266 



MANUAL OF THE NILAQIRI DISTRICT. 



CHAP. XI. 



Early 

 History. 



Belation of 

 early hill, 

 tribes to race 

 movements. 



All the religious movements thus far spoken of have in a 

 measure their representatives among the ancient tribes on the 

 plateau. This cannot be said of the great religious movement in 

 Malabar, which dates from the conversion of Cheram Perumal, 

 Kdja of Kerala, to Mohammadanism in the ninth century, the 

 resultant of which was the Mapillas, the offspring of Arab fathers 

 and Malayalam mothers. The absence of this race from the Hills, 

 though tolerably numerous in Wainad, shows that if the Nilagiris 

 were conquered by Malay ala, they were not incorporated with 

 that country as the Wainad was, though also geographically a part 

 of Karncita. The almost total absence of Lingayats ^ from the 

 Waindd taluk and Malabar generally, though numerous in the 

 Hills, points the same way. 



The Christianity of the west coast — that of the Nazarens — 

 appears never to have penetrated to the Hills, though some 

 writers have attempted to connect the religion of the Toda with 

 it ; and the similarity was such as even to impress the native 

 mind, long before it was remarked by Europeans. I refer 

 to the reports which reached the ears of the earliest Portuguese 

 missionaries regarding the existence of Christians in the Hills, 

 reports which induced them to make the expeditions referred to 

 elsewhere. 



Before sketching the history of the kingdoms adjacent to the 

 Nilagiris, in whose destinies its history is involved, I would 

 note the relation of the Todas to the early race movements of 

 the south. As already stated, in the Todas we probably find a 

 race of aborigines who came in contact with the Aryans, whilst 

 the simple nature-worship of this people had still some of its 

 power, and before it had been deeply influenced by Brahmanical 

 sacerdotalism, though, perhaps, not before it had been subject 

 to Buddhistic teaching. The tradition, almost the only one 

 they possess, that they were the palanquin-bearers of the giant 

 Rdvana, and were expelled from Lanka on his being slain by Rama, 

 tends this way; but as regards their religion and religious 

 customs, although they show few traces of Brahmani&m, yet they 

 differ in many ways from the ordinary cults of the wild 

 tribes of the south. Moreover, the fact that the Todas have no 

 veneration for the serpent, but worship the sun, may show 

 that they could not have been long under the power of the 

 Ndgas, but, on the contrary, were in close contact with a race of 

 sun-worshippers — such worshippers were the Aryans. But that the 

 Todas did not come from the far north with these people seems 

 probable, apart from linguistic and physical peculiarities, from 

 the fact that they hold the buffalo in such affectionate regard. 



Only '02 per cent, of the inhabitants of Malabar are Lingayats. 



