Vokkaliga
Jain Bunt) Vokkaliga (also transliterated as Vokkaligar, Vakkaliga, Wakkaliga, Okkaligar, Okkiliyan) is a community of closely related castes, from the Indian states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
[1] As a community of warriors[2][3] and cultivators[4] they have historically had notable demographic, political, and economic dominance in Old Mysore (region).
[17] The Vokkaligas had the most families in the ruling classes of the 17th century when the Arasu caste of the Wodeyars was created to exclude them.
[35] Vokkaliga is a Kannada-language word found in some of the earliest available literary works of the language, such as the Kavirajamarga, Vikramarjuna Vijaya, and Mangaraja's Nighantu.
[40] The German Indologist Gustav Oppert opined that the root of ‘Gowda’ is a Dravidian word meaning "mountain".
[41] The term "Gowda" and its archaic forms in Old Kannada such as Gamunda, Gavunda, Gavuda, Gonda, appear frequently in the inscriptions of Karnataka.
The Epigraphia Carnatica is replete with references to land grants, donations to temples, hero-stones (Veeragallu), stone edicts and copper plates dating back to the age of the Western Ganga Dynasty (est.
[35] The Tamil origins to the word Gounder claim its derivation from kavundan or kamindan (one who watches over).
[32] Exogamy at the family/clan level is strictly controlled by using the idiom of Mane Devaru (the patron god of the given exogamic clan) which dictates that the followers of same Mane Devaru are siblings and marriage is thus forbidden, allowing marital alliances only with another clan and not within.
[54] The Gangadikaras are mostly found in the Mysore, Mandya, Chamarajnagar, Hassan, Bangalore, Ramanagara and Tumkur districts of Karnataka.
Cheluru Gangadikaras (also called Chelaru), another small sub-sect, are said to be strictly vegetarian, a vestige of the times when the Gangas followed Jainism.
Oral traditions of the people maintain that after the decline of the Ganga power they reverted to Hinduism retaining certain Jain practices.
[54][65] The border regions of Karnataka around modern-day Bangalore, Tumkur and Hosur was known as Morasu-nadu and was dominated by Morasu Vokkaligas.
[72] The Palegars of Devanhalli, Dodballapur, Yelahanka, Magadi, Hoskote, Kolar, Anekal and Koratagere were Morasu Vokkaligas.
The famous Kempe Gowda I, the founder of Bangalore City, was the most distinguished of the Palegars of Magadi.
[34] The Namdharis were Jains who converted to Vaishnavism along with their Hoysala King Vishnuvardhana[80] and are followers of Sri Ramanujacharya.
Historians refer to the founders of the Hoysala dynasty as natives of Malenadu based on numerous inscriptions calling them Maleparolganda or "Lord of the Male (hills) chiefs" (Malepas).
[82][83][84][85][86][87] Some historians believe Hoysala originated from Sosevuru (Modern Angadi, Mudigere taluk).
[103] Tulu and Arebhase Gowda (Gauda) are the subsect of the Vokkaliga community located primarily in the South Canara District, Kodagu District, Indian state of Karnataka and Bandadka village of Kasaragod, Kerala State.
Sadas had a high social status due to their strict vegetarianism and total abstinence.
[107] The varna system of Brahmanic ritual ranking never really took hold in South Indian society.
James Manor said that "Varnas – the four large traditional divisions of Hindu society, which exclude Dalits – have less importance in South India than elsewhere because there are no indigenous Kshatriyas and Vaisyas in the South"[110]There were essentially three classes: Brahmin, non-Brahmin and Dalit.
There are no recognized 'Ksatriya' jatis anywhere in the south, and the three states (in contrast to the more inequalitarian hierarchies of Tamil Nadu and Kerala) are characterized by the dominance of large peasant jatis with landholding rights who historically supplied many of the zamindars and rulers but remained classed as 'Shudra' in the varna scheme.
[24][25][3] Despite the community enjoying the status of chieftains and zamindars, there were also a lot of small landholding farmers.
[125] In 1961, Karnataka passed a new Land Reforms Act under the then Revenue minister and idealist Kadidal Manjappa (a Vokkaliga).
