Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India.djvu/470

BRAHMAN girl joins her husband, her connection with her parents and relatives ceases altogether even in regard to meals. During the Coorg disturbances about the end of the last (eighteenth) century, many young women of the Sanketis were captured by the Kodagas (Coorgs), and some of the captives were subsequently recovered. Their descendants are to this day known as sanketis of the West, or Hiriangalas. But they, and another sub-class called Patnagere Sanketis, do not in all exceed twenty families. The Sanketis are proverbially a hardy, intensely conservative and industrious Brahman community. They are referred to as models for simultaneously securing the twofold object of preserving the study of the Vedas, while securing a worldly competence by cultivating their gardens; and, short of actually ploughing the land, they are pre-eminently the only fraction of the Brahman brotherhood who turn their hands to the best advantage."

(k) Prathamasāki.—These follow the white Yajur Vēda, and are hence called Sukla Yejur Vēdis. The white Yajus forms the first fifteen sākas of the Yejur Vēda, and this is in consequence sometimes called Prathamasāka. The Prathamasākis are sometimes called Kātyayana (followers of Kātyayana Sūtram), Vājusaneya, and Madyandanas. The two last names occur among their Pravara and Gōtra Rishis. The Prathamasākis are found among all the linguistic sections. Among Smarthas, Āndhras, and Vaishnavas, they are regarded as inferior. Carnataka Prathamasākis are, on the other hand, not considered inferior by the other sections of Carnatakas. In the Tanjore district, the Prathamasākis are said to be known as Madyāna Paraiyans. The following quaint legend is recorded in the Gazetteer of that district:—"The god of the Tiruvalur