Vedham Pudhithu

Vedham Puthithu
Directed by	Bharathiraja
Produced by	S. Rangarajan
Written by	K.Kannan
Screenplay by	Bharathiraja
Starring	Sathyaraj Saritha Amala Raja Charuhasan Janagaraj
Music by	Devendran
Cinematography	B. Kannan
Edited by	P. Mohan Raj
Production company	Janani Art Creations
Distributed by	Janani Art Creations
Release date	27 December 1987
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Vedham Puthithu (Tamil: வேதம் புதிது English: New vedha) (1987), starring Sathyaraj and Amala is a critically acclaimed Tamil movie, written by K.Kannan, who after this movie came to be Vedham Puthithu Kannan and directed by Bharathiraja. Charuhasan, Saritha, Raja and 'Nizhalgal' Ravi played supporting roles in the movie.

This is one of the few films that highlights some of the issues caused by the Caste system. The film's narrative was seamless and starred Sathyaraj as Balu Thevar. It contains some of Bharathiraja's trademark directorial touches as well as a lot of path breaking scenes, along with Kannan's powerful dialogues.

This was considered the last film MGR watched, before his death.

Balu Thevar (Sathyaraj) and Saritha live in a village and belong to a land-owning warrior caste (Thevar), held lower in the Vedic caste system hierarchy than Brahmins. Balu Thevar though, is an atheist and speaks openly against the caste system, but is nevertheless tolerated by the villagers because he is generous in helping others in need. Their son, Raja, has just returned from the city having completed his education. He meets Amala, who is the daughter of a Brahmin Sastri (Priest), and they fall in love. Both of their parents discover their love and Amala's father tries to marry her off to another man in a neighboring village. On the way, Amala fakes her suicide to escape the marriage, and hides in a house (Nizhalgal Ravi's) that she happens to pass by. In the meantime, thinking that Amala is really dead, Amala's father confronts Raja and accuses him of causing her death. During the discussion, they slip and fall into the waterfall and both men die.

At this point, Amala's younger brother (named Sankara - a play on Adi Sankaracarya, the founder of the Monistic system of Hindu Vedic Philosophy called Advaita Vedanta), who is devoutly studying the Vedas and passing through the student phase of his Brahmin life, is left an orphan. Being considered inauspicious, since his mother, father, and sister are all dead, no one from the Brahmin community wants to take care of him. He thus wanders the streets begging for food. Balu Thevar is bothered by this, and having lost his own son, he takes him home to raise him as his own son. They give up eating meat, so as not to offend the boy. However, since the boy has been eating in a lower caste home, he is rejected by his community from learning the Vedas. Sarita (the wife) is enraged, and promises to educate the boy instead in an English medium school. Balu Thevar makes fun of the boy telling him that it is not important to learn Vedas and worry about caste. At this point, the boy points out Balu Thevar's hypocrisy, at his preference for using his caste name (Thevar), while at the same time professing against the caste system. Sathyaraj sees the merit in this argument, and immediately after this abandons all his weapons (symbols of his warrior Thevar caste) by immersing them in a river, and stops referring to himself by his caste name, going only by "Balu".