Balija

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Balija
ReligionsHinduism
LanguagesTelugu, Kannada, Tamil
Populated statesAndhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu

Balija is a caste of the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala.

Origins[edit]

Variations of the name in use in the medieval era were Balanja, Bananja, Bananju, Banajiga 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.[1]

Beginning in the 9th 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 Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.[2] 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').[3] The terms balanjya-setti and balija were also used for these traders, and in later times naidu and chetti.[4] These traders formed collectives called pekkandru and differentiated themselves from other collectives called nagaram, which probably represented Komati merchants. The pekkandru collectives also included members of other communities with status titles reddi, boya and nayaka.[5] They spread all over South India, Sri Lanka, and also some countries in the Southeast Asia.[6]

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 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 Boyas, Gollas, Gavaras, and other castes.[7] Cynthia Talbot believes that in Andhra the transformation of occupational descriptors into caste-based descriptors did not occur until at least the 17th century.[8]

The classification of people as Balija was one of many challenges for the 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.[lower-alpha 1] 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.[9]

Balija branches[edit]

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.[10][11] To secure their loyalty, the Vijayanagar kings made them Desais or "superintendents of all castes in the country."[12] They were classified as right-hand castes.[13][14] David Rudner claims that the Balija Chettis became a separate caste from the Balija Nayak warriors as recent as the 19th century; and accordingly they have closer kinship ties to the Nayak warriors than to Chetti merchants.[15]
  • According to Kanakalatha Mukund, the Balija merchants of Tamil Nadu are called Kavarai.[16] That is the Tamilised rendition of Gavara.[citation needed]
  • Dasa Banajiga are also called as Jaina Kshatriya Ramanuja-Dasa Vaniyas and Sadu Banajiga as they were formerly Jain Kshatriyas who were converted into Vaishnavism by Ramanujacharya during the rein of Bitti Deva. They are mostly found in Channapatna near Bangalore. They are clean in their habits, pure vegetarians, follow the doctrines of Ramanujacharya, worship Vaishnava gods, speak Kannada, and cremate their dead.[17][18][19]

Caste titles[edit]

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 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.[20]

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.[21]

Dynasties[edit]

The Vijayanagara empire was based on an expanding, cash-oriented economy enhanced by Balija tax-farming.[22] Some Balija families were appointed to supervise provinces as Nayaks (governors, commanders) by the Vijayanagara kings, some of which are:

Varna status[edit]

Velcheru Narayana Rao and Sanjay Subrahmanyam say that the emergence of left-hand caste Balijas as trader-warrior-kings was evidence[clarification needed] in the Nayak period as a consequence of conditions of new wealth, produced by collapsing two varnas, Kshatriya and Vaishya, into one.[26] Based on the brahmanical conceptualisation of caste during the British Raj period, Balijas were accorded the Shudra position.[27] 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.[28][29]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ↑ The Raj theories of evolutionary anthropology, typified by the work of H. H. Risley, are nowadays considered to be scientific racism.

References[edit]

