The Nairs As Warriors - Part 1

In the compound of my tharavad in Trissur, there is a 'kotil', a small temple-like structure, within which there is a small stool (peedam). On this stool, there rests a sword, around three feet long, and leaning against the left corner is a small shield. A stone lamp is lit every evening before this 'peedam’ even today, as it has been for generations. Every year, we have a ritual called 'Bhoovaneswari Pooja' - conducted in memory of our ancestors, one of whom must have wielded this sword and shield. 

This is the same story in many Nair 'taravads'. Who were our ancestors, these Nairs whose genes we carry, whose blood runs in our veins? Let us have a look at the Nair community as it was yesterday, in their role as noblemen and the military aristocracy in the region of Malabar, as Kerala was known throughout history. This is not to harken back to a bygone era of feudalism, but to put the place of the Nairs in history in perspective - as a community that lived with ‘dharma’ as its lofty principle. This sense of integrity, honour and belonging, which is so strong in the Nair community - similar to the Samurai of Japan - continues to a great extent this day.

(The stories of valiant Nairs like Thacholi Othena Kurup, Meloor Dayarappan, the Rani of Attingal, Vaikom Padmanabha Pillai, Edachena Kongan Nair, Velu Thambi Dalawa, Paliath Achan Govindan Menon, the Mamamkam Chavers and many others are outside the scope of this article and will be dealt with in subsequent posts. - BM)

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 Nair soldiers in Venad kingdom

More than 450 years ago, in 1553, a soldier poet called Luis de Camoens, sailed with a Portuguese troop ship from Lisbon to the West Coast of India. Camoens  is known today as the creator of an epic work called The Luciad. During his sojourn in Malabar, he came into contact with the Nayar community (Nairs) and he wrote about them thus:

"By the proud Nayres the noble rank is claimed ;
 The toils of culture and of art they scorn,
The warriors' plumes their haughty brows adorn ;
The shining faulchion brandish'd in the right,
Their left arm wields the target in the fight ;
' Of danger scornful, ever armed they stand
Around the king, a stern barbarian band.'*

Jonathan Duncan, who was governor of Bombay for the English East India Company in the late 1790s, visited Malabar (of course, Malabar here means Kerala as an entity, comprising the then kingdoms of the Samootiri in Calicut, the Raja of Cochin, the Maharaja of Travancore and the many petty fiefdoms of Nair chieftains called Naduvazhis). Duncan recorded that: "These lines (Comoen's verse) contain a good description of a Nayar who walks along, holding up his naked sword with the same kind of unconcern as travellers in other countries carry in their hands a cane or walking staff. I have observed others of them have it fastened to their back, the hilt being stuck in their waist band, and the blade rising up and glittering between their shoulders."

The Nairs have been known as a martial community since antiquity. The Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder  called them "Nareae, the swordsmen, the military caste of the Indian coast" in his Naturalis Historia, published in AD 77 during the reign of Emperor Titus. (It must be noted here that Romans had a flourishing trade with the Malabar coast at this time - and Roman merchants and sailors came into close contact with the local population through the ancient port of Muziris, now Kondungalloor). "The Nareae are shut in by the Capitalis range, the highest of all the mountains of India (referring to the Western Ghats)."  Megasthanes, the Greek traveller who visited India much earlier - in 302 BC, also makes a mention of the ‘Nairos’.

So, what is this word ‘Nair’? Kerala’s archaeologists have found the earliest mention of the word ‘Nair’ on a stone wall of the Dwaraka Krishnan Temple in Suchindram dating to AD 400 (it was recorded that a ‘Pallikkan Nair’ was the temple uralan or caretaker/trustee). The word ‘Nair’ also appears on the walls of a 9th century stone fortress called Bhoodathan Kotta at Trikodithanam (on the outskirts of Changanaserry). There are references to ‘Pada Nairs’ (warriors) in two stone carvings dating to the early Chera era (AD 900) at the Shiva temple of Nedumpuram Thali in Talapalli taluk of Thrissur.

Nair soldiers of the Cochin Maharaja - 1500s.

This was obviously the period when Nair military prowess showed  itself in all its glory and gave birth to legends during the reign of Chera Emperor Rama Varma Kulashekhara (1020-1102), the most famous of the Cheraman Perumals. It was a time when wars with the Imperial Cholas raged across Malabar and the Nair armies formed suicide squads to do battle for the Cheras. The defence of the kingdom was entrusted to a group of Nair warriors called  Patinayiram (10,000) with a Patamel Nair as its chieftain. From the Chera bastion of Kodungalloor (then known as Mahodayapuram), elite  squads called Chaver-pada (meaning, one who has elected to die fighting), spread terror among the invading Chola forces. The Nairs dominated the social, political, cultural, and ethical levels of society creating the ‘Zeitgeist’ or the spirit of the times.

An inscription in Tirukkalukkunram, (a small town near Mahabalipuram or Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu) reads: “During the 14th year of his reign (A.D. 1083-84) the Chola King Kuluttunga I* conquered Kudamalai-nadu, (the Western hill country - Malabar), whose warriors  (the ancestors of the Nairs of the present day) perished to the last man in defending their independence. Another inscription in the ancient Vattezhuttu script of Tamil says: " ...all the heroes  in the Western hill-country (Kudamalai-nadu) ascended voluntarily to heaven.”  (as cited by South-Indian Inscriptions Vol. Ill, p. 130. -   Epigraphica Indica, Dr. E. Hultzch, 1915).

The Chera-Chola wars lasted more than a hundred years, bringing about major societal upheavals and creating many Nair traditions like the anthropologically interesting matrilineal way of inheritance (marumakkatayam) and the 'sambandham’ marriage system.

The 'sambandam' system was, of course, a product of the times.  The kings of Malabar instituted matrilieny so that the Nairs would always be available for war and would not have to be responsible for  looking after their families or rearing their children. The Nair was thus able to devote his time to practicing in the ‘kalaris’ and get ready to die on the battlefield for his overlords. 

(Go to Part II)