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{{pp|small=yes}}
{{Use British English|date=March 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}
{{Infobox caste
| caste_name = Balija
| classification =
| religions = [[Hinduism]]
| languages = [[Kannada language|Kannada]], [[Tamil language|Tamil]], [[Telugu language|Telugu]]
| country =
| populated_states = [[Andhra Pradesh]], [[Karnataka]], [[Kerala]], [[Tamil Nadu]]
}}

'''Balija''' is a caste of the [[India]]n states of [[Andhra Pradesh]], [[Tamil Nadu]], [[Karnataka]], and [[Kerala]].

==Origins==
Variations of the name in use in the medieval era were ''Balanja'', ''Bananja'', ''Bananju'', and ''Banijiga'', with probable cognates ''Balijiga'', ''Valanjiyar'', ''Balanji'', ''Bananji'' and derivatives such as ''Baliga'', all of which are said to be derived from the Sanskrit term ''Vanik'' or ''Vanij'', for trader.<ref name="EpigraphiaIndica1983">{{cite journal|author1=Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar|author2=Archaeological Survey of India|title=Epigraphia Indica|journal=Epigraphica|volume=18|year=1983|page=335|quote=As regards the derivation of this word, the late Mr Venkayya says:- In Kanarese banajiga is still used to denote a class of merchants. In Telugu the word balija or balijiga has the same meaning. It is therefore probable that the words valañjiyam, valanjiyar, balañji, banañji, banajiga and balija are cognate, and derived from the Sanskrit vanij|issn=0013-9572|lccn=sa66006469}}</ref>

Beginning in the 11th century, references are found in inscriptions throughout the Kannada and Tamil areas to a trading network, which is sometimes referred to as a guild, called the [[Five Hundred Lords of Ayyavolu]] that provided trade links between trading communities in [[Andhra Pradesh]], [[Tamil Nadu]], and [[Karnataka]].<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Stein|first1=Burton|title=A History of India|last2=Arnold|first2=David|date=4 February 2010|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1444323511|pages=120}}</ref> From the 13th century, inscriptions referring to "''Vira Balanjyas''" (warrior merchants) started appearing in the Andhra country. The ''Vira Balanjyas'', whose origins are often claimed to lie in the Ayyavolu, represented long-distance trading networks that employed fighters to protect their warehouses and goods in transit. The traders were identified as ''nanadesi'' (of 'many countries') and as ''swadesi'' ('own country').<ref>{{Cite book|last=Stein|first=Burton|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QY4zdTDwMAQC&q=Ayyavolu&pg=PA120|title=A History of India|date=2010-02-04|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1-4443-2351-1|language=en}}</ref> The terms ''balanjya-setti'' and ''balija'' were also used for these traders, and in later times ''[[naidu]]'' and ''chetti''.<ref name="talbot75">{{cite book |last=Talbot |first=Cynthia |title=Pre-colonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval Andhra |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19803-123-9 |year=2001 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pfAKljlCJq0C |page=75}}</ref> These traders formed collectives called ''pekkandru'' and differentiated themselves from other collectives called ''nagaram'', which probably represented [[Komati (caste)|Komati]] merchants. The ''pekkandru'' collectives also included members of other communities with status titles [[Reddy|reddi]], ''boya'' and ''nayaka''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Talbot |first=Cynthia |title=Pre-colonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval Andhra |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19803-123-9 |year=2001 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pfAKljlCJq0C |page=81}}</ref> They spread all over South India, Sri Lanka, and also some countries in the Southeast Asia.<ref name="SarmaSōmaśēkharaśarma1948">{{citation|last1=Sarma|first1=M Somasekhara|last2=Sōmaśēkharaśarma|first2=Mallampalli|title=History of the Reddi Kingdoms (circa. 1325 A.D. to Circa 1448 A.D.)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=diYLAQAAIAAJ|year=1948|publisher=Andhra University|page=396}}</ref>

