Note 6 — I

The proverb that the sense of an Idaiyan is on the back of his neck, for it was there that he received the blows, refers to “the story of the shepherd entering the gate of his house with a crook placed horizontally on his shoulders, and finding himself unable to get in, and his being made able to do so by a couple of blows on his back, and the removal of the crook at the same time. Another proverb is that there is neither an Āndi among Idaiyans, nor a Tādan among the potters. The Āndi is always a Saivite beggar, and, the Idaiyans being always Vaishnavites, they can never have in their midst a beggar of the Saivite sect, or vice versâ. Being extremely stupid, whenever any dispute arises among them, they can never come to any definite settlement, or, as the proverb says, the disputes between Idaiyans are never easily settled. Keeping and rearing cattle, grazing and milking them, and living thereby, are their allotted task in life, and so they are never good agriculturists. This defect is alluded to in the proverb that the field watered by the Idaiyan, or by a member of the Palli caste, must ever remain a waste.”6