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The Caste of
Andhra Pradesh
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Andhra Pradesh is
the birthplace of many castes. It is
also home to many other castes and
cults founded outside, but who found
patronage here. The different
schools of thought have rise to
various caste movements, reform
movements, and philosophical schools
of thought. Here's a potpourri of
topics on the castes of Andhra
Pradesh. |
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Table of Contents |
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Brahmins :
According Sir S. Radhakrishnan,
although used very widely, the term
brahmin is not a correct word . In
the ancient Hindu texts, the word
brahmana is used to indicate
"absolute" or the "infinite spirit"
of Lord Brahma. In the course of
history, as the varna or the caste
system developed, the group of
priestly people came to be known as
brahmanas or brahmins. In this
section, the word brahmin is used to
refer
to the community of people known as
brahmins in today's India. More....
Introduction of Brahmins, Gayatri
Mantra, List of Brahmins |
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Kamma or Chowdhury:
The most influential community in
Andhra Pradesh today is the Kamma,
or Chowdhary community. In a
numerical ranking (by population
size) they would probably be fifth
or sixth, but they are concentrated
in some areas like Krishna, Guntur,
Southern parts of the Godavari river
delta, Nizamabad in Telangana and
some places of Rayalseema like
Anantapur. More... |
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Reddys:
After the kakatiya kingdom broke up,
many Reddis migrated to coastal
Andhra---Addanki and Kondaveedu, and
later Rajahmundry on the Godavari
and founded their own independent
kingdoms which flourished between
1325-1448 AD. Komati Prolaya
Vemareddy , son of Komati Prola
reddy founded this kingdom . There
are foolish elaborate explanations
of why the name Komdi or Komati was
their surname (apart from silly fake
legends, there is an attempt to
disc. More.... |
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Backward Castes:
The Backward Classes community in
Andhra Pradesh consists of 92 castes
and these castes are categorized
into four groups as follows :
Group-A
(39 Castes)
Group-B (21 Castes)
Group-C (Harijan Convers)
Group-D (33 Castes) |
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Mala:
Accurate
history of the Malas in Andhra is
not well known or thoroughly
researched as yet. The Malas seem to
hail primarily from the drier upland
areas like the Deccan plateau.
According to researchers like
Ambedkar, the malas and similar
communities were actually warriors
of some defeated kingdom: they were
pushed down in social status.
Another story is that the terrible
12 years' drought and famine of 1396
obliged the people to eat anything
to survive: some ate dead cattle,
and this was noted by other people
and they were then pushed down in
the social scale from kshatriyas
(soldiers) to untouchables. ... More |
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Madiga
Madigas seem to be a far-flung tribe
with similar sounding names like
Mandinga noticed in Africa and
Southeast asia too. The Madigas are
mentioned in very old indian books
so they've been in these parts from
a long time. The Madigas have a very
old tradition of dedicating a couple
of girls to a deity, the girls are
then called yogin or basavi. While
the origin seems to be a ceremony of
initiation of female priests
(priestesses) and a reflection of
matriarchial society, it degenerated
by late buddhist and hindu times
into nothing more than dancing girls
and worse... More
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