Kaniyar

Kathleen Gough has recorded that the caste believes that they descended from a degraded section of the Tamil Brahmins and that they ascribed their knowledge of Sanskrit, medicine; astrology,[3] and Veda.[4]to those origins.[5]

This caste was known to be a literate class with most of its members were well learned people, particularly in Indian languages(well-versed in Malayalam and Sanskrit).[6] The Census reports of early twentieth century also do attest their high literacy status.[7][8][9]

Gough says that the caste in many ways played the role of

pseudo-Brahmans in relation to the lower castes ... Their lore was, of course, a much simplified version of Brahman lore. Through them, however, some of the elements of Sanskrit religious belief and practices were filtered to lower caste people who could not attend high-caste temples or receive Brahmanical services ... [They] served as media for the Sankritisation of the lower castes ...[5]

The book Castes and Tribes of southern India describes that the caste had

generally two Titles applied to [Them], are Panikkar and Āsan ,The former is said to be a common title in Malabar , but in Travancore it seems to be restricted to the north. The word Panikkar comes from pani, or work, viz., that of military training. The fact that most of the families, who own this title at present, were once teachers of bodily exercises,[2] is evident not only from the name kalari,[10] literally a military school, by which their houses are usually known, but also from the Kēralolpatti, which assigns military training as a duty of the caste ...... Asan, a corruption of the Sanskrit Ācharya, was a common title among [Them] in South .. Some families of Kaniyar in the southern and northern parts of Kerala had been conferred with the surnames Sankhili and Nambi Kurup, respectively[11]

Regarding this caste,Thurston in his book reports that, the Kaniyar are divided into two endogamous sections, viz., Kaniyar Proper and Tīnta (or polluting)[11] The traditional profession of the former section was astrology,[3] So they were indeed indispensable to the society for any life event[12][13].Other major social roles carried out by them during the olden days were as village Aurvedic doctors and teachers of local schools and martial art training.[11]. But ,the main occupation of the Tinta endogamous section was not Astrology but were spirit exorcising,antisorcery and making of the shields and cadjan umbrellas(palmyara parasoles).

The ritual art form padayani has been known to be related with this community.[14] Although this modern dances (which occur in the temples of Alappuzha, Kollam, Pathanamthitta and Kottayam) are performed by Nairs ,[5] it is the Kaniyars who writes songs for the dance and decorate the elaborate costumes.[15]

Formerly Kaniyars were teachers too , primarily of low caste children in village schools.[5][16] It is from this profession they got the title Asan. The arrival of the British in the area saw the demise of traditional teaching, with Sanskrit teaching being deprecated in favour of its English counterpart, disruption due to various wars and also a discouragement of the village schools in general. The standard of literacy declined greatly for nearly a century and began to improve once more with the advent of state aid for (principally English-based) education at the end of the 19th century.[17]

Aside from general teaching, they also taught fencing,.[4]to the Nair and Izhava caste.[11][18][5] Panicker[2][10] and Gurukkal are other names used for the northern group because of their involvement with these schools or kalari.[19] Panickers in the Northern region of old Cochin sate,who had Kalaris,[2] asserted that they were superior to the members of the caste in its southern region , because the latter had no such Kalaris..[11][5].[20]