story, for it described them as a local tribe originally dwelling in the moutains,
who had willingly accepted the authority of the Brahmins. Their reward - a
high status among the Sudras - might also be explained by the necessity of
reconciling the contradiction between the Brahmin theory and their actual
practice. For in the Vedic tradition the political and military leaders were of
the Kshatriya caste, -which was impossible in Kerala since the military group
(the Nayars) had always been dependent on the political authorities in the
Kulasekhara empire.

24 Elakulam K. Pillai, op.cit (5).

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 Finally, one whole sequence in the myth was aimed at explaining the way
orthodoxy was twisted out of shape in the religious observances, because of
the fusion between Dravidian and Aryan beliefs. For instance, it justified the
introduction of serpent-worship in the temples, and of the Dravidian deities
into the Vedic pantheon. The myth also excused some of the behavioural
norms of the Namburidis which conflicted with the usual caste rules - such as
marriages with members of other groups, the wearing of non-ritual garments,
etc. It concluded with an explanation of the conflicts existing between diffe-
rent factions within the group, since these were presented as inevitable and
without solution, being in accordance with the will of the founder himself.
It his sufficiently obvious that the function of this mythical production25
was to legitimate the Brahmin appropriation of the land, and, as a corollary,
their organization of the social ensemble so that economic production and the
services necessary for the group should be ensured. Simultaneously, the myth
sanctioned the religious superiority of the Brahmins themselves, presenting it
as the causal element of material well-being and of the social power enjoyed
by the religious agents. This divine sanction, indeed, raised their social status
even higher: «They were rarely looked upon», writes L.K. Anantha
Krishnayer26, «as proprietors of the place, but rather as Bhavadans, or gods
on carth. Individually the were called ’saints’, their displacements were a ’pro-
cession’, their food ’nectar’. When members of other groups addressed them,
they referred to themselves in the most abject terms.» It is interesting at this
point to see how certain other castes (whether ’Hindu’ or not) also produced
myths to justify their own ’excellence’ in connection with the great Parasu-
rama myth. For the Nayars, it was the recognition that at the origin of this
(matrilincal) group «certain heavenly maidens were brought by Parasurama
from Indra’s world (a kind of paradise where the god led a joyous life) in
order to please the Brahmins». It was at Trichur, so it was said, that he
addressed his command to the Samathans (a caste constituted by the descen-
dants of sons and daughters of unions between a Kshatriya woman and a
Nayar man) and to the Sudras, inviting them to place themselves at the service
of the Brahmins.
The Valans, one of the fisher castes, related how Parasurama had chosen
them especially to transport the Brahmins then they wished to cross the
lagoons. Even the slave Pulayas had their own story. At the beginning, they
said, Siva himself had given them sacred tools to clear the forests and to culti-
vate the land which would be theirs. But Parasurama had ordered them to
abandon their lands and to work for the Brahmins. For all these groups, the
function of the mythical discourse was to induce them to accept, as a religious
obligation, their dependence on the dominant group. In consequence, this
dependance became integrated, as one of its concrete elements, into each
one’s dharma - that is to say into the universal moral code maintaining the

25
Although the mythical discourse has today lost its credibility among intellectuals, it conti-
nues to circulate in the popular groups in spite of the fact that its legitimating function is less
important nowadays, due to the almost complete disappearance of the Nambudiris by demogra-
phic extinction. This was the final result of the custom restricting marriage to the eldest sou of
each family.
26
L.K. Anantha Krishna Iyer, op.cit, (18), 277.

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universe, the respect for which meant also for the popular groups the assu-
rance of the divine blessings. This enables us to understand why these groups
never produced or adopted any form of salvation religion. The compensation
for their negative social situation (Weber’s term) was of the «historic» order,
since their behaviour gave them a certain power over the gods. This is, of
course, a form of belief which is still very close to magic.

2. The system of defilement customs

a) The system of defilement customs as a mediation between the social system
and the religious system.
The mythical discourse built around the person of Parasurama might (and
did) justify the Brahmin hegemony by the excellence it attributed of the Brah-
mins, and by the submission it imposed on the other groups; but it made no
reference to a hierarchization of castes, such as existed in Kerala from the 12th
century down. Now there is no doubt that at this period the mode of social
organization depended on the dominant ideology-that of the Nambudiris.
Since this social group was also that of the religious agents, we must now ask our-
selves how this ideology was inserted into the religious system on the level of
beliefs and on that of ritual. We should be inclined to the hypothesis (difficult
to verify, however) that the whole of this mythological theme was a popular
production, which Brahmin orthodoxy willingly accepted since it was of
advantage to them, but that the justification of the mode of social organiza-
tion had, for the dominant group, quite a different foundation.
We must not forget, however, that the symbolic construction introduced
into Kerala by the Brahmins had already been built up over many centuries, to
meet specific social situations. It is no part of our intention to retrace here the
whole evolution of this production. But we should fail to understand the
symbolically meaningful social customs which developed in the Kerala social
ensemble from the start of the Brahmin period if we did not take into account
the elements composing Hindu religious thought, which existed at the time as
the product of centuries of history. We must therefore consider at least its
major constituents.
The oldest Vedic literature is built up around the concept of «rta»
(Truth), a philosophical view of the cosmos which equates the «thruth» with a
life-style defined as the ordered path of the worship of the deities, including
the moral conduct of man2’. This path, commanded by divine order, imposes
moral and spiritual values, and a conception of the universe as composed of
mutually exclusive categories, polarized around the concepts of «pure» and
«impure», in which ritual purity becomes a symbol of «rta» (truth) and ritual
impurity of «aorta»28.
The Upanishads, prose and verse writings composed between the 6th and
3rd centuries B.C., place their whole emphasis on the metaphysical contem-
plation of the Final Reality. They consider Brahma as the highest and purest

