Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 7.djvu/358

VALLUVAN To which the reply is given "Oh! Lord, I am a devotee of that Being who graced Markandeya, and am a Vīrasaiva by faith. I have come to enter heaven. We have all led pure lives, and have performed acts of charity. So it is not just that we should be prevented from entering. Men who ill-treat their parents, or superiors, those addicted to all kinds of vice, blasphemers, murderers, perverts from their own faith and priests, and other such people, are driven to hell by the southern gate." At this stage, a thread is passed round the enclosure. The son, still bearing the lamp, goes from the eastern entrance past the south and western entrances, and, breaking the thread, goes into the enclosure through the northern entrance. The Nandikōl (hereditary village official) then ties a cloth first round the head of the eldest son, and afterwards round the heads of the other sons and agnates. The Valluvans abstain from eating beef. Though they mix freely with the Paraiyans, they will not eat with them, and never live in the Paraiyan quarter.

The Valluvans are sometimes called Pandāram or Valluva Pandāram. In some places, the priests of the Valluvans are Vellāla Pandārams.

Valluvan.— A small inferior caste of fishermen and boatmen in Malabar.*  '''Vālmīka. —''' Vālmīka or Vālmīki is a name assumed by the Bōyas and Paidis, who claim to be descended from Vālmīki, the author of the Rāmāyana, who did penance for so long in one spot that a white-ant hill (vālmīkam) grew up round him. In a note before me, Vālmīki is referred to as the Spenser of India. In the North Arcot Manual, Vālmīkulu, as a synonym of the Vēdans, 