Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/108

PARAIYAN incarnation of Vishnu during a Muhammadan raid. It is noted by Mr. Stuart that the lower village offices, the Vettiyan, Taliāri, Dandāsi or Bārike, and the Tōti, are, in the majority of Madras villages, held by persons of the Paraiyan caste. Paraiyans are allowed to take part in pulling the cars of the idols in the great festivals at Conjeeveram, Kumbakōnam, and Srīvilliputtūr. Their touch is not reckoned to defile the ropes used, so that other Hindus will pull with them. With this may be compared the fact that the Telugu Mālas are custodians of the goddess Gauri, the bull Nandi, and Ganēsa, the chief gods of the Saiva Kāpus and Balijas. It may also be noted that the Kōmatis, who claim to be Vaisyas, are bound to invite Mādigas to their marriages, though they take care that the latter do not hear the invitation. Mr.Clayton records that he has heard well-authenticated instances of Brāhman women worshipping at Paraiyan shrines in order to procure children, and states that he once saw a Paraiyan exorciser treating a Brāhman by uttering mantrams (consecrated formulæ), and waving a sickle up and down the sufferer's back, as he stood in a threshing floor. In a note on the Paraiyans of the Trichinopoly district, Mr. F. R. Hemingway writes as follows. "They have a very exalted account of their lineage, saying that they are descended from the Brāhman priest Sāla Sāmbavan, who was employed in a Siva temple to worship the god with offerings of beef, but who incurred the anger of the god by one day concealing a portion of the meat, to give it to his pregnant wife, and was therefore turned into a Paraiyan. The god appointed his brother to do duty instead of him, and the Paraiyans say that Brāhman priests are their cousins. For this reason they wear a sacred thread at their marriages and funerals.