Nambudiri Brahmin families practised a more strict version of primogeniture than Brahmin communities elsewhere in India. Under this custom, only the eldest son could marry a Nambudiri woman and thus produce an heir to the family property. Younger sons were restricted to sambandam relationships with non-Brahmin women, whom the Nambudiris considered to be concubines and whose offspring could not inherit. This tradition limited the extent of marriage within their own caste and led to the practice of hypergamy with the Nair community. Kathleen Gough notes that:
The disparity in caste ranking in a relationship between a Brahmin man and a Nair woman meant that the woman was unable to live with her husband(s) in the Brahmin family and so remained in her own family. The children resulting from such marriages always became Nairs. K. M. Panikkar argues that it is this type of relationship that resulted in the matrilineal and matrilocal system. It has also been argued that the practice, along with judicious selection of the man who tied the "thali", formed a part of the Nair aspirational culture whereby they would seek to improve their status within the caste. Furthermore, that:
Although it is certain that in theory hypergamy can cause a shortage of marriageable women in the lowest ranks of a caste and promote upwards social movement from the lower Nair subdivisions, the numbers involved would have been very small. It was not a common practice outside the higher subcaste groups and the Nambudiris had mostly stopped the practice by the 1920s.
The form of Sanskrit theatre known as Koodiyattam, which is native to Kerala, was traditionally patronised by Nambudiris.
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Saint Thomas Christians
The Saint Thomas Christians are a very old community in Kerala, India also called as Syrian Christians of India, Nasrani or Malabar Nasrani or Malankara Nasrani or Nasrani Mappila, are an ethno-religious community of Indian Christians from the state of Kerala, who follow the East Syriac Rite, West Syriac Rite and the liturgical rites of Syriac Christianity. They trace their origins to the evangelistic or missionariy activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. Nasrani is an Arabic word for "Christian" that came from the Greek word Nazōraioi, Nazarene in English. The Saint Thomas Christians are now divided into different Churches like Eastern Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Protestant, and independent bodies, each with their own liturgies and traditions. They are Malayali people and speak the Malayalam language
Saint Thomas Christians are a community with different ethnicities or different origins.Their culture is largely from East Syriac, West Syriac, Hindu, Jewish, and Latin Rite influences, blended with local customs and later elements derived from indigenous Indian and European colonial contacts. Their language is Malayalam, the language of Kerala, and Syriac is used for prayers.
The Saint Thomas Christians have also been nicknamed such due to their reverence for Saint Thomas the Apostle, who is said to have brought Christianity to India. The name dates back to the period of Portuguese colonisation. They are also known, especially locally, as Nasrani or Nasrani Mappila. The former means Christian; it appears to have been derived from the Hebrew word Netzer or the Aramaic Nasraya from Isaiah 11:1. Mappila is an honorific applied to members of non-Indian faiths and descendants of immigrants from the middle east who had intermarried with the local population, including Muslims (Jonaka Mappila) and Jews (Yuda Mappila). Some Syrian Christians of Travancore continue to attach this honorific title to their names. The Government of India designates members of the community as Syrian Christians, a term originating with the Dutch colonial authority that distinguishes the Saint Thomas Christians, who used Syriac (within East Syriac Rite or West Syriac Rite) as their liturgical language, from newly evangelised Christians who followed the Roman Rite.The terms Syrian or Syriac relate not to their ethnicity but to their historical, religious and liturgical connection to the Church of the East, or East Syriac Church.
History
According to tradition, Thomas the Apostle came to Muziris on the Kerala coast in AD 52 and converted many Nambudiri Brahmins to christianity and established the Ezharapallikal. The most prominent families amongst the many are Pakalomattam, Sankarapuri, Kalli, Kalliyankal, Nedumpally, Kunnappilly, Payyippilly, Vazhappilly, Maliekkal, Panakkamattom and Thayil.
The Cochin Jews are known to have existed in Kerala in the 1st century AD, and it was possible for an Aramaic-speaking Jew, such as St. Thomas from Galilee, to make a trip to Kerala then.The earliest known source connecting the Apostle to India is the Acts of Thomas, likely written in the early 3rd century, perhaps in Edessa.
A number of 3rd and 4th century Roman writers also mention Thomas' trip to India, including Ambrose of Milan, Gregory of Nazianzus, Jerome, and Ephrem the Syrian, while Eusebius of Caesarea records that St. Clement of Alexandria's teacher Pantaenus from Alexandria visited a Christian community in India using the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew language in the 2nd century.￼
The tradition of origin of the Christians in Kerala is found in a version of the Songs of Thomas or Thomma Parvam, written in 1601 and believed to be a summary of a larger and older work.Thomas is described as arriving in or around Maliankara and founding Seven Churches, or Ezharapallikal: Kodungallur, Kollam, Niranam, Nilackal (Chayal), Gokkamangalam, Kottakkavu , Palayoor and Thiruvithamcode Arappally (a "half church"). The Thomma Parvam also narrates the conversion of Jews, natives, and the local King at Kodungallur by St Thomas. The Thomma Parvam further narrates St Thomas's mission in the rest of South India and his martyrdom at Mylapore in present-day Chennai, Tamil Nadu.￼
There is evidence that members of the St Thomas Christian community observed Brahmin customs in the Middle Ages, such as the wearing of the sacred thread and having a kudumi. The medieval historian Pius Malekandathil believes these were customs adopted and privileges won during the beginning of the Brahmin dominance of medieval Kerala. He argues that the Syrian Christians in Kerala, integrated with Persian Christian migrant merchants, in the 9th century to become a powerful trading community and were granted the privileges by the local rulers to promote revenue generation and to undermine Buddhist and Jain traders who rivaled the Brahmins for religious and political hegemony in Kerala at the time.
Tamil Brahmins
Tamil Brahmins are Tamil-speaking Brahmins, primarily living in Tamil Nadu, although a few of them have settled in other states like, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka. They can be broadly divided into three religious groups, Gurukkals who follow Saivism, Iyers who follow the Srauta and Smartha tradition and Iyengars who follow Sri Vaishnavism.Tulu Nadu