Sankethis – The Brahmins of Karnataka
Posted on December 21, 2006
The Sankethis are a brahmin sect that originate from Sengottai (literal translation: Red Fort) in Tamil Nadu.
Historically, they are known to have migrated to Karnataka from Sengottai sometime in the last 200-400 years. There is a very interesing legend as to how they came about:
Long ago, in a ‘Sabha’(Congregation of Brahmins), one Acharya made a mistake while reciting a Shloka. A lady in the audience pointed out the mistake. Male chauvinism being as old as manking itself, she was punished for her arrogance. The punishment meted out was that she had to prepare and serve food to the Brahmins while wearing a saree coated with chalkstone. Now chalkstone would make the saree slippery and difficult to hold in place. The resourceful lady conceived a new way of tying the saree which would be held in place with a knot. Nowadays this style of wearing the saree is called the “Gandi” style (from “Gath” which means knot, perhaps).
Later, the community split and several members moved to places in the Hassan, Mysore and Shimoga districts in Karnataka, where they have remained to date. Their Tamil has since been corrupted, and is sometimes irrecognizable in itself. Some even go so far as to say they might be from the Trichur district of Kerala, which might have acted as a stopover on the way to Karnataka via Coorg.
Sankethi.org and Sankethi.com are two websites where you can learn more about them.
There is a lot of work that needs to be done when it comes to tracing the migratory paths of communities in India. Little or no historically verified information is available regarding the origins and family trees of many sub-sects. With the slow but progressing dispersion of people from their homelands, the challenge seems all the more steeper.
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Dear Sir,
As a member of the “Sankethi” sect of brahmins from Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu and living for more than a century in Kerala, I have been given to understand that the origin of the Sankethis was in an “agraharam” in the present day “Saapathur”(literally, the place of curse) near Tirunelveli. It was when the learned woman was asked to serve food to the brahmins wearing a sari coated with some slippery substance, as you rightly say; but she did not wear it with a knot at that time and her modesty was compromised while serving food and she was jeered. Earlier to this incident her family consisting of husband, wife and a son, suffering from extreme poverty, drank a special drink with magical properties; that drink could kill, make a person mad or bestow him/her with great knowledge equal to that of Goddess Saraswathi. The son died, her husband went mad and the lady became a great “jnaani” and that was all the more reason for the Pundits to defame her.
Overcome by intolerable grief the lady known as “Nacharamma” among us, cursed the brahmins of the agraharam that they would be destroyed before the next sunrise if they remained in that place. Soon she became aware of their difficulties and so, not herself having the power to cancel her curse, she took them as a group (Sankaetha) and went off north to Madurai and thence to the presnt day Karnataka; on the way some people who were walking very far behind, lost their way and walked somewhat eastwards while the others went with Nacharamma to a place which is the Rudrapatnam today or somewhere near that.
As a matter of fact even today Rudrapatnam is preponderantly Sankethis.
Those who did not follow Nacharamma, left the village to nearby places like Tirunelveli, Shencottah, etc., and from there spread out in search of livelihhod to other native kingdoms which offered them (Brahmins) scope for eking out a living.
One gentleman from Karnataka has written a book in this regard during 1930s.