27
Mahamahopadhyaya Pandurang Vaman Kane, History , Bhandarkar
of Dharmasastra
Oriental Research Institute, Poona, 1953, Vol. IV, 6-7.
28 Ibid.

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Being, filling the whole of space, and identified with Jita (life) and Atman (the
Self, Essence, absolute Being). Moreover they insist on the importance of
physical (or bodily) purity as the prior condition for spiritual purity.
The concepts of Dharma and Karma continue these lines of thought. The
Dharma, the universal moral «law» which maintains the universe, conceptua-
lizes the phenomena of ritual purity and defilement on two distinct cognitive
levels. First, it considers physical cleanliness and its reverse from a ritual point
of view, with a liturgical and normative significance (in the sense of models of
behaviour). Secondly, it inserts them in a spiritual perspective, derived from
metaphysical abstractions which situate these practices in an atmosphere of
serenity. From all this there was developed, on the level of everyday life, a
double concept of the dichotomy purity/defilement: that of external ritual
purity, corporal, material and environmental, which can be attained by means
of earth and water; and that of internal ritual purity, that of mind, word &
«action», which is to be attained by piety and by purity of thought.
The concepts of purity/defilement are also inseparably linked with belief
in Karma and the punarjanma. In the Hindu world-view, the principle of the
continuity of life, and its corollary, the belief in the transmigration of souls,
together with the dogmas of karmas (action), punya (spiritual merit) and papa
(demerit), integrate the idea of purity as the means of acquiring merit, and of
defilement as the source of demerits.
Moreover, the unity existing in their cosmogony associated the two ele-
ments, that of purity (the practical and liturgical aspect of religion) and that
of merit (the theological aspect) with a production not objectively religious,
that of astrology, with its «auspicious days» determined by the conjunction of
the stars. Hence this element also assumed a religious connotation, even
though on a subordinate level, Thus it was that the defilement associated with
death, a defilement which involved all the members of the dead person’s
family, had far more serious effects if the death occured on an «inauspicious»
day.
Hindu thought therefore dichotomizes the universe into two categories:
the pure and the impure, establishing the principle of purity or impurity as
intrinsic to the entire material world, the non-material universe, the animal
and vegetable kingdoms and also to man. This principle automatically implies
the existence of an element inherent in things and in all beings, an element
which creates or destroys purity or impurity, as the case may be. Consequently
the access to purity supposes certain formalized practices, and requires a
recourse to mediators who are themselves intrinsically pure. The practices
themselves are ritualized, as for example that of the cleansing of the ground
with cow-dung, the ritual bath, the sprinckling of water in honour of the sun,
or the destruction of sacrificial food by fire. It will be observed that water and
fire, sun, air and soil are the elements which were the first to be deified during
the Vedic period.
In order to understand how this religious construction was articulated
with the ideology underlying the organization of social relations, we must now
go into a little more detail on the types of ritual defilement. Starting with
physical pollution, we shall distinguish collective from personal defilements.
The first were linked with events, and affected all the members of the jati con-
cerned, including those tho lived apart from the entended family in which the
event occurred. These were the defilements connected with birth, death and
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 The second category was associated with
phenomena in the biological
order, whether cyclical (menstruation, in the of women) or non-cyclicalcase
(all external excretions of the bodies of human beings or animals). These defil-
ed only the person involved, who, however, became a source of defilement to
others in case of contact. The final series concerned inanimate objects, for ins-
tance dishes polluted by use (since they had been in contact with saliva), lea-
ther objects (since the skins came from a dead animal), and also certain ani-
mals (such as the crow, which feeds on refuse).
The practices concerned with the first two categories are of very ancient
origin. For they constitute the meeting place between a representation of the
order of nature - with its categories of things according to the dichotomy
pure/impure, as expressed in the Vedas - and the events which affect kinship
structures. Birth and death affect the elements of the structure; puberty invol-
ves a change in the structure concerned with the exchange of women. The cus-
tom of defilement here serves as a kind of mediation between nature and cul-
ture, by creating relations of correspondance between natural and social con-
ditions.
The customs of the third category indicate an institutionalization of the
primary system, conferring on it a certain automony. All are concerned with a
second-level construction: e.g. refuse is polluted (on the first level) and hence
the that eats the refuse itself becomes a source of pollution.
crow
To physical defilements we must add the psychic impurities, those which
affect the individual through the impious nature of his thoughts and emo-
tions. Visual or aural defilements, for instance, originate with the sight or hea-
ring of evi129. The definition of these defilements implies a codification by
those working in a society which differentiates between intellectual and
manual work. We may therefore conclude that it was a Brahmain production.
Although the origin of these customs was very ancient, it is not uninteres-
ting from the point of view of the sociology of religion to analyse the manner
in which the system was utilized, by a caste society, as a symbolic apparatus of
social relations, - particularly because in Kerala the hierarchy had been esta-
blished by the group of religious agents, in function of the socially dominant
position these had acquired by their appropriation of the greater part of the
land.
Let us now return to the religious system as it was imposed during the
Brahmin period. It will be recalled that the Hinduism which had been sprea-
ding in Kerala since the 9th century extolled the Bhakti movement as the
essential religious form. This implied a great emphasis on the worship of the
gods and on a rigid individual morality more or less guaranteed by the fidelity
to practices of worship. We remember too that this religious system included
the belief in the actual presence of the gods in particular places such as the
temple, the private chapel of the Brahmin houses, and so on. Now Hindu
theology held that the gods themselves might lose their purity by contact with
sources of defilement. The consequnce was that the religious agents who cele-
brated the pujas (liturgies of adoration) or took care of the deity had themsel-

