Early Chola inscriptions mentions Tevaratiyar as recipients of food offering and ritual performers of the temples, and was a term carrying honorific and high connotations.

[11] Inscriptional evidences indicates devadasis to have been independent professionals who enjoyed property (made large land donations to temples) and a respectable position in the society.

[3] With the entry of Colonial India, great loss of temple patronage resulted the Tevaratiyar to perceive other ways of income which degraded their social status.

[12] The Devadasi system was legally abolished in 1947 after the campaigns of the social reformers Moovalur Ramamirtham and Muthulakshmi Reddi.

The entry of Tamil Brahmins in music and dance was seen as a threat to the traditional performers of these art forms.