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Concept
Kerala Iyers
Summary
Kerala Iyers, Pattars or Bhattars, are Tamil Brahmins of the Indian state of Kerala — people who were residents in the Kerala region, and also people who migrated from present day Tamil Nadu in different waves from the time of the Chera dynasty. They are Hindus. The community consists of two groups - the Palakkad Iyers and Iyers of the Cochin and Travancore regions.
Kerala Iyers, like the Iyers of Tamil Nadu and the Nambudiris of Kerala, belonged to the Pancha-Dravida classification of India's Brahmin community. They mostly belonged to the Vadama and Brahacharanam sub-sects. Iyers were usually not recruited as the priest (shanthi) in Kerala temples which followed Tantric rituals. So Iyers being Vedic scholars built their own temples in their Agraharams to conduct pooja, since they followed different rituals and not the Tantric rituals of the Nambudiris.
Where ever they settled, the Kerala Iyers lived together in communities. The settlement consisting of array of houses and other amenities developed by Tamil Brahmins in Kerala came to be known as Agraharam as in other parts of South India. Each Agraharam consist of two rows of houses facing each other. There is no courtyard but only common street. Several such Agraharams together form an organization called "Samooham". There existed 95 Agraharams in Kerala where Brahmins lived in peace, with unity, equality and simplicity.
The Palakkad Iyers were greatly affected by the Kerala Agrarian Relations Bill, (repealed in 1961 and substituted by The Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963) which abolished the tenancy system.
During the rule of Travancore kings, many Iyers (Tamil Brahmins) migrated to Thiruvananthapuram. Tamil Iyers migrated mostly from Tirunelveli to Thiruvanathapuram. The ancestors of the Thiruvananthapuram Iyers were brought from “Brahmadesam" (a village in Ambasamudram Taluk of Modern day Thirunelveli District in Tamil Nadu) by the Travancore Kings, to take part in the “Mura Japam” ritual of Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple.
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