29
Samarandra Saraf, The Hindu Ritual purity-pollution complex, in Eastern Anthropolo-
gist.

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ves to be in a state of total ritual purity. They «took care» of the deity because
of the belief in the actual presence of the deities in their statues which led to
their being treated as persons, whose needs were defined by analogy with
those of human beings: the need for food, sleep, bathing, dressing and
undressing, leisure, and so forth. If the Brahmins concerned were not totally
pure the gods were thought to express their anger tangibly, - as, for instance,
by the presence of red ants in a Brahmin’s house.
This explains how the system justified the division of labour, even at the
level of daily life. For in order to avoid all possible occasion of defilement -
apart from those inherent in their own persons - the Nambudiris thus relieved
themselves of all material labour, passing it on to other social groups. The
domestic tasks in their own homes, too, had necessarily to be carried out in
their entirety by the female members of the illam, which established a real dis-
crimination against the women even within the group.
However, not all forms of work were liable to the same degree of defile-
ment. Field work, for instance, might be defiling through the accidental pre-
sence of polluted elements (decaying plants or dead animals) which might be
found. But it was much less so than cleaning out cow-byres or goat-sheds, and
similar tasks. In principle, every type of manual work connected with the birth
of life and its direct protection held a better place on the level-of-defilement
ladder than those relating to any form of destruction, such as, for example,
the rotting of fibres, the manufactures of leather, sweeping up of refuse, and
so on.
Now every type of occupation was the speciality of a particular caste, for
it will be remembered that the caste was an element in the social macro-
structure grouping together either the whole, or parts, of the ancient clans,
which had for centuries specialized in particular forms of activity. Moreover,
the social hierarchy had been established in function of the possibility of
acquiring the right to a piece of land. Consequently it was the groups who had
no land, and whose work was not free - i.e. the slaves - which were naturally
concerned with the most servile, and hence, the most defiling jobs. All the
members of these groups were therefore more or less permanently liable to
contaminate others. They were considered as being in a permanent state of
muttuchettu or total ritual defilement. At the other extreme, the Brahmins
were considered as being capable of reaching the state of madi - that of being
ritually pure, the indispensable state for liturgical celebrations. The castes
defined as Hindu, the Kshatriyas and the Nayars, were mailige, - an expres-
sion which could be translated as being in the «normal ritual state»3°. The sta-
tus of the Izhavas, the Kannandars and the other «non-Hindu» castes was
close to that of the slaves in that which concerned their relationships with the
socially superior castes. On the other hand these castes held that the slaves
were a source of defilement for them.
It will be noted that in the defilement structure only the owest groups on
the social ladder had a fixed and immutable status: they were intrinsically
defiled and sources of defilement. The members of the intermediate groups,

-------
30
M.N. Srivinas, Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India
, Clarendon Press,
Oxford, 1952, 106.

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whose caste defilement status was mailige, might become muttuchettu,
(ritually impure), but in no case - by reason of their caste-belonging - could
they attain to the state of madi. Finally, the Nambudiris formed the only
group whose members might take on any of the three states, since contact bet-
ween a ritually pure Brahmin and a mailige person would make the Brahmin