Rao et al. note that the Balijas included a configuration of castes representing a combination of the martial and the mercantile. They were mobilised politically by the [[Vijayanagara Empire|Vijayanagara]] emperor [[Krishnadevaraya]]. Later, in the 15th and 16th centuries, they colonised the Tamil country and established Nayaka chieftaincies. At this time, ''Balija'' was often an [[umbrella term]] that, in addition to the Balija proper, included the [[Boyar (caste)|Boyas]], [[Golla (caste)|Gollas]], [[Gavara]]s, and other castes.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Velcheru Narayana |last1=Rao |first2=David Dean |last2=Shulman |author-link2=David Dean Shulman |first3=Sanjay |last3=Subrahmanyam |author-link3=Sanjay Subrahmanyam |year=1992 |title=Symbols of substance: court and state in Nāyaka Period Tamilnadu |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=10, 74 |quote=These left-Sudra groups – often referred to by the cover-title ''Balija'', but also including Boyas, left-hand Gollas, Gavaras, and others – were first mobilised by Krishnadevaraya in the Vijayanagara heyday ... These Balija fighters are not afraid of kings: some stories speak of their killing kings who interfered with their affairs.}}</ref> Cynthia Talbot believes that in Andhra the transformation of occupational descriptors into caste-based descriptors did not occur until at least the 17th century.<ref>{{cite book |last=Talbot |first=Cynthia |title=Pre-colonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval Andhra |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19803-123-9 |year=2001 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pfAKljlCJq0C |page=86}}</ref>

The classification of people as Balija was one of many challenges for the [[Census of India prior to independence|census enumerators of the British Raj era]], whose desire was to reduce a complex social system to one of administrative simplicity using theories of [[evolutionary anthropology]].{{efn|The Raj theories of evolutionary anthropology, typified by the work of [[H. H. Risley]], are nowadays considered to be [[scientific racism]].}} Early Raj census attempts in [[Madras Presidency]] recorded a wide variety of people claiming to be members of Balija subcastes but who appeared to share little in common and thus defied the administrative desire for what it considered to be a rational and convenient taxonomy. Those who claimed to be Chetty had an obvious connection through their engagement in trade and those who called themselves Kavarai were simply using the Tamil word for Balija but, for example, the Linga based their claim to Balija status on a sectarian identification, the Gazula were bangle-makers by occupation, the Telaga had Telugu origins and the Rajamahendram also appeared to be a geographic claim based on their origins in the town of Rajahmundry. Subsequent attempts to rationalise the enumeration merely created other anomalies and caused upset.<ref>{{cite book |title=South India |editor1-first=Christopher John |editor1-last=Baker |editor2-first=D. A. |editor2-last=Washbrook |first=Christopher John |last=Baker |chapter=Figures and Facts: Madras Government Statistics 1880-1940 |publisher=Springer |year=1975 |isbn=978-1-34902-746-0 |pages=222–223 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fHCwCwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA222}}</ref>

==Balija branches==
There are numerous branches, sub-divisions or social groups which make up the larger Balija social group.

* Balija Chettis (or Chetti Balija): Mentioned in several Vijayanagar accounts as wealthy merchants who controlled powerful trading guilds.<ref>{{cite book |title=Vijayanagara |year=1989 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OpxeaYQbGDMC |series=The New Cambridge History of India |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-26693-2 |page=87 |author-link=Burton Stein |first=Burton |last=Stein}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Constructing the Colonial Encounter: Right and Left Hand Castes in Early Colonial South India |first=Niels |last=Brimnes |publisher=Routledge |year=1999 |isbn=9780700711062 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HdSABP70H9sC |page=3}}</ref> To secure their loyalty, the Vijayanagar kings made them [[Desai]]s or "superintendents of all castes in the country."<ref>{{cite book |title=Constructing the Colonial Encounter: Right and Left Hand Castes in Early Colonial South India |first=Niels |last=Brimnes |publisher=Routledge |year=1999 |isbn=9780700711062 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HdSABP70H9sC |page=20}}</ref> They were classified as right-hand castes.<ref>{{cite book |title=Madras: the growth of a colonial city in India, 1780–1840 |page=224 |first=Susan M. |last=Neild |year=1977 |publisher=University of Chicago (PhD dissertation)}}</ref><ref>''Bowmen of Mid-India: a monograph of the Bhils of Jhabua [M. P.] and adjoining territories'', Volume 2, page 243</ref> David Rudner claims that the Balija Chettis became a separate caste from the Balija [[Nayak (title)|Nayak]] warriors as recent as the 19th century; and accordingly they have closer kinship ties to the Nayak warriors than to Chetti merchants.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Religious Gifting and Inland Commerce in Seventeenth-Century South India |first=David West |last=Rudner |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |volume=46 |issue=2 |date=May 1987 |pages=361–379 |doi=10.2307/2056019 |jstor=2056019 }}</ref>
*According to [[Kanakalatha Mukund]], the Balija merchants of Tamil Nadu are called Kavarai.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mukund |first=Kanakalatha|author-link=Kanakalatha Mukund |title=The Trading World of the Tamil Merchant: Evolution of Merchant Capitalism in the Coromandel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tjXdDYChdGsC&pg=PA46 |date=1999 |publisher=Orient Blackswan |isbn=978-81-250-1661-8 |page=46}}</ref> That is the Tamilised rendition of [[Gavara]].{{citation needed|date=April 2017}}

