Chettiar

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Chettiar (also spelt as Chetti & Chetty) is a title used by many mercantile, weaving, agricultural and land owning castes in South India, especially in the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.[1][2]

Kanadukathan Chettinadu Palace entrance. It is an example of Chettinadu architecture.

Etymology

The word Chettiar is used by many merchant and trading groups and are Vaishyas[3]in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.[4] The word might be derived from the Sanskrit word shreshthi which means wealth an honorific title bestowed on the leading merchants by the Tamil monarchs.[5]

See also

References

  1. "Chettiar Band, AVM To FM". Outlook. Retrieved 9 April 2016.
  2. "Chettiars reign where wealth meets godliness". The Economic Times. Retrieved 9 April 2016.
  3. Intirā Pārttacārati (2008). Ramanujar: The Life and Ideas of Ramanuja. Oxford University Press. p. 98. ISBN 978-0-19-569161-0. The Chetti , Vaisya , or merchant caste
  4. Population Review. Indian Institute for Population Studies. 1975. p. 26.
  5. West Rudner, David (1987). "Religious Gifting and Inland Commerce in Seventeenth-Century South India". The Journal of Asian Studies. 46 (2). p. 376. doi:10.2307/2056019. JSTOR 2056019.

Further reading

  • Christine Dobson, Asian Entrepreneurial Minorities, Curzon Press UK, 1996. (A chapter in the book is devoted to the Chettiars who set up businesses in Burma.)
  • Rajeswary Brown (1993) "Chettiar capital and Southeast Asian credit networks in the inter-war period". In G. Austin and K. Sugihara, eds. Local Suppliers of Credit in the Third World, 1750-1960. (New York: St. Martin's Press).
  • Kudaisya, Medha M. (2009). "Marwari and Chettiar Merchants. 1850s-1950s: Comparative Trajectories". In Kudaisya, Medha M.; Ng, Chin-Keong (eds.). Chinese and Indian Business: Historical Antecedents. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 9789004172791.
  • David Rudner (1989) Banker's Trust and the Culture of Banking among the Nattukottai Chettiars of Colonial South India. Modern Asian Studies 23 (3), 417-458.
  • Heiko Schrader (1996) Chettiar Finance in Colonial Asia. Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie 121, 101-126.