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It
is beyond a doubt that each human group is biologically distinct and
culturally unique, and we Havyakas are no exception to this rule. But our
uniqueness lies in our historical and cultural distinctiveness from the
other Brahmin sects of Karnataka. Fortunately for us, it has not entered
the glass cases of museums, and even to this date we still carry that
cultural legacy with us and feel that difference from the others. However,
what most of us are not aware of is the root of this sect from our
branching point. Of course, who is not interested in knowing one's origin?
But facts about our origin are hard to come by since there have been no
serious efforts to think about it, let alone mine the treasure and wealth
of information. This article is an effort to re-establish what we are and
bring those little known facts about our roots to the readers. Because of
the paucity of time and the unreachable distance for reference materials,
we are only trying to recollect our earlier readings to make a short
article on our unique sect, which for obvious reasons make the facts and
figures reach only near the first approximation. However, if your short
journey through this article carries you through that intangible pleasure
of knowing one's roots, which we ourselves have experienced, then we think
our article will have served its purpose.
As Dr. K. S. Singh puts it, every community in India recalls its migration
in its history and folklore and thus an Indian is a migrant par
excellence. Historically, we Havyakas are the first of the Brahmin kind to
descend to the present day Karnataka around 3rd century A.D., followed by
other sects like Shivalli, Smarthas etc., who arrived much later, around
7th century A.D. However, the scientific school of thought places the date
of our immigration back to about 1300 years ago. The Brahmin king Raja
Mayooravarma was instrumental in bringing the first 30 or so families. It
is believed that the Kadamba kingdom had many Kshatriyas and we were
brought in to perform the royal rituals and the related functions of the
empirical government. Thus the first few families were settled in Banavasi,
the beautiful capital of the Kadambas and the place so adored by Pampa.
Since the very purpose of bringing these Brahmin families was to perform
Havana (Havya) and Homa (Gavya), they were aptly named as Havyaga or
Haveega, which has transcended to the present day "Havika" or
"Havyaka." In fact, the name "Haiga" persists in our
lexicon. This functionality of naming even extended to the specific role
played by families in the whole gamut of rituals. Thus originated the
seven family names given to us by Raja Mayooravarma. The Havyakas are the
only Brahmins who derive their surnames from the job they perform rather
than by their origin (e.g., Kota, Shivalli) or by the preacher (e.g.,
Madhva) or by God worship (e.g., Shivite, Vaishnavite). Thus came the
names "Hegade (Hegde)" for the head of the village who sponsors
the ritualistic activities, "Dixit" for one who is the head of
the Yajna, "Bhat", who actually performs the rituals and so on
(please refer to the book Havyakara Ithihasa for a detailed
account). Raja Mayooravarma's act of bringing us into Banavasi has been
inscribed on a stone stab (one of the so called "Shilashasanas")
from the period of the Kadambas, which now lies near the village of
Varadahalli in Sagar Taluk of Shimoga district.
It might be purely coincidental that the first Havyaka migrants were asked
to settle in the beautiful habitat of woods, hills and rivers of the
Malnad valleys. But we cannot resist the thought that this first encounter
of the early settlers with the beautiful and enchanting nature pervaded
into their culture and transmitted to all their future generations. One
can find the evidence for this if one tries to look at their current
geographical distribution in the districts of Chikkamagalur, Dakshina
Kannada, Shimoga and Uttara Kannada. It is therefore no wonder that, in
general, we are so hospitable, friendly and soft-spoken. Nature
surrounding us has molded much of our behavior, but unfortunately, most of
us are unaware of this priceless and invaluable gift. Beyond all this,
there are some unique features that we have as Brahmins. We are the only
sect that worships all gods and goddesses irrespective of the individual
family deity, while many Brahmin sects have limitations about whom they
worship (e.g., Shivites, Vaishnavites). We are the only ones (at least
most of us) who plough the land and cultivate crops by ourselves, and we
do not have subordinates do it for us (like landlords). We are also the
only Brahmins who derive our names from the jobs that we perform (see
above).
Since the beginning of civilized human society, people have learned and
benefited much from historical mistakes. History says that the so-called
"Aryan race" invaded the Northern part of India before the
Christian era. But lately reasonable doubts have been expressed by many
Indian historians about the Aryan invasion theory, as this story
originated with European authors without any tangible evidence. However,
the truth remains that the Northern and the Southern parts of India were
inhabited by people of different skin color, which is evident even to this
date, and that the Dravidians existed before a foreign invasion. To quote
an American historian, "this is the only country in the world where
one can still see the history alive and vivid, and cultures and customs
practiced more than 2000 years ago are still intact in everyday
life." Therefore we find it reasonable to accept the fact that at
least two major human groups inhabited the Indian subcontinent, and
further that we are probably the descendants of the group of lighter skin
color from the Northern part of the country, if what is written in the
following paragraph is true.
