ant results. The people refused to cultivate, and tumult and disorder ruled everywhere. The king therefore declared that all people who supported him should be called the right-hand people. A neighbouring Rajah hearing of this, invaded Kalingam and carried off its king as captive, for dismissing the Panchalas and appointing Vyasan, and for dividing the people into the right-hand and left-hand castes.' Another old tradition of equally historical value says that the division into the right-hand and left-hand castes took its origin from the command of the goddess Kali at Kanchipuram (the seat of so many religious and political changes) where, it is said, exists to this day special halls for the two parties called the வலங்கைமண்டபம் and இடங்கைமண்டபம். It is further stated that the pagoda at Conjeevaram has a copper-plate bearing inscriptions which give the origin of this queer distinction of castes. Though both parties referred to it, neither of them, it appears, could produce this important document before the Zillah Court of Salem or Chittur in the course of litigation between the two irreconcilable factions. It appears, however, that the Kammalas have forged a series of copper plates (dated 1098 SS.) in favour of the left-hand faction to justify its preference over the right-hand in matters social.[1]
All that we can infer at present from the above stories is, that some Dravidian castes such as the Valluvas, were priests or purohits to the Tamil kings
- ↑ The Madras Govt. Epigraphist's Report dated July 1910.
