could not resist making a remark about kuladeivam

"could not resist making a remark about kuladeivam,,
Kuladeivam is a very general term..
Among Palakkad Iyers, I doubt whether the concept is existing at all..
Primarily Palani Andavar and Guruvayurappan are accepted as guiding deities..
The deity in one's own agraharam, is the presiding deity in one's life for Palakkad Iyers ..
The Palakkad Iyers have a concept of Adimai Kavu.. the Devi temple near their own native agraharams to which they offer themselves are slaves to the Mother deity..
Usually the tradition is based on the location of the Agraharam.. For Kalpathy and agraharams located in that area, the Kavu would be Manappully Kavu..
According to proximity, the Perakkattu Bhagavathy, Oottukulangara Bhagavathy of Peruvembu, the traditional Pratishta in Chittur etc are the adimai kavus for many.. there are similar other Kavus too.
The Iyers around Pallassana, Pallavur, Koduvayur etc have the Pallassana Meenkulathi Kavu also called Pazhaya Kavu as their adimai kavu..
But it is believed that the most potent Goddes around Palakkad is the Pazhayakavu of Pallassana, and many treat that as the default Kavu.. ( This is based not on personal views but on the basis of general belief in and around Palakkad.. in fact the Pallanssana pazhayakavu is adopted by many from far off places, among Iyers and also of many other communities.)
But usually the native agraharam decides the adimai kavu..
one fact to be reckoned is that the Kerala Tamil Brahmin settlements have different patterns.. Two main patterns are agraharams and ottra madams.
The traditions of people living in agraharam clusters based on replication of some traditional tamil agraharam perhaps vary considerably from tamil brahmins who have settled all over kerala in isolated homes..
Also the traditions vary between agraharams on the basis of their origial spots from which they migrated..
Some agraharams have vadama majority, lsome have brahacharanam, ashtasahasram mankudi, vaadhyama majority,
some are chozhyas and in the south kerala we can find mukkaalis ..
The traditions vary..
The traditions of Palakkad brahmins, Trichur brahmins Ernakulam brahmins Kollam brahmins and Trivandrum brahmins Kozhikode Brahmins, Kannur Payyanur Taliparamba Brahmins etc vary..
But the basic unity of dependence in the primacy of Vedas, sandhyavandahanam and other rituals.. etc run like Golden threads binding them
The respect given to Kanchi and Sringeri Acharyals by smarthas of kerala is another common feature..
For the people of agraharam, their prime lord is their or grama devatha and in addition they have some adimai kavu..
Even traditions in main Palakkad town Agraharams and Agraharams other than these in other parts of palakkad district vary.
Then even in palakkad city core agraharams the Kalpathy centred agraharams and Nurani Pallipuram Tirulakkadavu (tirunellai) based agraharams have different traditions..
In fact the old names inherited by palakkadI iyers would be indicative of their past and kula deivams too.. See how many Vaidyanathans and Vaitheeswarans are available among palakkad iyers.. and Abayaambaals and Thailaambaals

Chonnam goes to Mundur..

In our agraharam.. there is a story about Chonnam going to mundur .. Chonnam Mundoorukku pona pole..ചൊണ്ണം മുണ്ടൂരുക്ക് പോന പോലെ 

Our agraharam is in the heart of Palakkad town.. and Mundur is a place about twelve kilometers away from here.. a place en route to Mannarkad.. and Mundur is semi hilly.. and full of very fertile arable lands.
The brahmins of the agraharam in yonder years, owned a lot of agricultural lands there..

They would leave the lands in the control of tenants and a few would visit there often and stay in temporary shelters called kalappura.. Such kalappuras were used for extra curricular activities too.. That is a different story.

One brilliant mama in our village had an equally brilliant son whom he christened Swarnam (Swarnapureeswaran or something like that).. and assigned a pet name of Chonnam..


This mama had extensive areas of agriculture lands in Mundur..
He wanted to inspect the progress of agricultural activity and the activities of the tenants at Mundur and also wanted to collect something in cash or kind from them for the daily use of the family..

So one evening he called his darling son Chonnam and told him


Chonnam nee nalaikku kaarthaale mundurukku ponam..
ചൊണ്ണം നീ നാളയ്ക്ക് കാര്ത്താലെ മുണ്ടൂരുക്ക് [പോകണം

you should go to Mundur tomorrow morning.

The obedient son agreed as if the fathers order is a Vedavakyam


The next morning the sun rose, and the father was searching for the son to leave instructions as to what he should do at Mundur

He called the golden boy.. and there was no response..
Then he enquired about the whereabouts of his wise son.

No one around  had any clue.


All knew that the  august presence of Chonnam was not felt since early morning..

But by ten O clock in the morning, the son was sighted, running back after a long, long trek

Nee engeda ponaay..  നീ എങ്കേഡാ പോനായ് ? where did you go.. asked the father.

Pat came the reply... Neengal Chonna pole Mundurukku poyittu Vandaachu..    നീങ്കള്‍ ചൊന്ന പോലെ മുണ്ടൂരുക്ക് പോയിട്ട് വന്താച്ചു   I have gone to Mundur and come back as per your directions..

Enthukku daa ponaay.. എന്തുക്ക് ഡാ പോനായ് ? what was the purpose of your travel.. asked the father..

Appa, neengal athu chollalaye.... അപ്പാ നീങ്കള്‍ അത് ചൊല്ലലയെ father , you did not tell me that..

The son had obeyed his father to the dot.. but with no purpose served..

A brilliant father, an equally brilliant son whose weight is worth is gold.. and a great journey..

This anecdote might be found in the annals of many paatti stories with different heroes and dramatis personae..
But our agraharam story goes like this..

We iyers though brilliant in many ways, are capable of extremely absurd actions.. innocently but foolishly..

poyyars

I for one agree with you fully... but this thread is about poyyars, persons who are Iyers on the surface fully but do not follow the essential scriptural prescriptions. The definition of a poyyar on the basis of non performance of pancha mahpathakas may be more relevant than the six conditions prescribed by my brother narayanan who has simply listed six things out of a huge number of items. In my opinion it is not wrong to live as a poyyar. Unless we change with times we lose our grounds. Nowadays the discussion on brahminism and spiritualism leads to a journey far away from the reasonable highways and byways. But there should be a maamiyar or swamiyaar to point out what it was in the old days. What I quoted was from a vedic stanza reproduced in mahanarayanopanisat and even while giving vyakhyaanam to that years ago, the interpreters were aware that all these so called sins were being committed and this mantra was only an expiatory measure. The ganga episode in Mahabharatam is a fait accompli, and nowhere in bharatham that episode is justified. Infanticide was the greatest sin for which Kamsa got killed by his nephew. Even gurutalpagamanam may not be relevant today because in certain circumstances one's own wife can become ones teacher in a university.. and then is it a mahapatakam to sleep with one's own wife?

The above quotation is simply a limited addendum to the qualification of a POYYAR and nothing more. In fact if I have only one son out of a married life exceeding 25 years at least one of the sins has been repeated a few times...this will be true with most people including iyers or Poyyars whatever you would like to call them