Kerala Iyers
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
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Palakkad district, Kerala Travancore Region (Trivandrum district, Alappuzha district), Kerala Thrissur district, Kerala Ernakulam district, Kerala Kozhikode district, Kerala Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu Kanyakumari District, Tamil Nadu Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu Tanjore district, Tamil Nadu Thirunelveli Tamil Nadu Chennai Mumbai Bangalore |
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| Languages | |
| Kerala sub-dialects of Tamil | |
| Religion | |
| Hinduism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Iyers, Malayali people, Tamil Brahmin, Malayali Brahmins |
Kerala Iyers or Bhattars, are Tamil Brahmins of the Indian state of Kerala — people who were residents in the Kerala region, and also people who migrated from present day Tamil Nadu in different waves starting from the medieval period onwards. The community consists of two groups - the Palakkad Iyers and Iyers of the Cochin and Travancore regions. The first wave of Iyers settled down in Palakkad district at the beginning of the medieval period. Migrations to the Travancore and Cochin regions took place mostly in the 16th and 17th centuries AD. Many of the Diwans or Prime Ministers of the princely state of Travancore were Tamil Brahmins.
Kerala Iyers, like the Iyers of Tamil Nadu and the Nambudiris of Kerala, belonged to the Pancha-Dravida classification of India's Brahmin community. They mostly belonged to the Vadama and Brahacharanam sub-sects. Iyers were usually not recruited as the priest (shanthi) in Kerala temples which followed Tantric rituals. So Iyers being Vedic scholars built their own temples in their Agraharams to conduct pooja, since they followed the Agama rituals and not the Tantric rituals of the Nambudiris.
The Palakkad Iyers were greatly affected by the Kerala Agrarian Relations Bill, 1957 (repealed in 1961 and substituted by The Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963) which abolished the tenancy system.
During the rule of Travancore kings, many Iyers (Tamil Brahmins) were invited to Thiruvananthapuram for administrative requirements of Travancore kingdom and for participating in rituals related to Padmanabhaswamy Temple. Some Padamangalam_Nairs involved in temple service are thought to be descendants of Travancore Iyers. The migration continued for decades, and thus Iyer population is concentrated around this temple in Trivandrum.
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