Agamudayar

Agamudayar (otherwise Agamudaiyar, Akamudayar, Agamudayan) are a Tamil community found in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.[citation needed] Together with the Kallar , Maravar, they form the Thevar (Mukkulathor) community. According to the anthropologist Zoe E Headley, the three communities are the "numerically dominant rural backward castes of the southern districts of Tamil Nadu".[2]

Agamudayar
Agamudaiyar.jpg
Agamudaiyar cultivators, c. 1909
LanguagesTamil
EthnicityTamils
Population1981-1982: 11 per cent of the Other Backwards Class population of Tamil Nadu[1]

EtymologyEdit

The term Agamudayar is a Tamil word meaning "Householder" or "Landholder".[3]

DemographicsEdit

They are concentrated in Chennai, Sivagangai, Ramanathapuram, Thanjavur, Madurai, Tirunelveli and Pudukkottai districts.

ReferencesEdit

  1. Radhakrishnan, P. (10 June 1989). "Ambasankar Commission and Backward Classes". Economic and Political Weekly. 24 (23): 1265–1268. JSTOR 4394921.
  2. Headley, Zoe E. (2011). "Caste and Collective Memory in South Asia". In Clark-Decès, Isabelle (ed.). A Companion to the Anthropology of India. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 1982, 1985. ISBN 978-1-44439-058-2.
  3. Madras (India : State); B. S. Baliga (1967). Madras District Gazetteers: Salem. by Ramaswami, A. Printed by the Superintendent, Govt. Press. p. 124.