Badaga Origin

Legend also has it that in their hurry, they forget to pickup a baby asleep in a cradle, and even today, as a reminder of that lapse, the more orthodox Badagas will not use a cradle for a baby. The brothers are said to have settled down near the present village of Bethelhada. After a short stay there, they separated and dispersed in different directions. The oldest brother told one of his younger brothers to follow a deer and build a village where it stopped. The younger brother followed his instructions and settled down in Kinnakorai, where the deer stopped. Another brother settled down in Koderi, yet another in Hubbathalai. These brothers where the founders of the Porangad [seemay] division of the Badagas.

Read all about SEEME/SEMAY divisions and hattis here ->>>badaga hattis

or here ->>>Badaga Hattis & the SEEME they belong to

The establishing of three other ‘semais’ or divisions have interesting histories behind them. It is said that as one group of Badagas or Gowdas reached the Nilgiris, they took shelter in a forest and in their hurry to leave, left a baby behind, which crawled into a cave. A Toda who happened to pass by glimpsed the baby, and enticed it to came out, but it would not. He then went and brought his own child and sprinkled some roasted amaranth grains in front of it. As the Toda child started picking the grains, the Gowda baby joined him, and the Toda father brought him up and it is said that he is the founder of the ‘Thothanad’ division of the Badagas.

According to another account, two Gowda brothers arrived from Mysore and reached Nunthala. They were very hungry. The younger brother is said to have shot a pigeon, and to have roasted and eaten it, while the elder brother abstained. It is said that the vegetarian brother is the ‘Hethappa’, or ancestor of the Kundah Division of the Badagas, while the non-vegetarian brother, the founder of the Mekunad Division of the Badagas.

Badaga Henno, Sathiyada Manno

The Badagas are a unique community living mainly in the Nilgiris District in Tamil nadu in South India. They are also the single largest community of the Nilgiris. Though classified backward, a significant factor is the high status of their women.

The title is only a rough translation of Badaga woman-hood, for there is no exact English translation for Sathiya – the nearest words are blessed or divine. (‘Mannu’ means soil). The Badaga woman is the epitome of ‘Shakthi’, and many of their festivals, legends, ballads and folk – tales are centred around women. In fact, the chief festival of the Badagas, Hethai Habba, is centred around ‘Hethai’, a woman imbued with divine powers, and who was subsequently deified. It is significant that though the Badagas are a patriarchal society, their women are held in high esteem. The high status of Badaga women perhaps derives from three main factors – the absence of a dowry – system, divorce by mutual consent, and widow-re-marriage. There is no stigma attached to widows; in fact they are part of the mainstream community, and in the fore – front of auspicious functions like engagement and wedding coremonies. Also, there is the practice of ‘hengava nadathodu” - a tradition of giving a daughter / sister material, emotional and moral support throughout her life.

Traditional Badaga women are very hardworking, and are the mainstay of the family and the community. They till the soil, harvest the produce, collect fire – wood and water, and tend the cows, in addition to looking after their families. Since the Badagas have been mainly agriculturists, the Badaga women’s ethos is closely connected to the soil. In fact, even the proverbs of the Badagas evoke this ethos – for e.g : “Hennogiri, mannogiri” (A daughter’s / sister’s curse will turn the soil barren).

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( O )))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Some of the poems by INDU K MALLAH based on Badaga Culture

SCAPE-GOAT

photo from the net

(During the olden days a calf was let off into the woods after transference of sins of a dead person (’Karu Harachodu’ - Funeral Rites. This beautiful poem is based on that - JP)

Yesterday, you were a care-free calf

Tugging teasingly at your mother’s teats.

And gamboling gaily

In an abandon of joy.Today, you are weighted with garlands, mantras, and the

collective sins of the community.

The pujari extols the benefits of ‘karu puja’.

He compares your eyes to Surya and Chandra.

Your ears to Usha and Pratyusha,

Your body to the abode of Mahalakshmi, Saraswati and Raudri,

Your horns to Sri Devi and Bhu Devi,’

Your nose to Vaishnavi,

Your forehead to Maheswari,

Your feet to the four Vedas

And your teats to Dharman, Jnanam, Aishwaryam and Vairagyam

(Righteousness, Knowledge, Auspiciousness and Detachment)

But…………..no one notices the tears in your eyes.

