Note 10 — S

Sāmantan.—“This,” the Census Superintendent, 1891, writes, “may be called the caste of Malayālam Rājahs and chieftains, but it is hardly a separate caste at all, at any rate at present, for those Nāyars and others who have at any time been petty chieftains in the country, call themselves Sāmantas. The primary meaning of the word Sāmanta is given by Dr. Gundert10 as the chief of a district.” The number of people who returned themselves as Sāmantas (including a few Sāmantan Brāhmans) at the Census, 1881, was 1,611, and in 1901 they increased to 4,351.