  1. ↑ Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar; Archaeological Survey of India (1983). "Epigraphia Indica". Epigraphica. 18: 335. ISSN 0013-9572. LCCN sa66006469. 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
  2. ↑ Stein, Burton; Arnold, David (4 February 2010). A History of India. John Wiley & Sons. p. 120. ISBN 978-1444323511.
  3. ↑ Stein, Burton (4 February 2010). A History of India. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-2351-1.
  4. ↑ Talbot, Cynthia (2001). Pre-colonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval Andhra. Oxford University Press. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-19803-123-9.
  5. ↑ Talbot, Cynthia (2001). Pre-colonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval Andhra. Oxford University Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-19803-123-9.
  6. ↑ Sarma, M Somasekhara; Sōmaśēkharaśarma, Mallampalli (1948), History of the Reddi Kingdoms (circa. 1325 A.D. to Circa 1448 A.D.), Andhra University, p. 396
  7. ↑ Rao, Velcheru Narayana; Shulman, David Dean; Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (1992). Symbols of substance: court and state in Nāyaka Period Tamilnadu. Oxford University Press. pp. 10, 74. 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.
  8. ↑ Talbot, Cynthia (2001). Pre-colonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval Andhra. Oxford University Press. p. 86. ISBN 978-0-19803-123-9.
  9. ↑ Baker, Christopher John (1975). "Figures and Facts: Madras Government Statistics 1880-1940". In Baker, Christopher John; Washbrook, D. A. (eds.). South India. Springer. pp. 222–223. ISBN 978-1-34902-746-0.
  10. ↑ Stein, Burton (1989). Vijayanagara. The New Cambridge History of India. Cambridge University Press. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-521-26693-2.
  11. ↑ Brimnes, Niels (1999). Constructing the Colonial Encounter: Right and Left Hand Castes in Early Colonial South India. Routledge. p. 3. ISBN 9780700711062.
  12. ↑ Brimnes, Niels (1999). Constructing the Colonial Encounter: Right and Left Hand Castes in Early Colonial South India. Routledge. p. 20. ISBN 9780700711062.
  13. ↑ Neild, Susan M. (1977). Madras: the growth of a colonial city in India, 1780–1840. University of Chicago (PhD dissertation). p. 224.
  14. ↑ Bowmen of Mid-India: a monograph of the Bhils of Jhabua [M. P.] and adjoining territories, Volume 2, page 243
  15. ↑ Rudner, David West (May 1987). "Religious Gifting and Inland Commerce in Seventeenth-Century South India". The Journal of Asian Studies. 46 (2): 361–379. doi:10.2307/2056019. JSTOR 2056019. S2CID 162764761.
  16. ↑ Mukund, Kanakalatha (1999). The Trading World of the Tamil Merchant: Evolution of Merchant Capitalism in the Coromandel. Orient Blackswan. p. 46. ISBN 978-81-250-1661-8.
  17. ↑ Iyengar, Venkatesa (1932). The Mysore. Mittal Publications. p. 104.
  18. ↑ Karnataka State Gazetteer: Bangalore rural district. Director of Print, Stationery and Publications at the Government Press. 1990.
  19. ↑ Karnataka State Gazetteers: Kodagu District. Office of the Chief Editor, Karnataka Gazetteer. 1993.
  20. ↑ Talbot, Cynthia (September 1994). "Political intermediaries in Kakatiya Andhra, 1175-1325". The Indian Economic and Social History Review. 31 (3): 281. doi:10.1177/001946469403100301. S2CID 145225213.
  21. ↑ Stearns, Peter N. and Langer, Leonard W. (2001). The Encyclopedia of world history, p. 368
  22. ↑ Rao, Velcheru Narayana; Shulman, David Dean; Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (1992). Symbols of substance: court and state in Nāyaka Period Tamilnadu. Oxford University Press. pp. 10, 218.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Irschick, Eugene F. (1969). Politics and Social Conflict in South India: The Non-Brahman Movement and Tamil Separatism, 1916–1929. University of California Press. p. 8.
  24. ↑ Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (2002). The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India 1500–1650 (Reprinted ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 304. ISBN 978-0-52189-226-1.
  25. ↑ Sastri, K. A. Nilakanta (1946). Further Sources of Vijayanagara History.
  26. ↑ Rao, Velchuru Narayana; Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (January 2009). "Notes on Political Thought in Medieval and Early Modern South India". Modern Asian Studies. 43 (1): 204. doi:10.1017/s0026749x07003368. JSTOR 20488076. S2CID 145396092.
  27. ↑ Pollock, Sheldon I. (2003). Literary cultures in history: reconstructions from South Asia. University of California Press. p. 414. ISBN 9780520228214.
  28. ↑ Krishnan-Kutty, G. (1999). The political economy of underdevelopment in India. Northern Book Centre. p. 172. ISBN 978-81-7211-107-6.
  29. ↑ Krishnan-Kutty, G. (1986). Peasantry in India. Abhinav Publications. p. 10. ISBN 978-81-7017-215-4.

Further reading[edit]

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