Friday, July 18, 2008

128. Bairās and Mundās

Origin of the two Tulu words, bairās and munDās, posed by Manjunat, may be explained by visualizing and reconstructing the period of initial interaction between Tulu immigrants and Munda native tribes in the Karavali zone, probably dating back to ca. 800-600 BC.
The clothing accessory ‘bairās’(bahiras) is the ancient equivalent of modern bath towel and ‘munDās’ is the popular ancient headgear of the coastal area.

The Interaction
The immigrant Tulu tribes were in for a cultural shock in the Karavali land they chose to settle down. The immigrants coming from northern India were tall in stature, about six feet, fair skinned and wore full body-covering cloths designed and suited for the cold climates of the north. The native tribes of that time were shorter generation, about five feet, dark in complexion and wore minimal clothing that suited the sultry climate of the coastal Karavali. Basically, the natives wore a sheet of cloth wrapped around their loins. Another sheet of cloth was cloth was fashioned into a turban. Probably this was the standard attire of the leader of the native tribal group, known as Munda.
The immigrants had to coin new words to describe these exotic clothing accessories used by the Munda. The loin cloth the Munda wore was called ‘munDu’ and the headgear was designated ‘munDas’. (=munDa + ās).
The interaction was deep and strong. Many items were designated after the MunDa. Most of their ancient tribal habitations were named accordingly. Reconsider the still surviving place names all over the Karavali such as MunD-kur, Kalla-munD-kur, MunD-aDi, MunD-oDi, MunD-oli, MunD-aje, MunD-ūr, MunD-goDu and so on. The average height of the Munda person was employed as a unit of measure: One ‘munDu’ stands for a length of about five feet. The common prickly shrub used by MunDa tribes for preparing mats stream-boiled mooDe, was called ‘munDevu’. The conspicuous broad ‘forehead’ characteristic of MunDa tribes was named ‘munDa’ or ‘munDo’.

Bairās
 The ‘Baira’ were another ancient tribal group that sauntered across Karāvali and rest of the peninsular India. ‘Bairam-palli’ is an example of their ancient habitation. The origin of the cult of tribal God ‘Bairav’ who was later considered as a form of Shiva can be attributed to Baira tribes. And words like ‘bairagi’ (nomadic recluse) have been derived from Baira-s'.Narayana Shetty cites the relevant name of a hamlet: 'BairaLi guthu'.
Similarly the word 'baikam' as in place name 'Baikam-padi' meant 'beggars' or 'nomadics surviving on alms'. Later in the history ‘Bairarasa’ were popular rulers in parts of the Karāvali.

Bahiras, the towel
Thus ‘bahirās’ (=bahir + ās) is the smaller piece of cloth originally worn by the natives and adapted by Tulu tribes as bath towel. The word may not be directly connected to the Baira tribes. The Bahir-as ('bahir' =outer) refers to the sheet of cloth used to cover the upper part of the body or the sheet used to wipe the body. The word probably was derived from an ancient Pisacha- Prakrit sources.The suffix 'ās'stands for a sheet of cloth, earlier form of 'hās';one of the component in weaving is also called 'hās'.
**
bairās āpuni
Viswanath adds a few idiomatic expressions related to 'bairās':
There is a phrase "bairas aapuni" (falling a prey to a yarn /believing the false statement without checking. Akin to the modern 'April fool'). This could have been based on the notion that mendicants ('bairas') are given to lying or fooling.

'ChanDi bairas'( or even 'chanDi Kamboli'; 'chanDi'=wet) mean "lazy fellow" or 'thing not suitable for the purpose'. The expected utilitarian aspect of 'kamboli'(=blanket) or 'bairas' like warming the body or driving away chillness or removing water by rubbing is lost when they are wet.
**
The 'Tulu NighanTu' (p.2594) cites a funny and sarcastic Tulu proverb:
AnD'g arive ijji, manDeg munDās nāduve!
=No cloth to cover the private parts, yet (he) searches turban for the head !

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10 comments:

  1. Ravi:
    :-). Nice humorous take on the etymology. Anyway, I wonder what has happened to fully clothed people who came here. As far as my knowledge goes non-brahmins wore mundas to cover their head and bairas to cover their lower part and brahmins wore only loin cloth(komana...brahmin philosophers were also known as gymosophists) to cover their lower part. Situation wasn't much different in north India too until 11th century, I suppose. Arab/Persian chroniclers had recorded how scantily clad people were.

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  2. "BairaLi" guttu is also the name of a house in our village

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  3. "fully clothed people.."
    I visualized this based on the attire worn by our Yakshagana/ Kathakali artists.This dance form possibly came to us from the north.

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  4. Dear Ravi,

    If you have not done so already, you should visit the following website :

    www.viswamurugu.com/tuluweb1.html

    While most of the conclusions arrived at by the author are obviously coloured by his Tamil national pride, what could be interesting are the primary sources (esp references to Tulu people and Tulu country in the Tamil Sangam literature) referred to by the author.

    While we spend a lot of time following up leads on the migration of communities from the North, not much emphasis is paid to the "collective (historic) memory" of Tamils as per which there existed a great and flourishing "Dravidian" civilisation which was submerged under the sea. Madurai was the cultural capital of this civlisation but the original Madurai also went under the sea and what is now Madurai was originally referred to as "North Madurai" Some of the artefacts that were under the sea and were exposed post the Tsunami at the turn of the century at Mahibalipuram when the sea receded once again created a lot of excitement among the "believers" in this theory.

    Rgds
    Ashok Shetty

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  5. are there any baira tribes left in bairampalli or tulunadu.My house is located in bairampalli village near perdoor,udupi.

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  6. Baira tribes, once wide spread in peninsular India, obviously have been absorbed into other folds.'Bairappa' is still a popular name among people of upland Karnataka.Their spirit God Bairav has been later adapted by Kapalika, Natha and other cults.

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  7. I have visited 'Viswamurugu' couple of times.I agree with the basic contention that Tulu language and culture is quite ancient like Tamil.Like Tamil 'Sangam', Tulu had a 'Sangam', though not well documented.I've written posts on 'Siri paDdana' and recognise it as a product of 'Tulu sangam'.
    But I find many of the places cited in Viswamurugu intriguing, being un-relatable to the actual towns/villages of Tulunadu.Ground truth matching and verification is absolutely necessary for any historical reconstruction.
    I am aware of some of the 'collective memories' of Tamils cited by you.We shall touch upon such things sometime later.The problem with the collective memories is that many of them contain slender facts admixed with ample emotions and glorification.

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  8. hi ravi ... i appreciate your work....with intresting fact....if that wat u said is true were are baira s people now the people as u said native of karavali...i know they are in mlore but their population is very less compared to the tulu people....how can u explain this...

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  9. 'i know they are in mlore..'
    Please provide more details on this.
    'their population is very less compared to the tulu people....'
    Our Population (density),beliefs/faiths and language etc change with time and history! It is possible that some of them have been assimilated into Tulu communities during the historical past...just like we have absorbed the bairaas and munDaas!

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  10. hi ravi...
    what exact information you want to know......
    as you said their was a baira aras in karavali region....
    what happened to that kingdom ??
    They are the baira s who we find in karavali now?

    as far as i know this people speaks in halle kannada which is much similar to that of kundapur kannada...their custom is much similar to that of our tulu nadu ...but their marriage custom is unique though i have newer seen this i have heard from old people....
    i would be glad to listen more about baira s...
    if you have any further informaion please do provide...

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