mailige, while the transition from the state of madi or mailige to that of mut-
tuchettu would be brought about by contact with any source of defilement,
whether human or not.
This association between the symbolic construction of defilement and the
ladder of caste status, depending on the relations of production, produced a
new cleavage between the social groups, by distinguishing those who did not
pollute Brahmin purity (the mailige castes) from those who, on the contrary,
did pollute it.
Hence the state of purity of the Brahmins was not absolute, and could be
destroyed by the other social groups. Nevertheless this belief was not enough
in itself to oblige thousands of people to conform themselves to humiliating
practices. In order to be ideologically effective, it was necessary that Brahmin
defilement, and its reverse, should have a social function. This accounts for
the fact that the ladder of defilement was not confined to the human world;
hence the elaboration of an imaginary production which - while recognizing
that the gods were normally in a state of purity higher than the Brahmins -
added that they too could be affected by contact with beings who were defiled.
But while their state of purity made the gods favourable to men, their defile-
ment roused them to blind vengeance. All the social groups, therefore, had an
interest in safeguarding Brahmin purity. Moreover, since defilement had
become a «naturalized» phenomenon, a Brahmin might become defiled
without realizing it, might celebrate a puja in this state, and so transmit his
defilement to the god, - but clearly it was the defiling social groups (the non-
Hindu castes) which were in this case to be held responsible for all the calami-
ties which befell the local population.
In Kerala this defilement structure was further complicated by the diver-
sity of the pantheon. We recall, of course, that Aryanization had produced a
fusion between the Aryan gods (Vishnu, Siva, etc.) and the Dravidian deities.
In addition, the ancient clan beliefs in evil spirits, whose function was to tor-
ment men (states of possession were attributed to them) had remained very
strong in all the groups, even though the Brahmins officially rejected them.
The rules of defilement respected the celestial hierarchy: the Aryan gods were
considered as being normally in a state of madi (ritually pure), as was expected
also of the Brahmins. On the other hand the Dravidian deities were in a state
of mailige (the neutral state of defilement) for the same reasons as the Ksha-
triyas and the Nayars. When these became defiled, they were considered to be
the cause of all illnesses. On the ladder of purity, therefore, a Brahmin occu-
pied a position superior to that of the Dravidian deities. As for the evil spirits,
since their actions were all maleficent they were rated on a level with the slaves
as in a permanent state of muttuchettu3l.

31
E.B. Harper, Ritual Pollution as an integrator factor of caste and religion, in The Journal
of Asian Studies, vol. XXIII, 1964, 152-197.

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 We see now how the symbolic practices associated with religion perfor-
med a powerful ideological function. The social structure and its division into
three categories: the Hindu and the «non-Hindu» castes and the slaves, was the
production of arbitrary Brahmin control - a control linked essentially with the
interests of the Nambudiri group, whether it was a question of ensuring for
themselves a part of the economic surplus, or of guaranteeing their social
power by control over the distribution of the land. Nevertheless the defilement
system resulted in the acceptance of the idea that the most oppressed groups,
especially the slaves, were to be held responsible for all the evils which might
afflict the groups that had so marginalized them. Besides, this same system
presented a valid legitimation for the excellence of the Brahmin group, and
attributed to it a positive social function; for since its religious observances
gave it power over the gods, the group became the indispensable mediator,
alone capable of procuring favourable conditions for the whole social ensem-
ble. The symbolic construction therefore presented a picture which was the
reverse of the objective reality, and authenticated it as «the» only ontological
reality. We can understand how it played the part of cement in the caste struc-
ture, by reinforcing all the other cultural practices, such as endogamy, for ins-
tance.
Moreover, the position of the Nambudiris in relation to that of the Dravi-
dian gods in the defilement structure confirmed the importance of the ethnic
factor as the second determining element in the social hierarchy, by reflecting
the opposition between the Aryan group, the Dravidian groups and the abo-
riginal slaves.
b) Defilement practices and the regulation of social relations on the level of
daily life
When the symbolic apparatus produced in a social ensemble includes the
belief in the possibility of defilement between social groups, and when this
system is also seen as the cause of conjunctural «good» or «evil» events affec-
ting the whole ensemble, we can easily deduce its effects on the level of the
social interrelationships of daily life. In theory, it must inevitably give rise to
relationships of repulsion between groups, each seeking to avoid the others as
much as possible.
However, in order to ensure their physical survival (which implies the
production and exchange of economic goods) the social groups will find them-
selves faced with a contradiction which they will have to resolve. Note that
this difficulty will be the more acute where the units of social life are very
small, i.e. in the villages. This is the significance of the code of rigid social
practices which was developed to regulate the relationships between groups and
individuals. We shall distinguish the collective and individual practices of pro-
tection from those of purification.

c) Practices of protection and the use of space

Since defilement was transmitted by contacts between members of groups at
different defilement levels, it is only logical that the groups sought to reduce
these contacts by rationalizing their use of space. As everywhere else in India,
the village was constructed in function of a special division into socially

