Vellalar is a group of castes in the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and northeastern parts of Sri Lanka. The Vellalar are members of several endogamous castes such as the numerically strong Arunattu Vellalar, Chozhia Vellalar, Karkarthar, Kongu Vellalar, Thuluva Vellalar and Sri Lankan Vellalar.
Etymology
The earliest occurrence of the term
Velaalar (வேளாளர்) in Sangam literature is in
Paripatal where it is used in the sense of a landowner.
The term Velaalar (வேளாளர்) can be derived from the word Vel (வேள்), Vel being a title that was borne by the
Velir chieftains of Sangam age among other things.
The word Vellalar (வெள்ளாளர்) may come from the root Vellam for flood, which gave rise to various rights of land; and it is because of the acquisition of land rights that the Vellalar got their name.
History
The Vellalars have a long cultural history that goes back to over two millennia in southern India,
where once they were the ruling and land-owning community.
Though the Vellalar have generally been associated with the landed gentry and agriculture, they are not a homogenous group and various people from diverse backgrounds have identified themselves as a Vellalar in the course of history.
In Sangam literature
The Vellalar are spoken of as a group of people right from the
Sangam period and are mentioned in many of the classical works of Sangam literature. The
Tolkappiyam does not contain the term
Vellalar but refers to a group of people called
Velaan Maanthar who apart from practising agriculture had the right to carry weapons and wear garlands when they were involved in affairs of the state.
The term
Vellalar itself occurs in the sense of a landowner in
Paripatal.
[ The poem Pattinappalai lists the six virtues of Vellalar as abstention from killing, abstention from stealing, propagation of religion, hospitality, justice and honesty.]
Post-Sangam period
In the years that immediately followed the Sangam age (from third to sixth century CE), the Tamil lands were ruled by a dynasty called .
The Velir
The Velir were an ancient group of Tamil chieftains who claimed Yadava (Yadu) descent.
The Irunkovel or Irukkuvel chieftains were another ancient Velir clan who ruled from their capital Kodumbalur (near Pudukottai district). They were related to the Cholas by marriage.
The Irungovels are considered to be of the same stock as the as in one of the Sangam poems, the ancestor of the Irungovel chieftain is said to have ruled the fortified city of Tuvarai. This city is identified with the Hoysala capital Dwarasamudra by some historians.
The Chola period
According to the anthropologist Kathleen Gough, "the Vellalars were the dominant secular aristocratic caste under the Chola kings, providing the courtiers, most of the army officers, the lower ranks of the kingdom's bureaucracy, and the upper layer of the peasantry".
Two identical Tamil language inscriptions from Avani and Uttanur in Mulbagal Taluk dated in the 3rd year of Kulottunga I (about 1072-1073 CE) describe how the great army of the right hand class ( perumpadai valangai mahasenai) having arrived with great weapons of war from the 78-nadus of Chola-mandalam and the 48000-bhumi of Jayangonda-cholamandalam (the northern districts of Tamil Nadu that is Tondaimandalam) conquered and colonized southern Karnataka (Kolar district) by the grace of Rajendrachola (Kulottunga I).
Historian Burton Stein who has done a detailed analysis of this inscription equates the Valangai military forces and the Velaikkara troops of the Cholas with the Vellalas and notes that the contents of the above inscription confirm this identification.
The Vellalar also contributed to the Bhakti movement in south India from the seventh century CE onwards and helped revive Hinduism. Many of the , the Shaiva saints, were Vellalar.
Sri Lanka
The Vellalars of Sri Lanka have been chronicled in the Yalpana Vaipava Malai and other historical texts of the Jaffna kingdom. They form half of the Sri Lankan Tamil population and are the major Husbandman, involved in tillage and cattle cultivation.
Their dominance rose under Dutch Ceylon and they formed one of the colonial political elites of the island.
In Jainism
At present, most of the are from the Vellalar social group.[ Also, the Saiva Velaalar sect are originally believed to have been Jainas before they embraced Hinduism. The Tamil Jains refer to the Saiva Velaalar as nīr-pūci-nayinārs or nīr-pūci-vellalars meaning the vellalars who left Jainism by smearing the sacred ash or (tiru)-nīru. While some of the Jains assign this conversion to the period of the Bhakti movement in Tamil nadu others link it to a conflict with a ruler of the Vijayanagar empire in the 15th century.][ The villages and areas settled by the Saiva Velaalar even now have a small number of Jaina families and inscriptional evidence indicate that these were earlier Jaina settlements as is evident by the existence of old Jaina temples.]
In Christianity
A segment of the Vellalar community in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka embraced Christianity during the 16th–19th centuries under European colonial influence. These Christian Vellalars maintained their traditional social prominence, often serving as lay leaders in churches or intermediaries between missionaries and local communities. Scholars note that missionary efforts often accommodated Vellalar social prestige to ease conversions, resulting in hybrid identities that preserved caste hierarchies within Christian frameworks.
Notably, the Kovilpillai Kovil (கோவில்): "Temple" in Tamil.Pillai (பிள்ளை): A title meaning "child," "son" among the Vellalars transitioned their roles into Christian contexts. Historically responsible for overseeing Hindu temple lands and rituals, Christian Kovilpillai adapted their authority to manage church properties and mediate between missionaries and local communities. David Mosse highlights that these elites retained their socio-religious influence by blending agrarian stewardship with ecclesiastical duties, ensuring caste-based hierarchies persisted even after conversion.For example, upper-caste Christian Vellalars, including Kovilpillai, often segregated themselves from Dalit converts during worship, maintaining exclusive control over church leadership and ritual spaces.
Current usage
Even though at present, the term "Vellalar" is uncertain, a number of non-cultivating landholding castes like Karkarthar and the Kondaikatti Velaalar who served ruling dynasties in various capacities also identify themselves as Vellalar. Likewise, the Nankudi Vellalar who were traditionally land-holders and lived inside forts, neither lease land for agriculture nor do they till their own fields. They also do not supervise cultivation directly due to the stigma attached to farming and manual labor.
Social status
The Vellalar were considered to be of high status and enjoyed a high rank during the Chola period. They helped promote and stabilize Shaivism during the Chola era and many of the cult's leaders were drawn from the ranks of the Vellalar. They were a prosperous community of farmers and landowners who had provided economic support to Shiva temples in the Tamil country. In the Tamil region, Vellalar like Mudaliyar and Pillai along with certain other non-brahmin groups enjoyed a status equal to that of the Brahmins. The Vellalar also had more authority, power and status than the Brahmins in some social and ritual contexts.
The Iyer have always competed with the Tamil for religious influence in the temples in the Kaveri region. The Smarta adopted the worship of Hindu deities and combined their Sanskritic background with Tamil Saiva and Vaishnava devotionalism and eventually identified themselves as and started worshipping in Shiva temples.
From the Sangam period to the Chola period of Indian history (A.d. 600 to 1200), state-level political authority was in the hands of relatively low, Vellalar chieftains, who endowed local and nonlocal Brahmins with land and honors, and were in turn legitimized by them.
See also
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Pallavaraiyan
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List of Vellalars
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List of Vellalar sub castes
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Ponnambalam-Coomaraswamy family
Notes
Further reading