They feed you with rice and sambar, deceit and betrayal,

And wonder that you turn your head away distastefully.

They smear you with kum-kum and manjal,

Chandan and ceremony,

They pay obeisance and lip-service,

They offer incense and incantations,

Oblations and silver coins;

They tie an angavastram, a length of silk

Or noose?

Around your innocent neck;

They deify you and prostrate themselves

In front of your bewildered body.

No one notices your head heavily touching the ground,

Under all these trappings.

What can I do to ease your burden?

I reach out, and try to wipe out that hunted look in your eyes,

And you tremble at my touch.

The puja over,

They rush to restaurants;

Serving their favourite dishes.

The atmosphere rife with irony

And orders for chilled beer and brandy

Mutton biriyani and chilli chicken,

Interspersed with sounds of

“Punya puja and prayaschittam.”

They gorge themselves with food, drink, and self-delusion,

Until they are bloated with complacency and self-righteousness

Before they return to their old ways of

Slothfulness, and sinfulness,

Superstition and self-indulgence, Until the time comes around

To find another scape-goat.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||

A WOMAN’S TEARS

(Hengada Kannaneeru)

A daughter’s tears will water the fields,

And wither all the crops,

And cause a famine in the land,

Or so the legend goes. A sister’s sobs will swell the stream

And turn it into a river of blood,

Which will wipe the entire village out,

Or so the folk-tale says.A mother’s heart-break will pace the road

That leads to the ancestral home,

With splinters of her broken heart,

And the men who tread on them

Will be turned to stone,

Or so the elders say.A woman’s curse will turn cows to snakes

And blight the prosperity of the place,

For when the ‘Lakshmi’ of a place is destroyed,

What else can survive?

`

Daughter, sister, mother, woman,

Hurt her he who dares.

“Hennogiri mannogiri” *

The spirit of Hethai still reigns supreme in this land,

And the wheel of Sathyam will turn

Full circle.* - A Badaga woman’s curse will cause the soil to become barren (Since the Badagas have mainly been an agricultural people, this is the worst curse that can befall them).- Hethai is the most important deity of the Badagas.

:::::::::::::::::::

SONG OF THE HILL-PEOPLE

What myth informs you

That your god is greater than ours?

Which fairy tale tells you

That your god is the only one?

Which god gave you the right to brain-wash our vulnerable, guileless people

With a brush dipped in guilt?

And who gave you the right to maul our culture?

You justify your self and say

That religion is different from culture,

But one is the warp, and the other, the weft of the fabric of our credo,

Which has the texture of the trees,

The flow of the mountain – stream

The scent of the earth,

The melody of bird-song,

And is in tune with the music of the cosmos.It is the age-old story of exploitation,

And it will take ages for us to recover from the wounds

You have inflicted on our souls

In the name of saving them.

But you have reckoned without

Our God of Satyam

We will wait——

Tomorrow is time enough for your exploitation.

[In the 'Song Of The Hill People', Ms.Indu K Mallah has beautifully brought out the mindless and meaningless (religious) conversion of hill people especially, Badagas. What used to be an unforgivable act a couple of decades ago, has become a routine affair now. I am yet to meet a 'converted' Badaga who could give me atleast one convincing reason for the change. I know of many Badagas who say 'I am a proud HINDU and have no problems in praying/ keeping pictures of other religious deities also in my puja room'. Hats off to them!! Badagas have been a very closely knit community. Let not"religion" divide them.]

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((O)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Badaga Origin

LINKS which suggest Badaga Language existed with old Kannada and equates it with Sangam or Purana Tamil period

.