While the inscription near Varadahalli is a definite proof that we were
brought in from a place by name "Ahichchathra," it is a
controversy as to where this place is. The author of Havyakara
Ithihasa places it at three points: (1) at Gokarna in Kumta taluk
of Uttara Kannada district, (2) in Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh,
and (3) in Bareilly district of Uttara Pradesh. Incidentally, all these
points have or had a place by the name of Ahichchathra. The author feels
that it is probably the third by a process of elimination rather than by
facts, which have not been discovered. Thus, the argument goes that
Gokarna came to existence after Banavasi and the district of Godavari did
not have any Brahmins living in its bounds today. Thus it is deduced that
we came from some place in the state of Uttara Pradesh. It is, however,
interesting to note here that some sects of people in Uttara Pradesh do
have certain cultural similarities to those of Havyakas including tilling
and cultivating the land by themselves. Whether this is a coincidental
residue of some original race (Aryan?) or a related fact is controversial
and remains to be uncovered. Therefore it is only an educated guess that
we are rooted in Uttara Pradesh. We would like to state here that some
people also think that our ancestors came from somewhere in Kashmir.
There is no doubt that our sect is a small, unique, endogamous group. We
also seem to have a high average intelligence. Of course, there are many
such groups in India with high intelligence quotient, but we feel that our
sect is rationally different in many worldly affairs. We are not bound to
ritualistic fanaticism, but we respect all communities including those of
lower castes. Likewise, Brahmins were not supposed to till the land, but
we took a more practical approach and outlook towards life and indulged in
cultivation. These and many other things clearly point to the critical
rational thinking of our forbearers. Howard Gardner lists seven forms of
intelligence: spatial, musical, logical, mathematical, linguistic etc.
This classification has been widely accepted since the first edition
(1983) of his book and is slowly replacing the earlier verbal and
pencil-paper mathematical intelligence, which is still practiced
throughout the world. Though any of the aspects relating to our sect have
not been quantified, just a casual observation shows that we excelled in
verbal and mathematical logic as seen in our educational excellence. We
also excelled in musical and bodily kinesthetic intelligence (dance or
Yakshagana). More prominently, we are extremely good at personal
intelligence (interpersonal relationship is a part of this), which
probably made us so hospitable and tolerant. This gift cannot be explained
fully by good sets of genes of our ancestors, as majority of genetics
experiments show that, on an average, inheritance of intelligence is only
around 30%. Therefore, just imagine the influence of the environment, both
physical and cultural, on this sect. We are not glorifying one sect over
another here, but simply wonder about the evolutionary secret behind our
success from our roots. If we got so much from that place, people and
culture, maybe it is our moral duty to respect our genealogy in some way
or another.
In conclusion to this short article, everything seems to point to the fact
that we migrated to our present day habitat from somewhere else. The
multi-series volume on the People of India was dedicated to
the scientific community and for people who are interested, it might even
be available somewhere on CD-ROMs of FTP sites (the information generated
has been stored in 128 diskettes). While the current population of our
community is believed to stand at around 100,000 individuals, there is a
clear dearth of comprehensive anthropological study about the origin and
the subsequent migration of Havyakas. Since all the facts are neither
known nor available to us here, we have written this article from a
skeptical point of view. It is therefore imminent that such a study is
very much warranted, by someone among us or somebody else. If someone
earnestly wants to do this, the Havyaka community should come forward to
sponsor him/her for scientific and anthropological cause. Searching our
roots is really a field worth studying, not only for our sake, but also
for the sake of the scientific community. In the age when atoms and
molecules and chips and computers are ruling the world, such studies will
also be monumental!
Acknowledgments
Much of our thoughts in this article was shaped by our readings of the
book, Havyakara Ithihasa written by someone from the Sagar
taluk of Shimoga district. We suggest interested readers go through this
and the references thereof, as well as the following reference sources for
more details about our heritage.
References
- Havyakara
Ithihasa, 1992. This book has been aptly named for its content.
The book has several facts about social, economical, religious and
other lifestyles of Havyakas. The author has made an attempt to dig
out our roots, complete with some references.
- TSS (Totigara
Sahakari Sangha or Totagar's Society, Sirsi, Uttara Kannada)
Silver/Golden jubilee publication.
- People
of India: An Introduction, 1992. This is a 120-volume series by
the Anthropological Survey of India, published by Seagull Books,
Calcutta. This work delves deeply into the ethnographic bio-diversity
and anthropological profile of 2753 communities of India and entwines
776 characters (like customs, occupation, language etc.) on each sect.
The project was a brainchild of Dr. K. S. Singh, Director-General of
the Anthropological Society of India, New Delhi. For more details on
this publication, see Current Science 64(1): 3-10, 10th
January 1993. The series was incomplete until 1995 and only the first
few volumes had come out at that time.
- Mountain,
Gadgil, Bhattacharya and others. "Demographic history of India
and mtDNA sequence diversity," American Journal of Human
Genetics, April 1995. This article compares the mitochondrial
DNA of Havyakas of Uttara Kannada with those of Mukris (Scheduled
Caste) and Kadars (a tribe).
- Gadgil and
Prasad, 1993/1994. "Peopling of India." Paper presented at
History conference, Mysore. In this, the authors speculate about the
origin of Havyakas.
- Howard
Gardner, 1993. Frames of mind: Theory of multiple intelligence.
For
further comments and/or discussions, please contact the authors of this
article (originally published in July1995 in the book entitled Havyaka
Association of the Americas) below by e-mail:
Subraya
G. Hegde
1000 Pine Avenue, #252
Redlands, CA 92373
E-mail: subray@ucracl.ucr.edu
Nagendra
R. Hegde
3405 Holdrege, #101
Lincoln, NE 68503-1471
E-mail: nhegde@crcvms.unl.edu
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