Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/11

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KOTA

The Koronos are divided into various sections, e.g., Sishta or Srishti. Vaisya, Majjula, and Matihansa, some of which wear the sacred thread. The Vaisyas are not allowed to marry their girls after puberty, whereas the others may marry them before or after this event. A woman of the Bhōndari caste is employed on the occasion of marriage and other ceremonies, to perform certain duties, for which her services are indispensable.

Korra (millet: Setaria italica).—An exogamous sept of Gūdala.

Korti.—An occupational name, derived from korto, a saw, of woodsawyers in Ganjam.

Kōsalya.—A sub-division of Māli, named after Kōsala, the modern Oudh.

Kōshti.—Kōshti or Kōshta is the name of a weaving and cultivating caste of Chota Nagpur, a few members of which have settled in the Madras Presidency (see Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal). Kōshta is also the name by which the Khatris of Conjeeveram call the Patnūlkāran silk weavers.

Kota.—According to Dr. Oppert *[1] " it seems probable that the Todas and Kotas lived near each other before the settlement of the latter on the Nilagiri. Their dialects betray a great resemblance. According to a tradition of theirs (the Kotas), they lived formerly on Kollimallai, a mountain in Mysore. It is wrong to connect the name of the Kotas with cow-slaying, and to derive it from the Sanskrit go-hatya (cow-killer). The derivation of the term Kota is, as clearly indicated, from the Gauda-dravidian word ko (ku) mountain, and the Kotas belong to the Gandian branch." There is a

  1. • Original Inhabitants of Bharatavarsa, 1893.