==Caste titles==
Some Balijas use surnames such as Naidu or Nayudu, and Naicker, which share a common root. ''Nayaka'' as a term was first used during the Vishnukundina dynasty that ruled from the Krishna and Godavari deltas during the 3rd century AD. During the Kakatiya dynasty, the Nayaka title was bestowed to warriors who had received land and the title as a part of the [[Nayak (title)#Nayankara System (in South India)|Nayankarapuvaram system]] for services rendered to the court. The Nayaka was noted to be an officer in the [[Kakatiya]] court; there being a correlation between holding the ''Nayankara'', the possession of the administrative title ''Angaraksha'' and the status title ''Nayaka''.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Political intermediaries in Kakatiya Andhra, 1175-1325 |first=Cynthia |last=Talbot |date=September 1994 |journal=The Indian Economic and Social History Review |volume=31 |issue=3 |page=281 |doi=10.1177/001946469403100301 |s2cid=145225213 }}</ref>

A more widespread usage of the Nayaka title amongst the Balijas appears to have happened during the Vijayanagara empire where the Balija merchant-warriors rose to political and cultural power and claimed Nayaka positions.<ref>Stearns, Peter N. and Langer, Leonard W. (2001). ''The Encyclopedia of world history'', p. 368</ref>

==Dynasties==

The Vijayanagara empire was based on an expanding, cash-oriented economy enhanced by Balija tax-farming.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Velcheru Narayana |last1=Rao |first2=David Dean |last2=Shulman |author-link2=David Dean Shulman |first3=Sanjay |last3=Subrahmanyam |author-link3=Sanjay Subrahmanyam |year=1992 |title=Symbols of substance: court and state in Nāyaka Period Tamilnadu |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=10, 218}}</ref> Some Balija families were appointed to supervise provinces as Nayaks (governors, commanders) by the Vijayanagara kings, some of which are:

* [[Madurai Nayak]]s<ref name="South India 1929. Page 8">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fLY7v3tbM8kC |title=Politics and Social Conflict in South India: The Non-Brahman Movement and Tamil Separatism, 1916–1929 |first=Eugene F. |last=Irschick |author-link=Eugene F. Irschick |publisher=University of California Press |year=1969 |page=8}}</ref>
* [[Tanjavur Nayaks]]<ref name="South India 1929. Page 8"/>
* [[Gingee Nayak]]s / Senji / Chenchi Nayakas, Thundeera<ref>{{cite book |title=The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India 1500–1650 |first=Sanjay |last=Subrahmanyam |author-link=Sanjay Subrahmanyam |edition=Reprinted |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-52189-226-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jgSMPKVh7f8C |page=304}}</ref>
*[[Chandragiri]]:Kasturi Nayadu and Peda Koneti Nayudu of the Vasarasi family belonged to the Balija caste.<ref>{{cite book |title=Further Sources of Vijayanagara History |first=K. A. Nilakanta |last=Sastri |year=1946 |url=https://archive.org/details/FurtherSourcesOfVijayanagaraHistory}}</ref>{{full citation needed|date=April 2017}}