“ …..Some of the Kanarese too seem to have been called Vadugar. In consequence of the Andhras and the Kanarese having been called by the common name of Vadugar in the days of the Sangam, it has been surmised that they were then one race and that their language too must have been known as Vadagu and that it is only later that Kanarese must have been branched off into a separate language. But Illam-Ko- Adigal, the great epic-poet of the sangam age, mentions distinctly those who speak the Kanarese language as Karunadar and other classical writers make mention separately of the lands where Kanarese and Telugu were respectively spoken. The northern portion of Mysore State and parts of the districts of Bellary and Anantpur seem to be known even now as Badaga-Varu and Badaga-Natti-Varu. A poem of Sangam mentions an Erumai as a 'Vadugar Chief' in whose land flowed the river Ayiri. This is evidently the Agiri which falls into the Thungabhadra. It is this country which was probably the extreme southern limit of the Asokan Empire as is evidenced from inscriptions found in the vicinity.

If these be so, it follows that the Telugus who were to the north, and the Badaga Kannadas who were to the west, of the Tamils were known generically as the Vadugar. The poet, Ma-mulanar, says that it is beyond the lands of a chief of the name of Katti that the language changed into that of the Vadugar. Perhaps the chiefs well-known as Katti-Mudaliyars in the days of the Vijayanagar empire and later belonged to the lineage of this Katti. It is worthy of note that these Katti-Mudaliyars occupied those portions of the Tamil country which Ma-mulanar assigned to Katti. There are reasons to hold that the land called Vadugar-munai and placed beyond the lands of this Katti is identical with the Badaga-nadu we have already mentioned. It is these Badagas that seem to be referred to by St. Sundara in one of his psalms on a shrine in the Kongu country…..”

The Tamils and the Andhras by PANDIT M. RAGHAVA AIYANGAR

Read the full article in Badaga Language page

Arunan's link http://yabaluri.org/TRIVENI/CDWEB/TheTamilsandtheAndhras.htm

” Some of the Kanarese too seem to have been called Vadugar. In consequence of the Andhras and the Kanarese having been called by the common name of Vadugar in the days of the Sangam, it has been surmised that they were then one race and that their language too must have been known as Vadugu and that it is only later that Kanarese must have branched off into a separate language. But llam-Ko-Adigal, the great epic-poet of the Sangam age, mentions distinctly those who speak the Kanarese language as Karunadar, and other classical writers make mention separately of the lands where Kanarese and Telugu were respectively spoken. The northern portion of the Mysore state and parts of the districts of Bellary and Anantapur seem to be known even now as Badaga-nadu and the Kanarese of those areas are known as Badaga-varu and Badaga-natti-varu. A poem of the Sangam mentions an Erumai as a ‘Vadugar chief’ in whose land flowed the river Ayiri. This is evidently the Agiri which falls into the Tungabhadra. It is this country which was probably the extreme southern limit of the Asokan empire as is evidenced from inscriptions found in the vicinity.

If these be so, it follows that the Telugus who were to the north, and the Badaga Kannadas who were to the west, of the Tamils were known generically as the Vadugar. The poet, Ma-mulanar, says that it is beyond the lands of a chief of the name of Katti that the language changed into that of the Vadugar. Perhaps the chiefs well-known as Katti-Mudaliyars in the days of the Vijayanagar empire and later belonged to the lineage of this Katti. It is worthy of note that these Katti-Mudaliyars occupied those portions of the Tamil country which Ma-mulanar assigned to Katti. There are reasons to hold that the land called Vadugar-munai and placed beyond the lands of this Katti is identical with the Badaga-nadu we have already mentioned. It is these Badagas that seem to be referred to by St. Sundara in one of his psalms on a shrine in the Kongu country.

Badaga Language – Did it predate Kannada?

OF the countries which make up the southern portion of India it is well-known that those in which Tamil, Telugu and Kanarese are spoken are the countries which may boast of an ancient culture and a memorable past. The cultural and historical inter-relations between these countries are naturally of great interest. Though the Kanarese language and literature are old and rich, still the intimacy of the contact of the Tamils with the Andhras, the fruitfulness of the contact and the importance of the enquiry may well justify our going first into the relations between them.

