Forbidden Caste Mechanisms Of Hierarchies That

God’s Own Land Will Never Forget

Kerala, the tiny state situated at the southern tip of India is better known to the outside world through world wide web as "God’s Own Land". This tiny state, Kerala has positioned herself remarkably in the Guinness Book of World Records for her highest level of literacy rate in the world. Ironically enough, the Kerala society remained for several centuries trapped in a mesh of weird customs, ceremonies and rituals, which operated at different levels with varying degrees of intensity through an intricate mechanism of caste hierarchies. In fact those practices have been prevailed for centuries in Kerala as part of the origin of caste systems in our country.

What had triggered such divisions among once united society? Depending upon the status that the different occupational groups held in the society, ideas of nobleness, purity and respectability began to be associated with each. There initiated the upper caste and lower caste, more holy caste and less holy caste, and more respectable caste and less respectable caste. Thus the whole society had turned into a spectrum of various castes with varying degrees of status, power and prestige.

One of such strange notions that prevailed in Kerala until recently was ‘untouchability’. The lower caste was considered to be the polluting elements of a society. They are abandoned from touching and seeing other superiors in public or private places. They had to keep themselves out of the sight of the highest caste such as ‘Nambootiris’. However, some of the lower caste people were not totally blocked from coming out into a public gathering. Each caste group had rigid rules regarding the distance to be kept by them from higher or lower castes. The ‘unseeable’, ‘untouchable’ and ‘unapproachable’ notions caused immense of complexity and illfeelings among various groups of the society.

The earlier customs had strict principles such as ‘maryada’ (norm), ‘margam’ (way), ‘acharam’ (convention) determined by birth status. Brahmins were the supreme guardians of a society and others were supposed to fall in to respective pits to follow the orders from Brahmins. It took only a short while of time for ‘acharam’ to change into ‘anacharam’ due to egoistic nature and hierarchy spread throughout the society. For instance, it is believed that there were sixty-four categories of anacharams which crippled down substantially respective society’s progress. Some of such anacharam’s were quite weird. The society imposed a taboo on the Brahmin girl looking at any man other than her husband. A widow remarriage was also prohibited. No Brahmin ladies were allowed to inherit to the throne of a ruler. An investigation of these anacharams would reveal that the purpose behind such notions was just to avoid perpetuation of vested interests.

The system of inheritance was also clearly defined in two different fashion. The Nayar caste used to follow matrilineal (marumakkathayam) while the Namboothiri caste followed patrilineal (makkathayam) manner. Under Nayar’s system, the assets of a family goes to the eldest female member and their management is vested on her brother. The children of the eldest daughter have the right on the ancestral home (tharavadu) by virtue of birth. However, within Namboothiri caste, their systems of inheritance and marriage were eminently efficient and helped in the keeping of their family properties undivided. In effect, the system was analogous to primogeniture followed in some countries in the west.

The systems of marriage that existed in Kerala in the past were diverse and ingenious. One of the strange customary prevailed in some houses of Nayars, Ezhavas and the artisan communities was the practice of having a common wife by the brothers of the same household or sisters of the same household having a common husband. The main objectives of these practices had the maintenance of economic interests.

The marriage relationship between Nayar and Namboothiri families was also strange in comparison to today’s fashion of life. Nayars considered it as a mark of aristocracy to give their daughters and sisters in marriage to Namboothiri family irrespective of bridegroom’s age. But all Namboothiri men did not marry Nayar ladies. The eldest son in a family was socially bound to marry from another Namboothiri family. The younger sons were given the liberty to choose their brides even from outside Namboothiri caste. The elder Namboothiri son’s marriage was known by the name ‘Veli’ while the younger brothers marriage used to be known as ‘Sambandham’. In sambadham, the Namboothiri father had no legal obligation to his children born for his Nayar wife. The children inherited only mother’s wealth not father’s. The Namboothiri men who used to get involved in such marriages opt to serve as temple priests in places near to his wife’s house. The interest vested in Nayar ‘tharawadu’ (ancestral home) in getting into such sambadham was to maintain such conjugal relationship in having children from an intellectual superior so that the tharawad would continue its aristocratic spell for generations. The elder brother from a Namboothirim family as mentioned above enters into ‘Veli’ with another Namboothiri girl. Since the younger brothers were allowed to marry from outside the caste, many Namboothiri girls had to sacrifice their life to elder brothers who have been married many times or alternatively opt to remain spinsters for life. Widowhood also was very common due to the fact that at times Namboothiri teenage girls were forced to marry a man in sixties. Once widowed, they remained widows for life. Namboothiri’s wives were restricted to live in the inner chambers of their house called ‘mana’ or ‘illum’. They were responsible to hide their faces and body from public places or from other people. After marriage she literally bogged down to the chores of husband’s household, reduce to the level of chattel, with very little contact with the real life and society around.

Of all the communities of Kerala, Brahmins used to follow the most complex process of rituals in connection with one’s major phases of life such as marriage, pregnancy, birth of a child, death etc. It is very interesting to explore and understand the inner meanings of many of their observances. They are chronicled and these texts were meticulously followed by orthodox communities of that time.

Three of such examples are added here for you to have a feeling of olden times rituals.. "Garbhadhanam": Blessings from God for women to conceive. "Seemandham": A worship in the fourth month of pregnancy to get a good child. "Jatakarmmam": The ritual performed immediately after the birth of a boy. It is aimed for the highest intellectual caliber in the child. If the baby were a girl the observance would be performed at a later date.

HARI KOCHAT

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