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homogeneous zones. in one way the Kerala ecology lent itself readily to this
distribution, for the abundance of water had always had the effete of disper-
sing the habitats, and each tarawad lived on its own lands. In the Brahmin
period the villages were generally spread out over a large area, the «centre»
being formed by the temple and the Nambudiri houses, surrounded at a cer-
tain distance by the Nayar tarawads.
The huts of the artisan castes and the dwellings of the farmers occupied
other well-marked sections. the slaves had no regular place of residence, their
tiny hovels being re-erected on the edges of the paddy-fields following the
needs of their work. Each habitat was protected by the rule forbidding
entrance to anyone of a caste inferior to that of the occupants. Following this
principle, the Brahmins alone could enter everywhere - though it is evident
that they would never risk themselves except in the houses of the ritually neu-
tral castes, those of the Kshatriyas or the Nayars.
Nevertheless the roads remained strategic areas where it was possible to
meet, though even here, in order to «protect» the gods and the deities, and also
the Brahmins, the roads leading to the temple were absolutely forbidden to
those of the non-Hindu castes and to the slaves - since these groups were in
any case never permitted to tread the sacred precincts. Popular belief held,
indeed, that any out-caste who might venture in would be stung to death by
swarms of bees! Hence, none of the non-Hindu groups was ever allowed to
take part directly in Brahmin religious observances. Kshatryas and Nayars
were admitted within certain limits, where their state of mailige would offer
no danger of defilement to the gods.
A member of the lower castes, or a slave, could in theory travel on other
roads, but only on certain conditions. «These other two classes of persons,
that is to say the ’Poliars’ and the ’Hiravas’ could not approach closer that 50
feet to the Naeris or the Brahmins... They were always obliged to take rounda-
bout paths or to cross the fields»32.
The rules regarding the respect for these distances were abolished only
recently (in 1936 in Travancore and in 1947 in the ancient kingdom of
Cochin), and the severity of the punishments inflicted for transgressions - exe-
cution on the spot by a Nayar (either of the defiled person or of the Nayar
who accompanied a Brahmin on his journey), clearly expressed, on the level
of daily life, the rigidity of the relationship between the castes. They formed,

32
Ludovico di Varthema, Travels, translated into English by J.W. Johnes, London, 1863, p.
142, quoted by K.K. Kuseman, Slavery in Travancore, Kerala History Society, Trivandrum,
1973. We shall complete the outline of this situation with two passages from an undated docu-
ment, probably from the end of the 18th C.: «If a Nair approaches a poleas closely to be touched
by his breath, he is considered to be defiled. He is then obliged to kill the Poleas
, because if he
does not do so, and the incident becomes known to the king, the Nair himself will be killed, or at
least sold as a slave...» (p. 123).
«if a Hirava needs something and has to buy it in the market, he approaches to a certain dis-
tance, calls loudly for what he wants, and lays down a little money in the place provided for this
purpose. He then backs off. The shopkeeper (generally a Muslim at this period) pretends to have
heard nothing, but deposits the goods called for and takes up the money. As soon as he has left
the place, the diraya returns, picks up his purchase and runs away» (p. 30). Thevenot & Careri;
Indian Travels, edited by S.N. Sen, New Delhi 1949, p. 38.

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as it were, a constant indoctrination, through praxis, in the dominant
ideology33.
One of the elements which made the maintenance of the system possible
was its extension within the inferior groups themselves, including the slaves.
The non-Hindu Dravidian castes indeed considered themselves as socially
superior to the slaves, and in fact the distance they had to maintain from the
Brahmins and the Nayars was less, by a few feet, than that required of the
Pulayas. Even among the slaves, however, the Pulayas considered themselves
superior to the Parayas. Each of these groups imposed on the ’lower’ ones the
same defilement customs, the distance to be kept in each case depending on
the difference between the distances each group was obliged to maintain from
the NamburidiS34.
This reproduction of the rules of defilement within the groups occupying
the lower rungs of the social hierarchy may have been, in our opinion, one of
the factors enabling these groups to accept their own social position, without
the need to have recourse to a salvation religion with a socially compensatory
function. The stratification of groups even among the slaves gave each of
them the opportunity to enjoy an imaginary power for none of them had any
real power whatever, on the level of the social ensemble; while the practices
bound up with the kinship structure - which underlay their internal organiza-
tion - ensured both its continuity and its exclusiveness. For it was by birth that
one obtained one’s «caste» status, whose exclusiveness was guaranteed by
endogamy. Even the group which occupied the lowest position of all on this
status ladder had resolved the difficulty inherent in its position by each unit
holding itself «superior» in reference to the units living in other villages.
Hence the symbolic ladder had no clearly defined «lowest rung».
We see immediately how this symbolic construction of groups objectively
without any power would be functional for the stability of the social ensem-
ble. By giving them the illusion of being «dominant groups», it resulted in
their paying less attention to their objective condition (as being dominated
groups) than to the conflicts which regularly opposed them to other groups
with an equivalent position in the economic and cultural macro-structures.