==Varna status==
Velcheru Narayana Rao and [[Sanjay Subrahmanyam]] say that the emergence of left-hand caste Balijas as trader-warrior-kings was evidence{{clarify|reason=evidence of what? this is a confusing sentence|date=April 2017}} in the Nayak period as a consequence of conditions of new wealth, produced by collapsing two [[Varna (Hinduism)|varnas]], [[Kshatriya]] and [[Vaishya]], into one.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=Velchuru Narayana |last1=Rao |first2=Sanjay |last2=Subrahmanyam |author-link2=Sanjay Subrahmanyam |title=Notes on Political Thought in Medieval and Early Modern South India |journal=Modern Asian Studies |date=January 2009 |volume=43 |issue=1 |page=204 |jstor=20488076 |doi=10.1017/s0026749x07003368|s2cid=145396092 }}</ref> Based on the brahmanical conceptualisation of caste during the British Raj period, Balijas were accorded the [[Shudra]] position.<ref>{{cite book |first=Sheldon I. |last=Pollock |author-link=Sheldon Pollock |year=2003 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ak9csfpY2WoC&pg=PA414 |title=Literary cultures in history: reconstructions from South Asia |page=414 |publisher=University of California Press|isbn=9780520228214 }}</ref> The fourfold Brahmanical varna concept has not been acceptable to non-Brahmin social groups and some of them challenged the authority of Brahmins who described them as shudras.<ref>{{cite book|first=G. |last=Krishnan-Kutty|title=The political economy of underdevelopment in India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bTlMi4a6Ct8C&pg=PA172|year=1999|publisher=Northern Book Centre|isbn=978-81-7211-107-6|page=172}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=G. |last=Krishnan-Kutty|title=Peasantry in India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wyRZ7nmItsEC&pg=PA10 |year=1986|publisher=Abhinav Publications|isbn=978-81-7017-215-4 |page=10}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Sanskritisation]]

==Notes==
{{Notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |last=Jaffrelot |first=Christophe |author-link=Christophe Jaffrelot |title=India's silent revolution: the rise of the lower castes in North India |publisher=C. Hurst & Co. |location=London |year=2003 |isbn=978-1-85065-670-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OAkW94DtUMAC |access-date=2011-08-16}}
* {{cite book |last=Mukund |first=Kanakalatha |title=The View from Below: Indigenous Society, Temples, and the Early Colonial State in Tamilnadu, 1700–1835 |publisher=Orient Blackswan |year=2005 |isbn=9788125028000 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5BMljBxJXtoC}}
* {{cite book |last=Subrahmanyam |first=Sanjay |author-link=Sanjay Subrahmanyam |title=Penumbral Visions: Making Polities in Early Modern South India |publisher=University of Michigan Press |year=2001 |isbn=9780472112166 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Ju6z8PbTuAC}}
* {{cite book |last=Swarnalatha |first=P. |title=The World of the Weaver in Northern Coromandel, c. 1750 – c. 1850 |publisher=Orient Blackswan |location=New Delhi |year=2005 |isbn=9788125028680 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t5XlI91kP3YC}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060423204016/http://www.nd.edu/~kellogg/pdfs/Jaffrelot.pdf ''Caste politics in the North, West and South India before Mandal'']
* ''Konduru: structure and integration in a South Indian village'', [[Paul Hiebert (missiologist)|Paul G. Hiebert]], pp. 21–22.
*[https://books.google.com/books?id=y089AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#PPA45,M1 ''The Warrior Merchants''], Mittison Mines
*[https://books.google.com/books?id=x3GuKnZTGG4C&pg=PA34 ''Religion and Public Culture''], John Jeya Paul

{{Commons category|Balija people}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Social groups of Tamil Nadu]]
[[Category:Indian castes]]
[[Category:Social groups of Andhra Pradesh]]
[[Category:Social groups of Karnataka]]

Balija - Revision history

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