Devendrakula Velalar

Clans and Kinship

The community is made up of seven groups: Devendrakulathar, Kalladi, Kudumbar, Pallar, Pannadi, Kadaiyar and Vathiriyar. The Devendrakula Velalar movement has worked to bring them under one name. Thurston (1909) found many sub-divisions, among them Devendra, Kadaiyan and Konga and several named after territories, and these married within themselves. Among the Aiya and Amma Pallans of the Sivaganga zamindari and nearby parts of Madurai district he recorded exogamous kilais that ran in the female line: a child belonged to the kilai of its mother and maternal uncle, not its father's. For the community as a whole the sources used do not say how descent is reckoned. In the Madurai country each settlement had a headman called Kudumban, helped by a Kaladi and, in large villages, by a messenger called Variyan who called people to councils, weddings and funerals; these offices passed by inheritance. At Coimbatore the headman was the Pattakaran, and in Tiruchirappalli district a Nattu Muppan stood over the village Muppans.

No list is given. Thurston (1909) says the Aiya and Amma Pallans had exogamous kilais but does not name them; the sub-divisions he does name married within themselves and are not clans, and the seven groups above are sections of the community, not clans.

In the Official Lists

• Scheduled Caste

  Tamil Nadu

  Census 2011 (Table A-10 Appendix, Tamil Nadu) lists the seven groups as separate entries: Devendrakulathan, Kadaiyan, Kalladi, Kudumban, Pallan, Pannadi and Vathiriyan. A bill passed by the Lok Sabha in March 2021 brought them together under the name Devendrakula Velalar; the older names remain valid.

The seven Tamil Nadu entries were checked in Census 2011 Table A-10 Appendix (Tamil Nadu), which reflects the list before the 2021 change; the wording of the amended entry was not checked. The same table series has entries named Pallan, Kudumban, Kalladi and Kadaiyan in Kerala and Karnataka, and Pallan in Puducherry; whether each names this community was not checked, so they are not shown.

Checked on 2026-11-07 against the sources below. The lists are amended from time to time and can differ by district; for a certificate, the current order or the state's list is what counts.

Name and Origin

Devendrakula Velalar means 'Vellalars of the clan of Devendra'. Vendan, also called Devendra and identified with Indra, is the god of the marutam, the wet-rice landscape of Sangam poetry, and one of the chief deities of the community; two seventeenth-century inscriptions in Tirunelveli and Ramanathapuram districts call the Pallars Devendrakutumpan. Thurston (1909) recorded a tradition that the first ancestor of the community arose from a drop of Devendra's sweat that fell on a plant growing in water. The community traditionally lived in the marutam country, and community accounts hold that its older name was Mallar.

History

The pallu poems popular in the seventeenth century are set among the community's families in the wet-rice country. From the 1930s many gained schooling with the help of Christian missionaries. Immanuvel Devendrar (1924 to 1957), also known as Immanuel Sekaran, of Ramanathapuram district, served in the army from 1945 and on his return worked for the education, rights and representation of the community; he died in 1957, and the anniversary of his death is kept every year at his memorial near Paramakudi. Since the 1990s the community has called itself Devendrakula Velalar, a name that brings the Pallar sections together, and in March 2021 the Lok Sabha passed a bill approving the name for the seven groups.

Faith and Worship

Families are Hindu or Christian, and Vendan (Devendra) is among the community's chief deities. The community traditionally begins the temple car festivals at several great temples, among them the Perur Pateeswarar temple and the Koniamman temple at Coimbatore and the Srivilliputhur Andal temple.

Deities named in the sources: Vendan

Customs

On the banks of the Noyyal river the community celebrates a seedling-planting festival in the Tamil month of Aani, which the Perur Puranam describes and which forms part of the old festival of Indra.

Festivals

Notable Personalities