An ancestor of the sheep-tending Kurumba community took to his heels, when he, for the first time, saw a herd of sheep!
Coimbatore: The unvarying walk of a sheep herd, driven by a shepherd along the village roads of Coimbatore is a delighting scene for the onlookers.But, according to a tale, an ancestor of the sheep-tending Kurumba community took to his heels, when he, for the first time, saw a herd of sheep!
Legend has it that the poor couple Masi Reddi and Neelamma eked out a living on the Eastern Ghats with their six sons, selling firewood. Taking pity on their poverty, Lord Siva, one day, came begging to the couple in the disguise of a Jangam (An Indian Friar) and gave Neelamma some sacred ash. He promised her prosperity in life through the birth of her son, whose name would be Undala Padmanna. The family turned prosperous after the birth of Padmanna, who, unlike his six elder brothers, never went out to work on the fields. Hence, the brothers contrived to get rid of him by asking him to set fire to some brushwood concealing a white-ant hill in the hope that the snake within it would kill him. But, instead of a snake, there appeared an innumerable host of sheep! Frightened at the sight of the strange animals, Padmanna took to his heels.
Nevertheless Lord Siva appeared and said to him:
“Padmanna, don’t be scarred, I have created these animals for your livelihood and you should rear them and live by their milkâ€
The famed British ethnographer Edgar Thurston narrates this tale in his landmark book Castes and Tribes of Southern India.
“The Kurumbas were probably identical with or closely related to the Pallavas. With the decline of the Pallava dynasty in the 8th century, their forefathers dispersed over a wide area of southern India, becoming geographically separated from each other and culturally distinct. The members of these sub divisions survived by hunting and gathering, by petty agriculture, or as slaves. The Kuruba, an ethnologically similar people who live on the plains as small landowners and herders of sheep, are now considered distinct from the hill Kurumba†says a chapter in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Echoing this view, Edgar Thurston too, citing Madras Census Report, 1891, says:
“The Kurumbas or Kurubas are the modern representatives of the ancient Kurumbas or Pallavas, who were once so powerful throughout Southern India, but very little trace of their greatness now remainsâ€
On the contribution of the Kurumbas to the Kongu region, who migrated to Coimbatore from Karnataka, R.Jegadeesan, an epigraphist and author ofthe book Kongunaattu Kalvettukkal – Koyamputhur Vattam (Inscriptions of Kongunadu – Coimbatore circle), says:
“The Kurumbas were ardent devotees of the village God Ayyanar. A 13thcentury stone inscription found in a temple at Ingur in Erode district informs that a man from the Kurumba community named Poththan Seyyanana Kulothunga Pallavarayan made a statue of the Ayyanar and presented it to the shrineâ€
The community got the name ‘Kurumba’ after the word Kuri, which means sheep in Kannada. The word sounds similar in other Dravidian languages too and gives the same meaning of ‘sheep’ as it is called Kori in Tamil and Malayalam and Gorre in Telugu. A few villages in Coimbatore were named Kurumbapalayam after they witnessed the settlements of the sheep-rearing Kurumbas.
Legend has it that the poor couple Masi Reddi and Neelamma eked out a living on the Eastern Ghats with their six sons, selling firewood. Taking pity on their poverty, Lord Siva, one day, came begging to the couple in the disguise of a Jangam (An Indian Friar) and gave Neelamma some sacred ash. He promised her prosperity in life through the birth of her son, whose name would be Undala Padmanna. The family turned prosperous after the birth of Padmanna, who, unlike his six elder brothers, never went out to work on the fields. Hence, the brothers contrived to get rid of him by asking him to set fire to some brushwood concealing a white-ant hill in the hope that the snake within it would kill him. But, instead of a snake, there appeared an innumerable host of sheep! Frightened at the sight of the strange animals, Padmanna took to his heels.
Nevertheless Lord Siva appeared and said to him:
“Padmanna, don’t be scarred, I have created these animals for your livelihood and you should rear them and live by their milkâ€
The famed British ethnographer Edgar Thurston narrates this tale in his landmark book Castes and Tribes of Southern India.
“The Kurumbas were probably identical with or closely related to the Pallavas. With the decline of the Pallava dynasty in the 8th century, their forefathers dispersed over a wide area of southern India, becoming geographically separated from each other and culturally distinct. The members of these sub divisions survived by hunting and gathering, by petty agriculture, or as slaves. The Kuruba, an ethnologically similar people who live on the plains as small landowners and herders of sheep, are now considered distinct from the hill Kurumba†says a chapter in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Echoing this view, Edgar Thurston too, citing Madras Census Report, 1891, says:
“The Kurumbas or Kurubas are the modern representatives of the ancient Kurumbas or Pallavas, who were once so powerful throughout Southern India, but very little trace of their greatness now remainsâ€
On the contribution of the Kurumbas to the Kongu region, who migrated to Coimbatore from Karnataka, R.Jegadeesan, an epigraphist and author ofthe book Kongunaattu Kalvettukkal – Koyamputhur Vattam (Inscriptions of Kongunadu – Coimbatore circle), says:
“The Kurumbas were ardent devotees of the village God Ayyanar. A 13thcentury stone inscription found in a temple at Ingur in Erode district informs that a man from the Kurumba community named Poththan Seyyanana Kulothunga Pallavarayan made a statue of the Ayyanar and presented it to the shrineâ€
The community got the name ‘Kurumba’ after the word Kuri, which means sheep in Kannada. The word sounds similar in other Dravidian languages too and gives the same meaning of ‘sheep’ as it is called Kori in Tamil and Malayalam and Gorre in Telugu. A few villages in Coimbatore were named Kurumbapalayam after they witnessed the settlements of the sheep-rearing Kurumbas.