33
Nevertheless during one month every year the slaves and other inferior groups were allo-
wed to take their «revenge». This was in accordance with a custom called Pulappedi (fear of the
) or Parappedi (fear of the Parayas) or Mannapedi (fear of the Mannan or washermen).
Pulayas
Durte Barbosa describes it as follows: «The lower groups do their best to touch the Nayar women
(and also the Brahmin women), taking advantage of the night to do them harm... If they do touch
one of these women, even if there are no witnesses, the woman herself is obliged to make it known
by her cries. She must immediately leave her house for fear of permanently defiling her lineage.
She takes refuge in the house of a family of lower caste so as to escape from her relatives, who
would be obliged to kill her or to sell her as a slave». Duarte Barbosa, A description of the coast
of East Africa and Malabar, written in the 16th C. Translated from the Portuguese by H.F. Stan-
ley, London, 1866, 142-143. See also R.N. Yesudas, Pulappedi in Kerala, in Journal of Kerala
studies, The Department of History, University of Kerala, Trivandrum, March 1975, Vol. II 41-
53.
34
Although during their work the slaves were obliged to be in close contact with each other,
as soon as work was over the groups separated & went through purifying ablutions, since the defi-
lement rules came into force immediately after work stopped. Also, each group lived alone. They
could not, however, inflict punishments on each other, since the lives of the slaves belonged to
their master. In the case of murder, the law provided for the execution of the murderer if he was
of and inferior caste, or himself a slave.

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 Indeed, while the aim of the defilement structure was to confirm, on the
symbolic level, the dominant position objectively determined by the Brah-
mins, it succeeded in producing an imaginary picture of social relations in
which each group situated itself, not in reference to this dominant group, but
in reference to that which occupied the lowest position. We shall return to this
very important point when dealing with the different elements composing
group identity.

d) Practices of protection and «rites de passage»

We do not propose to spend much time on the social observances concerned
with the great moments of existence: birth, death, and puberty. These practi-
ces, whose origins date back to a period long before the social structuration
into castes, were maintained by all the groups, like the other cultural customs
related to the kinship structure.
However, although in every case these types of defilement affected the
whole of the extended family (and we find here again the reduction to the con-
crete of the great clan principle: that what affects the individual has signifi-
cance only because he is one of the elements in the structure of the extended
family), and although in every case they were resolved by placing the whole
group in quarantine, nevertheless each caste remained faithful to the particu-
lar ruitual forms inherited from its past. The effect of the setting up of a social
ensemble whose ideology emphasized the opposition between social groups
was to generate in each of them a reaction protecting its own cultural patri-
mony ; this in turn reinforced the dominant ideololy, at the same time that it
created in the different groups the illusion of autonomy.
We may add to these customs constituting the rites de passage a series of
other practices in defence of which, as part of their cultural patrimony, a simi-
lar reaction took place in each group. In this catgory we would include the
defilement practices relating to food. In the early period eating habits, such as
that of eating or not eating meat, or eating the meat of one animal rather than
another, were clearly linked with the natural environment. The cattle-raisers
and the hunters ate meat, the fisherfolk ate fish. It was only when the Brah-
mins imposed their prohibition on taking life for food purposes that the meat-
eaters (especially those who ate beef, since the cow was a sacred animal)35,
were considered as defiling groups. The Pulayas of the cast, and the Palayas,
formerly forest aborigines and now reduced to slavery in the Brahmin society,
continued to eat meat. This habit of theirs only served to accentuate their cha-
racter as a group in a permanent state of muttuchettu (ritual defilement). As
for the non-Hindu Dravidian castes, especially the Izhavas, we may suppose
that the inferior social status allotted to them was not totally unrelated to
some of their group habits, such as taking meat and fermented drinks, both

35
The origin of the sacred character ascribed to the cow dates from a very ancient tradition.
This animal was considered as the source of numerous benefits. This observed fact, transposed on
to the symbolic plane, caused it to be thought of as the «habitat» of numberless deities. When the
pantheon of the major gods was being elaborated, the bull was associated with Siva, the god of
the creation and of the destruction of life.

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 forbidden by Hinduism36. Moreover, it is interesting to note that although the
goddess of this group, the former Kottavai or Kali - who because of her earlier
functions as goddess of the hunt, and later of war, could be said to «eat» meat
-
was integrated into the Hindu pantheon, she was never to be found in the
Brahmin temples, since the Nambudiris could not celebrate the worship pro-
per to her37.
.
Although these points form a supplementary element tending to show
that the absorption of clan structures into the caste system also included that
of their cultural systems, they also demonstrate how and why each of the
groups retained its models and its customs, as its own particular cultural capi-
tal. So that although social cohesion was ensured by a dominant religious
ideology, that of the Brahmins, social practices of great symbolic importance
(physical defilement, spatial separation, prohibition of sacred places, food
taboos, etc.) also encouraged each group to defend its own physical, social
and symbolic space as the specific property of the group, in which every mem-
ber had a share by his birth and by the observance of endogamy.

