Vellalars, Brahmans and the social formation

One of the most glaring ethnographic peculiarities of the Pudukkottai region is that it was not dominated by Vellalars. Tamil culture has frequently been assumed to be synonymous with the Vellalars, the highest ranking Sudras in a caste system in which there were neither Ksatriyas nor Vaisyas. Most historical and anthropological studies of the Tamil area consider Vellalars to be the most important community (Barnett 1970; Beck 1972; Ludden 1985; Stein 1980). Vellalars have been seen as the carriers of high caste culture in the Tamil country, adapting Sanskritic traditions (Daniel 1984) while preserving important Tamil ones. They provided the crucial node for the entry of Brahmans into Tamil society (Stein 1968). They were the chief agriculturalists of the central wet land areas of the south, growing rice and managing irrigation with great facility through their social networks and managerial skills (Stein 1980). Given the importance of Vellalars, is it possible to suggest the wider relevance of conceptions of caste, kinship, and politics garnered from an area such as Pudukkottai where Vellalars were, in recent times, virtually absent?

Indeed, Vellalars were different from Kallars, and Pudukkottai was a different kind of region than, say, Tanjavur. Castes such as the Kallars and Maravars proved themselves able to rule over areas such as Pudukkottai and not areas such as Tanjavur. However, this does not render Pudukkottai irrelevant or anomalous. Extensive areas of the Tamil countryside were mixed economy zones like Pudukkottai.