Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/141

Rh "originated in the fact that a holy Muhammadan, named Ibrahim Nabi, was brought up in the house of a Kammālan, because his father was afraid that he would be killed by a Hindu king named Namadūta, who had been advised by his soothsayers that he would thus avoid a disaster, which was about to befall his kingdom. The Kammālan gave his daughter to the father of Ibrahim in exchange. Another story (only told by Kammālans) is to the effect that the Kammālans were once living in a magnetic castle, called Kānda Kōttai, which could only be destroyed by burning it with varagu straw; and that the Musalmans captured it by sending Musalman prostitutes into the town, to wheedle the secret out of the Kammālans. The friendship, according to the story, sprang up because the Kammālans consorted with the Musalman women." The Kammālans belong to the left hand, as opposed to the right hand faction. The origin of this distinction of castes is lost in obscurity, but, according to one version, it arose out of a dispute between the Kammǎlans and Vellālas. The latter claimed the former as their Jāti pillaigal or caste dependents, while the former claimed the latter as their own dependents. The fight grew so fierce that the Chōla king of Conjeeveram ranged these two castes and their followers on opposite sides, and enquired into their claims. The Kammālans, and those who sided with them, stood on the left of the king, and the Vellālas and their allies on the right. The king is said to have decided the case against the Kammālans, who then dispersed in different directions. According to another legend, a Kammālan who had two sons, one by a Balija woman, and the other by his Kammālan wife, was unjustly slain by a king of Conjeeveram, and was avenged by his two sons, who killed the