Note 1 — T (continued 2)

“The Udaiyāns,” Mr. Francis writes,1 are a caste, which is specially numerous in South Arcot. Most of them are cultivators, and in Kallakurchi many are also money-lenders on a large scale. They adopt numerous different titles in an indiscriminate way, and four brothers have been known to call themselves respectively Nāyak, Pillai, Mudali, and Udaiyān. They have three sub-divisions—Malaiyamān, Nattamān, and Sudarmān—which all admit that they are descended from one common stock, will usually dine together, but do not intermarry. Some of the caste, however, are now turning vegetarians, and these will not only not eat with the others, but will not let their girls marry them. They do not, nevertheless, object to their sons taking brides from the meat-eating classes, and thus provide an interesting, if small, instance of the (on this coast) uncommon practice of hypergamy. In all general matters the ways of the three sub-divisions are similar. Sudarmāns are uncommon in this district, and are stated to be chiefly found in Trichinopoly and Tanjore. The Udaiyāns say that the three groups are the descendants of a king who once ruled at Tirukkōyilūr, the first of whom took the hilly part of his father’s country, and so was called Malaiyamān; the second the level tracts, whence his name Nattamān, and the third was the scholar of the family, and learned in the holy books (srutas), and so was called Sudarmān. These Udaiyāns are the caste from which were drawn some of the kāvalgārs (watchmen) who, in pre-British days, were appointed to perform police duties, and keep the country clear of thieves; and some of the descendants of these men, who are known to their neighbours as poligars, and still have considerable local influence, are even now to be met with. The connection of the members of the caste with the Vēpūr (criminal) Paraiyans, which is of course confined to the less reputable sections among them, seems to have had its origin in the days when they were still head kāvalgārs, and these Paraiyans were their talaiyāris, entrusted, under their orders, with police duties in the different villages. It now consists in acting as receivers of the property these people steal, and in protecting them in diverse ways—finding and feeing a vakil (law pleader) for their defence, for instance—when they are in trouble with the police. It is commonly declared that their relations are sometimes of a closer nature, and that the wives of Vēppūr Paraiyans who are in enforced retirement are cared for by the Udaiyāns. To this is popularly attributed the undoubted fact that these Paraiyans are often much fairer in complexion than other members of that caste.”