Philologists are agreed that in the Dravidian group of languages Tamil, Telugu and Kanarese fall into a class by themselves. Of them the first two are the languages entitled to be considered the more ancient. Though Kanarese has no mean literature, still the belief of the ancient Tamil scholars was that the Kanarese language is a product of the intermingling of Tamil and Telugu. Jayam-kondan, the prince of poets of the early years of the twelfth century A. D., speaks of Kanarese being a jumble of ’some Telugu and much Tamil’.¹ The truth of this observation will not be lost on those who have studied old Kanarese. Malayalam is, indeed, another language pertaining to this group, but it is fittingly treated as a daughter of Tamil. That the mountainous regions skirting the western sea were formerly a part of the Tamil country and that the language spoken there was not different is obvious enough from the old Malayalam literature and the inscriptions found in that area. This is why Kamban, as great a scholar as be was a poet, speaks of Malayalam as if it was not in his days a language very different from Tamil.²

If Tamil, Telugu and Kanarese belong to one class, which language is the parent? One may confess to an inability to offer a solution acceptable to scholars in general. There are some amongst us who hold that Tamil occupies that relationship. It is accepted on all hands that Tolkappiyar’s Tolkappiyam is the earliest and most authoritative. This work divides the country where Tamil is current into twelve divisions and classifies the words that come from lands like Vadugu beyond those twelve divisions as words of foreign origin. Panam-paranar too, a contemporary of Tolkappiyar, describes the Tamil land as limited on the north by the Venkata Hills and does not claim that its domain extended further beyond. Kakkai-padiniyar, also an ancient Tamil poet, mentions distinctly that Vadugu, the land where the Telugu language is current, formed the northern limit of Tamil.³ It will thus be patent that long before Tolkappiyar’s times Tamil and Telugu had been current side by side as two independent languages. To judge by the Tamil literature now available, Telugu would seem to be entitled to an antiquity equal to that of Tamil.

During the Sangam period the Tamils knew the Andhras under the name Vadugar⁴ and their language as Vadugu. Similarly, the Telugus called the Tamils by the name Aravar and their language Aravam. The word Vadagar is only a variant of Vadugar, a northerner. Just as the country to the west (Kudakku) became Kudaku so the country to the north (Vadakku) became Vadagu and, later, changed to Vadugu.⁵ This derivation is also indicated by the lines of Kakkai-padiniyar already quoted and by the phrase ‘Vadugar of the North’ in another work of the Sangam age. It seems that even in the times of the Last Sangam the country north of the Venkata Hills was considered the country of the Vadugar. ⁶

Some of the Kanarese too seem to have been called Vadugar.⁷ In consequence of the Andhras and the Kanarese having been called by the common name of Vadugar in the days of the Sangam, it has been surmised that they were then one race and that their language too must have been known as Vadugu and that it is only later that Kanarese must have branched off into a separate language.⁸ But llam-Ko-Adigal, the great epic-poet of the Sangam age, mentions distinctly those who speak the Kanarese language as Karunadar,⁹ and other classical writers make mention separately of the lands where Kanarese and Telugu were respectively spoken.¹⁰ The northern portion of the Mysore state and parts of the districts of Bellary and Anantapur seem to be known even now as Badaga-nadu and the Kanarese of those areas are known as Badaga-varu and Badaga-natti-varu. A poem of the Sangam mentions an Erumai as a ‘Vadugar chief’ in whose land flowed the river Ayiri.¹¹ This is evidently the Agiri which falls into the Tungabhadra. It is this country which was probably the extreme southern limit of the Asokan empire as is evidenced from inscriptions found in the vicinity.

If these be so, it follows that the Telugus who were to the north, and the Badaga Kannadas who were to the west, of the Tamils were known generically as the Vadugar. The poet, Ma-mulanar, says that it is beyond the lands of a chief of the name of Katti that the language changed into that of the Vadugar.¹² Perhaps the chiefs well-known as Katti-Mudaliyars in the days of the Vijayanagar empire and later belonged to the lineage of this Katti.¹³ It is worthy of note that these Katti-Mudaliyars occupied those portions of the Tamil country which Ma-mulanar assigned to Katti. There are reasons to hold that the land called Vadugar-munai and placed beyond the lands of this Katti is identical with the Badaga-nadu we have already mentioned.¹⁴ It is these Badagas that seem to be referred to by St. Sundara in one of his psalms on a shrine in the Kongu country.¹⁵

