declining, still employs some 300 families of Dévángas. They weave white cotton turbans and cloths, ornamented with cotton or lace borders and sometimes with simple embroidery. They work with counts as fine as 150s, and their fabrics are noted for the closeness of the weaving.
Kadali : Three and a half miles east-south-east of Rájavolu. Population 3,687. Contains a small local fund market. The god of the place is named Kapótísvaradu and is said to have been first recognized by a certain hermit, who, with his wife, used to worship him in the form of a kapóta bird. One day the hermit was mistaken by a shikári for a real bird and shot while at his prayers- He fell into the pool called the Kapóta gundam at this place, and his wife flung herself in after him. It is considered a holy act to bathe in this pool on Sundays.
The village is known as 'the place of the five K's ' (Kakára panchakam), from five names of local importance which begin with that letter; namely, those of the god, of the village itself and of three families (the Kádambri family of Niyógi Bráhmans, the Kásibhatlu family of Vaidíki Bráhmans, and the Katika-reddi family of Kápus) which are largely represented in the village.
Nagaram : Five miles north-east of Rájavólu. Population 2,241, of whom about a quarter are Muhammadans. Contains a police-station and a small local fund market. It was presumably once of importance, as for at least the last 120 years it has given its name to the Nagaram island, but now, except that it does a certain amount of local trade, it possesses hardly any features of interest. It contains the remains of an old fort which is said to have been built by the Muhammadans.1[1]
Rájavólu (commonly called Rázóle by Europeans) has been the head-quarters of the Nagaram taluk since it was split off from Narasapur in 1904. It contains 2,553 inhabitants, a police-station, a sub-registrar's office, 'a local fund dispensary (opened in 1881) and a local fund choultry.
Sivakódu : Two miles south-east of Rájavólu. Population 3,541. Contains a travellers' bungalow and an English lower secondary school for boys. The Siva temple, like that at Rámésvaram still further south-east, is supposed to have been built by Ráma on his return from Ceylon in expiation of his sin of killing king Rávana, who was a Bráhman. It is supposed to be the very last one he made for this purpose, and to have completed the crore (kóti) of temples the construction of which was needed to cleanse him thoroughly of his
- ↑ 1 Sewell's Lists of Antiquities, i, 41.