e) Penaltres and purijicatory rites as mechanisms regulating defilement

practices
Whenever a social ensemble elaborates rigid codes, such as those of the
defilement system, in order to ensure the reproduction of social relations, it
must also elaborate machinery for dealing with deviations. These deviations
may be either excusable (if they do not endanger the social order) or inexcusa-
ble (if they do so). In the first case the social reaction will be expressed in puri-
ficatory rites, in the second in punishments. It is evident that, in theory, these
rites would be applicable only to those groups which had the possibility of
attaining the state of ritual purity - the Brahmins, first of all, who had the
duty of maintaining themselves as far as possible in the «madi» (ritually pure)
state; but also the other Hindu castes, the Kshatriyas, the Ambavalavasis and
the Nayars, in their case in the «mailige» (ritually neutral) state. Since the
other groups were ontologically «muttuchettu» (ritually defiled) they could
not be purified in any way. However, in so far as the lower castes had introdu-
ced defilement practices in order to establish a hierarchy among themselves,
and to regulate their social interrelationships, some of these groups had also
adopted the purificatory rites of the socially dominant castes. These puridica-
tory rites, of course, had no social significance on the level of the macro-
structure ; nevertheless they were of capital importance to the socially inferior
groups, since these were faced with the contradiction resulting from the impo-
sition of an ideology accentuating social differences (structurally based on the
maintenance of kinship relations within the group) on the one hand, and with
the fact of their own non-differentiation as a labour force, above all on the
level of the slaves, on the other.
For the Hindu castes, defilement (the state of muttuchettu) could be puri-
fied in various ways according to the importnce of the cause of defilement. In

We must not lose sight of the fact that these coastal groups had been Buddhists. Now, in
36
Tantric Buddhism the consumption pf meat and fermented drinks was a means to the attainment
of Nirvana. See Gopala Krishna, History of Kerala
, now in publication.
37
See below: the religious practices of the Izhavas.

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the most serious instance, defilement bound up with the celebration of rituals -
in the case of a death these were carried out, as a rule, by the eldest son - puri-
fication could be obtained only through the mediation of the puhorita, the
family priest. On the level of daily life, the most serious cases of defilement
were purified by the ritual bath, the changing of clothes and of the sacred
thread - the thread, worn by the Brahmins as an emblem of their second bath,
which was imposed on adolescent boys during the puberty rites - and by swal-
lowing a sacred drink made up of the five sacred products of the cow: milk,
white cheese, butter-milk, dung and urine. Finally, minor defilements were
cleansed by the obligatory ritual daily bath38.
However, certain cases were considered too serious to be purified at all.
These included all the infractions of the rules concerning kinship relations, -
concubinage, or adultery, - for the Nambudiri women, generally with the
members of their own caste - or, for the Brahmin men, sexual relations with
untouchable women. In the other social groups the recognized custom of
polyandry made it less likely for the women to offend in this way, except
among the slaves. For their men, the prohibition was against relations with
women of a higher caste. Some other crimes, such as murder - except when the
victim was a slave - were also beyond remission.
These social transgressions, of course, took on a special connotation
because of the defilement which they involved. Although every sexual act was
considered defiling, the defilement was seriously increased when one of the
partners was ontologically defiling. It will be remarked, however, that these
regulations had no bearing on the sambandhan unions - those of a younger
son of a Nambudiri family with women of the Kshatriya or Nayar castes, or of
a Nayar with an Izhava woman.
The Nambudiris themselves, and the women of all castes, were exempt
from the death penalty. the men of the other castes could be executed in the
case of serious adultery (with women of a higher caste) or of the murder of a
Brahmin or the killing of a cow. The unfortunate slaves were liable to capital
punishment for the least error.
The more serious offences of the Brahmins and the women, and the cri-
mes which brought shame on the reputation of a caste in the case of the other
men, were punished by «excommunication», inflicted by the caste council.
Both the verdict and the penalty, however, had to be approved either by the
Rajah (in the case of the Hindu castes) or by the local Nayar chiefs. This was

38
For amale Nambudiri, the ritual of the bath included the following observances. In order
to attain the state of purity, he had to take a complete bath in a pool reserved for this purpose,
including the pouring of water on his head by another Brahmin, who himself must not be defiled.
The defiled man wore his clothes (a piece of white cotton cloth rolled round his loins). He had to
change this garment while in the water, wash the polluted cloth, use it as a towel, then wash it
again. He could then leave the pool, and go up as quickly as possible to the left which was used
for drying purified garments, where he put on a dry one. The wet cotton cloths were always loo-
ked upon as ritually pure, and hey protected those who wore them. A dry cotton garment kept its
ritual purity for three days, provided it did not come into contact with any source of defilement.
But a shirt could never become pure. Those Brahmins who wore shirts were obliged to remove
them before eating, and, naturally, before entering the temple enclosure. Cf. E.B. Harper, art .
cit. (31), 152.

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to avoid the fabrication of imaginary crimes by families at enmity with one
another, in an attempt to rid themselves of individuals who were in their way.
For «excommunication» was a penalty almost equivalent to a death sen-
tence. Economically, the person «excommunicated» naturally lost all right to
the family properties, since these were indivisible; but the social cost was even
higher, since «excommunication» involved the loss of all social identity.
Social identity was acquired, as we have seen, only through belonging to
a natural group. So, on the contrary, exclusion from the group, whether
voluntary (in the case of certain ascetics and gurus) or inflicted, meant that it
was impossible for the individual to join any other group. It meant also the
loss of his religious identity. In other words, he lost the two co-ordinates
through which he situated himself on the socio-religious ladder. Men who suf-
fered this ostracism usually emigrated to other regions, while high-caste
women could be placed under the protection of the Rajah. But the surety to be
paid by the illam in this case was so high that most of them became slaves to
the non-Hindu groups, especially to the Syrian Christians.