In Vembatturar’s Tiru-viliaiyadal Puranam the Jain king who captured Madura is called in one place ‘the Karnataka king’ and at another place as ‘the Vadugu king’.¹⁶ These references show that the term Vadugar was also used to devote the Kanarese, some of whom seem latterly to have settled in the Tamil country.¹⁷

The famous commentator Nachchinarku-Iniyar and the author of the old commentatory on the Nannul state that of the lands surrounding the Tamil country those in which Kanarese, Vadugu and Telugu were current were distinct entities.¹⁸ The Telugu country being treated as distinct from the Vadugu country, we have justification for holding , that they had the Badaga country in mind in drawing the distinction. Otherwise we should have to suppose that they treated the northern part of Andhra as the Telugu land and the southern part as the Vadugu land, and seek support for this view in the fact that the Tamil country itself was divided into the Sen-Tamil and the Kodum-Tamil lands. However this may be, the later Tamils ignored what distinction there might have been and applied the terms Vadugar and Vadugu to the Andhras and theAndhra language.

No evidence is forthcoming to show that the Andhras styled themselves Vadugar. So too, the Tamils never called themselves Aravar, though a lexicographer who lived so late as three centuries back chronicled that word indicated the Tamils. To the ancient Andhras the Tamils were known not as Aravar but as Aruvar. When “]ayam-Kondan describes the terror which the Tamilian army of Kulottunga-Chola struck into the hosts of the Kalinga king, he says that they applied the name Aruvar to the Tamils.¹⁹ That it is only the term Aruvar which was current in early times is clear also from an old stanza on the same war quoted in the Dandi-Alangaram.²⁰ These instances establish that the Andhras called the Tamils in early days by the name of Aruvar. Those regions of the Tamil land which adjoin the Telugu country are Aruva and Aruva-vada-talai and the people of these regions were known as Aruvalar. We may therefore take it that the Vadugar applied the name Aruva first to the people of these regions and then applied it generally to all Tamils.

II

Let us now look at the relationships between the Tamils and the Vadugar. In the first period, the earliest, the Tamils and the Andhras lived in amity; in the second the Tamils attained supremacy over the Andhras and in the third the position was reversed. The first period is the age of the Sangam: the early Tamil works known as the Sangam poems do not show that, even though there might have been small differences on the frontiers of the Tamil country, there was any marked antagonism or that any serious conflicts arose in consequence. In two of these poems we have mention of the Vadugar helping Nannan and the Mauryas but they seem to be Kanarese of the Badaga country and not Andhras.²¹ The three great kings of the Tamil country, the Cholas, the Pandyas and the Cheras, do not seem to have been guilty of the ambition to bring under their control lands beyond the Tamil country. It would even seem that they were so attached to ‘the good land where Tamil was spoken’ that they had no love for mixing it up with lands where strange tongues were current:²² the evidences in support of this view are many and convincing. When kings of the north made incursions into the south the three great kings of the Tamil country drew together and repulsed all their attempts at gaining even a foot-hold.²³ The Tamil country was therefore soil which even the Napoleons of the north had to let alone. The strength of the Tamils in even the days when practically the whole of India had come under the suzerainty of Asoka is obvious from the circumstances that his over-lordship stopped short of Mysore and that he sent ambassadors to the three great Tamil kings. Nor did the famous empire of the Guptas cast its shadow over the Tamil land. In those early days, the Tamil were neither ambitious of ruling over others nor supine enough to be ruled over. Evidences of the Vadugar attempting to lay their hands upon the Tamil country being wanting absolutely, they must have lived in peace and concord with the Tamils. But after the days of the Sangam the relations changed. The change was due not to their own differences but to the invasions of kings from north. When the northern kings of the Pallava and Chalukya dynasties conquered Andhra and Karnataka their eager eyes were cast on Dravida as well. It is thenceforward that we mostly hear of conflicts between the Tamils and the northerners in the Tamil country and beyond. Light on these masters is thrown by the poems from Pandik-Kovai quoted in the commentary on Iraiyanar’s Kalavuiyal, the hymns of the Vaishnava saints and others and some copper plates. Wars were fought between the Tamils and the Vadugar when the Palla vas took root in the Tamil land. An old Tamil poem speaks of how the herds of cows taken from the Vadugar in war by the army of the Pallava who ruled over the Tondai country were capable of giving milk for the whole world.²⁴ Like the Pallavas, the Chalukyas too established themselves in Vengi, a part of Andhra, and in course of time came to be called Andhras. The Cholas had to advance against them and wage furious wars in the Telugu country. The northern wars of Chola-kings like- Rajaraja I and Raja Rajendra I are well-known. History records how Vira-Rajendra conquered Vengi and made a gift of it to a Chalukya of the name of Vajayaditya. In the commentary on the Vira-soliyam, a Tamil grammar composed in honour of this Vira-Rajendra, occurs a stanza which chronicles this event.²⁵

