Note 12 — H

Of the Holeyas of the Mysore province, the following account is given in the Mysore Census Reports, 1891 and 1901. “The Holeyas number 502,493 persons, being 10.53 per cent. of the total population. They constitute, as their name implies, the back-bone of cultivation in the country. Hola is the Kanarese name for a dry-crop field, and Holeya means the man of such field. The caste has numerous sub-divisions, among which are Kannada, Gangadikāra, Maggada (loom), and Morasu. The Holeyas are chiefly employed as labourers in connection with agriculture, and manufacture with hand-looms various kinds of coarse cloth or home-spun, which are worn extensively by the poorer classes, notwithstanding that they are being fast supplanted by foreign cheap fabrics. In some parts of the Mysore district, considerable numbers of the Holeyas are specially engaged in betel-vine gardening. As labourers they are employed in innumerable pursuits, in which manual labour preponderates. The Alēman sub-division furnishes recruits as Barr sepoys. It may not be amiss to quote here some interesting facts denoting the measure of material well-being achieved by, and the religious recognition accorded to the outcastes at certain first-class shrines in Mysore. At Mēlkōtē in the Mysore district, the outcastes, i.e., the Holeyas and Mādigs, are said to have been granted by the great Visishtādvaita reformer, Rāmānujāchārya, the privilege of entering the Vishnu temple up to the sanctum sanctorum, along with Brāhmans and others, to perform worship there for three days during the annual car procession. The following anecdote, recorded by Buchanan,12 supplies the raison d’être for the concession, which is said to have also been earned by their forebears having guarded the sacred mūrti or idol. On Rāmānujāchārya going to Melkōta to perform his devotions at that celebrated shrine, he was informed that the place had been attacked by the Turk King of Delhi, who had carried away the idol. The Brāhman immediately set out for that capital, and on arrival found that the King had made a present of the image to his daughter, for it is said to be very handsome, and she asked for it as a plaything. All day the princess played with the image, and at night the god assumed his own beautiful form, and enjoyed her bed, for Krishna is addicted to such forms of adventures. Rāmānujāchārya, by virtue of certain mantras, obtained possession of the image, and wished to carry it off. He asked the Brāhmans to assist him, but they refused; on which the Holeyas volunteered, provided the right of entering the temple was granted to them. Rāmānujāchārya accepted their proposal, and the Holeyas, having posted themselves between Delhi and Mēlkōta, the image of the god was carried down in twenty-four hours. The service also won for the outcastes the envied title of Tiru-kulam or the sacred race. In 1799, however, when the Dewān (prime minister) Pūrnaiya visited the holy place, the right of the outcastes to enter the temple was stopped at the dhvaja stambham, the consecrated monolithic column, from which point alone can they now obtain a view of the god. On the day of the car procession, the Tiru-kulam people, men, women and children, shave their heads and bathe with the higher castes in the kalyāni or large reservoir, and carry on their head small earthen vessels filled with rice and oil, and enter the temple as far as the flagstaff referred to above, where they deliver their offerings, which are appropriated by the Dāsayyas, who resort simultaneously as pilgrims to the shrine. Besides the privilege of entering the temple, the Tiru-kula Holeyas and Mādigs have the right to drag the car, for which service they are requited by getting from the temple two hundred seers of rāgi (grain), a quantity of jaggery (crude sugar), and few bits of the dyed cloth used for decorating the pandal (shed) which is erected for the procession. At the close of the procession, the representatives of the aforesaid classes receive each a flower garland at the hands of the Sthānik or chief worshipper, who manages to drop a garland synchronously into each plate held by the recipients, so as to avoid any suspicion of undue preference. In return for these privileges, the members of the Tiru-kulam used to render gratuitous services such as sweeping the streets round the temple daily, and in the night patrolling the whole place with drums during the continuance of the annual procession, etc. But these services are said to have become much abridged and nearly obsolete under the recent police and municipal régime. The privilege of entering the temple during the annual car procession is enjoyed also by the outcastes in the Vishnu temple at Bēlūr in the Hassan district. It is, however, significant that in both the shrines, as soon as the car festival is over, i.e., on the 10th day, the concession ceases, and the temples are ceremonially purified.