Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/195

Rh the south. In Madura their claim to Brāhmanhood has always been disputed. As early as 1705 A.D. the Brāhmans of Madura called in question the Patnūlkarans' right to perform the annual upākarma (or renewal of the sacred thread) in the Brāhman fashion. [Eighteen members of the community were arrested by the Governor of Madura for performing this ceremony.] The matter was taken to the notice of the Queen Mangammāl, and she directed her State pandits to convene meetings of learned men, and to examine into it. On their advice, she issued a cadjān (palm leaf) sāsanam (grant) which permitted them to follow the Brāhmanical rites. But all the twice-born — whether Brāhmans, Kshatriyas, or Vaisyas — are entitled to do the same, and the sāsanam establishes little. The Patnūls point out that, in some cases, their gōtras are Brāhmanical. But, in many instances which could be quoted, Kshatriyas had also Brāhmanical gōtras." It is stated, in the Gazetteer of the Madura district, that the inscription at Mandasōr in Western Mālwa "relates how the Pattavāyas, as the caste was then called, were induced to migrate thither from Lāta on the coast of Gujarāt by king Kumāra Gupta (or one of his lieutenants), to practice there their art of silk-weaving. The inscription says many flattering things about the community, and poetically compares the city to a beautiful woman, and the immigrants to the silk garments in which she decks herself when she goes to meet her lover. [The inscription further records that, while the noble Bandhuvarman was governing this city of Dasapura, which had been brought to a state of great prosperity, a noble and unequalled temple of the brightrayed (sun) was caused to be built by the silk-cloth weavers (pattavāyair) as a guild with the stores of