The Cholas and the Chalukyas of Vengi were not merely ranged as opponents in war: they entered into marital relations with each other and three generations of Chola princesses entered the Vengi family: as brides it is known that Vimaladitya I the Eastern Chalukya (1015-1022) married Kundavai, daughter of the great Chola king Rajaraja I; Rajaraja-Narendra (1022-1061) the son of the Chalukya Vimaladitya I married Ammanga-devi, daughter of Rajendra I, himself son of Rajaraja I, and Vikramaditya I of the Western Chalukya line married the daughter of Vira-Rajendra Chola. These alliances tended bring peace to these dynasties, and in the process of the Eastern Chalukya alliances of the Cholas brought the Andhra country under the dominion of the Tamils. When the Eastern Chalukya king who was the husband of Ammanga-devi, daughter of Rajendra I died about 1062, the son of that couple, prince Rajendra, ascended the throne of the Andhra country. The direct Chola line, having become almost extinct at this time, and the Chola kingdom having no king at its helm, this Rajendra came down from the Andhra country, put forward the claim that the Chola throne was his in his right as the daughter’s son of Rajendra Chola I, laid hands on the kingdom and mounted the Chola throne in 1070. Thus he became the lord of the Andhra country and the Chola empire. It is this Rajendra that is well known under the name Kulottunga I and under the epithets ‘Abhaya’ and ‘Vijayadhara ‘. He deserved the title ‘the Lord of both lineages’, inasmuch as he was entitled to two crowns,—that of his father, the Chalukya king, who belonged to the lineage of the Moon, and that of his maternal grand-father, the Chola king, who belonged to the lineage of the Sun.²⁶ His prowess was felt by his enemies all round and he emerged victorious in every contest. Anantavarman Choda-Ganga, king of the Kalinga country, having once failed to pay tribute in time, Kulottunga sent an army under his commander-in-chief, Karunakara- Tondaiman and brought that country under his control. This war it is that furnished the theme for Jayam-kondan’s Kalingattup-parani, a war-song the like of which no other literature in the world can boast of. He ruled the Chola empire from Gangai-konda cholapuram, in the heart of the Tamil country, nominating his sons Vira Chola and Vikrama Chola as Viceroys of Vengi. On his death in 1120 A. D., his son Vikrama Chola ascended the throne. It is in his days and in those of his son Kulottunga II and his grand son Rajaraja II that great Tamil poets like Ottakkutta and Kamban and Pugalendi flourished. These kings too were rulers over both the Tamil and the Andhra countries and some of the viceroys whom they sent from the Chola country settled in Andhra and in a generation or two turned Andhras. ‘Velanandu’ and ‘Pottappi’ Cholas are examples of this process.

The Tamil scholars of those days were also well versed in the literary works of the Andhras. The Yapparungala-virutti, a renowned commentary which must be attributed to the tenth or the eleventh century A. D., cites an old prosodical work in the Andhra language said to have been written by one Vanchi. Though the reading in the printed books is ‘Vanji,’ some manuscripts may be taken to yield the reading ‘Avaranji’ (Aparanji ?). Competent Telugu scholars are not able to trace an author of this name. The existence of so early a prosodical treatise shows that the Andhra literature must have been very rich. Here we have proof positive that the absence in the present day of Telugu works earlier than those of Nannayya-Bhatta (11th century) cannot support the view that there was no Telugu literature prior to his days.

Rendered from TAMIL by R. SESHADRI-AIYANGAR, B.A., B.L.