Isai Vellalar

Isai Vellalar is a community found in India in Tamil Nadu. They are traditionally involved as performers of classical dance and music in Hindu temples and courts of the patrons. The term "Isai Vellalar" is a recent community identity, people of minstrel occupation from various castes such as, Melakkarar, Nayanakkarar and Nattuvanar come under this term. The term Isai Vellalar derives from the Tamil words Isai meaning "music" and vellar a generic term roughly meaning "cultivator", thus translates as "cultivators of music". This term was introduced after the legal abolition of the Devadasi system as a result of the reform and anti-nautch movement in 1947. The Isai Vellalar communities were originally nomads. Bardic traditions are referred in early Sangam literature and well into the early Pallava and Pandya periods. These were primarily ritualistic and defensive in nature. The artistic side of music and dance came to be strengthened during the Chola and Vijayanagara period. 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. 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. The 11th-century inscription of Rajaraja I states that the Tevaratiyar were invited to serve the Brihadisvara Temple and were given land near the temple. Under the patronage of the Nayaks of Tanjavur and Thanjavur Maratha kings, Telugu musicians and Devadasis from Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra migrated to the Thanjavur region. The Melakkarars of Thanjavur are therefore divided in two distinct linguistic groups – the Tamil and Telugu Melakkarar. 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. The Devadasi system was legally abolished in 1947 after the campaigns of the social reformers Moovalur Ramamirtham and Muthulakshmi Reddi.