Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/106

PARAIYAN they believe themselves to have come from any other part of the country than that where they now find themselves. There is, however, some evidence that the race has had a long past, and one in which they had independence, and possibly great importance in the peninsula. Mr. Stuart mentions * that the Valluvans were priests to the Pallava kings before the introduction of the Brāhmans, and even for some time after it. He quotes an unpublished Vatteluttu inscription, believed to be of the ninth century, in which it is noted that "Sri Valluvam Puvanavan, the Uvacchan (or temple ministrant), will employ six men daily, and do the temple service." The inference is that the Valluvan was a man of recognised priestly rank, and of great influence. The prefix Srī is a notable honorific. By itself this inscription would prove little, but the whole legendary history of the greatest of all Tamil poets, Tiruvalluvar, "the holy Valluvan," confirms all that can be deduced from it. His date can only be fixed approximately, but it is probable that he flourished not later than the tenth century A.D. It is safe to say that this extraordinary sage could not have attained the fame he did, or have received the honours that were bestowed upon him, had not the Valluvans, and therefore the Paraiyans, been in the circle of respectable society in his day. This conjecture is strengthened by the legend that he married a Vellāla girl. The same hypothesis is the only one that will account for the education and the vogue of the sister of the poet, the aphoristic poetess Avvei. In the Census Report, 1901, Mr. Francis mentions an inscription of the Chōla King Rāja Rāja, dated about the eleventh century A.D., in which the Paraiyan caste is