Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/374

KOMATI like death) ceremonies according to the Vēdic form, was raised by the Brāhmans of Masulipatam in 1817, and adjudicated upon.* Disputes had occurred between the Brāhmans and Kōmatis for a long time, and disturbances constantly took place. The Magistrate of Masulipatam prohibited the Kōmatis from performing one of the ceremonies, until they had established their right to do so in a Civil Court. The appellants thereon sued the defendants in damages for impediments made against their attending to the rites prescribed by the Vēdas, and prayed for permission to perform them in conformity with the Vēdas. The defendants denied the right of the Kōmatis to perform, and the fact of their ever having performed the ceremonies appointed by the Vēdas. They admitted the intervention of the Magistrate, and stated that "upwards of two thousand years ago, the Kōmatis adopted the customs of the Soodra caste, and some of them became Byri Kōmatis, and Bookha caste people, etc. The rest of them, amounting to a hundred and two gōtras, fabricated false gōtrams for themselves, and called themselves Nagaram Kōmatis. They fabricated a book called Canniaca Purānam, named the Bashcara Puntulu Varu their priest, conformed to that book, performed the sign of the upanayana ceremony in a loose manner, and in the language of the Purānas; at the time of marriage, made marriage ceremony in seven days contrary to the custom of all castes whatever, erected prōlu posts, made lumps of dough with flour, and got the same divided among them according to their spurious gōtrams, at midnight fetched the pot of water called arivany, and observed the ceremonies for ten days on the occurrence of a birth, and fifteen days on