The Udayar is a title used by multiple
caste in the state of
Tamil Nadu, India.[1]
Present status
According to Selva Raj, the Udayar are "socially humbler" than the
Vellalar community[2] but, together with the
Pallar and
Kallar, form the Marava castes, who are quite dominant in the region variously known as
Ramnad and the
Maravar country.[3]
Religion
In Ramnad and the nearby areas of
Pudukottai, Madurai, Salem,
Namakkal,
Tanjore and
Trichy, they and their two fellow Maravar caste groups are prominent in their cult worship of the shrine at
Oriyur that commemorates
John de Britto, a 17th-century
PortugueseJesuitmissionary and
martyr. Raj says, "A notable feature of the Britto cult is that it is centered around caste identities rather than religious affiliation", and thus members of the caste-group, irrespective of their religious affiliation regard Britto as their clan-deity.[4]
^Raj, Selva J. (2002). "Transgressing Boundaries, Transcending Turner: The Pilgrimage Tradition at the Shrine of St. John de Britto". In Raj, Selva J.; Dempsey, Corinne G. (eds.).
Popular Christianity in India: Riting Between the Lines. SUNY Press. p. 86.
ISBN9780791455197. Retrieved 1 May 2012.
Burkhart, Geoffrey (June 1972). "Ranges of Endogamy in a Tamil Group". Indian Anthropologist. 2 (1): 1–6.
JSTOR41919203.
Burkhart, Geoffrey (January 1976). "On the absence of descent groups among some Udayars of South India". Contributions to Indian Sociology. 10 (1): 31–61.
doi:
10.1177/006996677601000102.
S2CID143260084.