core. Imayavarman is said to have given 500 villages in the district of Umbarkadu to the Brahman poet Kannanar ; Senguttuvan the revenues of Umbarkadu to Paranar ; Selvakkadunko all the country within his view from the top of the hill Nanra to poet Kapilar ; while another king gave a portion of his country to Kappiyanar. How could then such enormous land grants be made, had the country been the exclusive property of the Nambudri Brahmans ? Moreover, all these had occurred before the Nambis or Nambudris settled in Malabar and Travancore. The fact seems to be that the whole Kerala country belonged to its kings, and they had a right to dispose of it as they pleased. And out of reverence to learned Brahmans, whom they brought from Upper India from time to time, lands were granted free of tax as Brahmadayam for their maintenance.
But the total neglect of the native Tamil literature by the Dravidian inhabitants of Kerala, their general ignorance and their respect for Nambudri Brahmans gave the latter an undue advantage which in course oi time showed itself in the Nambudri's exclusive ownership to all the Kerala country. And to support the theory of their ownership, the Nambudris even fabricated false traditions.
The Chera, like the Chola and Pandya countries, was inhabited by all the early Tamil tribes and castes. The identity of some of these minor Malabar castes with those that occur in the inscriptions of Rajaraja Chola (A. D. 985—1013)