V. Conclusions
The consequence of the transition from the dominance of the political to that
of the religious system in Kerala is clearly shown by the development of a par-
ticular social formation, commonly known as the caste society. By way of
conclusion, we should like to ask ourselves what was the significance of this
transition in relation to the concept of the mode of production.
From the economic point of view, the social formation engendered by the
hegemony of the religious agents was characterized in Kerala by this group’s
appropriation of the whole of the means of production - the land. Now when-
ever an authority, or a group, monopolizes in this way the whole means of
production, whatever the reason for its appropriation, it automatically creates
the necessity of its redistribution among the various social groups. This provi-
des the objective basis for a structure of social relations of production whose
shape will depend, in the final analysis, on the criteria governing the redistri-
bution.
In Kerala, the religious agents did indeed appropriate the whole of the
landed property, but they left to other groups the totality of its «possession»,
that is to say, of the disposition of the land and the control of the tools,
though not the actual property rights. Hence it is clear that the caste system in
Kerala was integrated in the Trilwory mode of production, though it differed
from the more usual forms, For the intervention of the religious agents in the
process of production had neither an economic objective nor an immediate
political goal. The objective of the Nambudiris was not concerned with the
accumulation of surpluses, though they did, of course, use some for their own
subsistence and for the maintenance of their institutions (the temples). Nor
had they any intention of seizing political power, for they left this to a particu-
lar group, the Kshatriyas.
In fact, what the Brahmins were after was a social position correspon-
ding, if one may put it this way, to the monopoly of the whole of social status.
Now, for this particular group this objective coulf be attained only if they
could exempt themselve from the labour forces, an exemption to which their

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code gave the maximum possible value. For the Nambudiris, therefore, the
appropriation of the means of production constituted the objective factor
enabling them to attain their goal. Nevertheless the contradiction entailed in
it, that of the obligation of the group to «redistribute» the land in order to
make it productive, and so to involve themselves to some degree in the organi-
zation of production, could be resolved only by having recourse to another
social group, the Nayars, who replaced them in this function of the redistribu-
tion of control.
Their deputyship was rewarded by the grant of a high social status, linked
-
just as for the Nambudiris themselves - with their having no direct share in
the process of production. So much was this the case that the hierarchy of the
social groups in this social formation was built up entirely on the opposition
between two elements: work and the actual «possession» of the land versus
the acquisition of a high social status. There were therefore non-working
groups with a superior social status, and groups working the land, and living
for the most part in self-sufficiency, but with an inferior social status. In this
type of organization of social relations, the slave group became both a social
and an economic necessity.
For it enabled the superior groups to ensure their own subsistence
without damaging their social status, i.e. without working, but by living on
the surplus produced by the slaves. This explains why the slaves, producers
but non-possessors, were considered as «out-castes», that is to say ontologi-
cally outside the status ladder altogether.
Nevertheless, in Kerala, the Brahmins were obliged to share their status
as non-workers with the Nayar caste, precisely in order to ensure their hege-
mony in the ladder of social status. It became necessary then to reconcile the
contradiction, and this was done in the symbolic order. This was the function
of the defilement practices, which made it possible to lay down exactly measu-
red distances between the different groups. We might well ask ourselves why
the Brahmins developed a system of social practices with a symbolic value
rather than a discursive production of meanings, as was the usual precedure in
other societies where religious agents exercised social power. We are inclined
to think that this phenomenon is linked with the already existing segmentation
of the basic units of social life, which was itself the corollary of the absence of
macro-structures in the political field.
In the event, these primary groups were reinforced by the caste system.
Each group now had to live on its own, and its daily collective life was seen
from this angle, each group retaining, in addition, the essentials of its own
customs and beliefs. Now on this level, and given the segmentation, the imagi-
nary picture of social relations between the groups of the social ensemble had
practically no existence. These interrelationships (such as they were) were per-
ceived directly through the practices. The defilement practices therefore for-
med a natural part of the social logic.
Finally, the constitution of the castes, in so far as they were groups built
up on the basis of kinship relations and engaged in specific economic activi-
ties, was not a Brahmin invention. The innovation lay in the social and cultu-
ral hierarchization of the groups; but this did not in any way involve the des-
truction of the pre-existing structures.

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 It was the old social groups, with all their internal peculiarities, both on
the plane of thir organization and on that of their culture which formed the
elements of the new structure. In one sense, the particular character of the
social groups which became the castes provided an objective factor of solidifi-
cation in the system, by allowing each of them to dispose of a cultural space in
which it retained its autonomy, whatever the position it occupied in the
macro-structure.
This was also the why each caste sought to strengthen its group
reason
identity. Now the traditional
religious production was one of the central ele-
ments in the construction of their identity, for it constituted the most impor-
tant expressive system of the group which had produced it, and had reprodu-
ced it throughout the ages. It therefore remained central and specific, even
though certain symbols of integration into Hinhuism were also visible.

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