Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/333

Rh the Sāmantan caste, but there is at least reason to suppose that they are properly Nāyars, and that the claim to the higher rank is of recent date. That such recruitment is going on is indicated by the difference between the number of persons returned as Sāmantans in the censuses of 1901 and 1891 (4,351 and 1,225 respectively), which is far above the normal percentage of increase of population. Kshatriyas wear the pūnūl (thread); Sāmantans as a rule do not. Most Kshatriyas eat with Brāhmans, and have a pollution period of eleven nights, indicating that their position in the caste hierarchy lies between the Brāhmans with ten days and the Ambalavāsis proper with twelve. Sāmantans as a rule observe fifteen days' pollution, and may not eat with Brāhmans. Both follow marumakkatāyam (inheritance in the female line), and their women as a rule have sambandham (alliance) only with Brāhmans or Kshatriyas. Those who belong to the old Royal families are styled Rāja or Tamburān (lord), their ladies Tamburāttis, and their houses Kōvilagams or palaces. Some Sāmantans have the caste titles of Kartāvu and Kaimal. But it does not appear that there are really any material differences between the various classes of Sāmantans, other than purely social differences due to their relative wealth and influence."

"Tradition," writes the Travancore Census Superintendent (1901), "traces the Sāmantas to the prudent Kshatriyas, who cast off the holy thread, to escape detection and slaughter by Parasu Rāma. They are believed to have then fled to uninhabited forests till they forgot the Sandhyāvandana prayers, and became in certain respects no better than Sūdras. Thus they came, it is said, to be called Amantrakas, Sāmantrakas, Sāmantas, or having no mantra at all. Referring to this,