________________
52
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
the termination of the sacrifice, the woman is presented with cloths, flowers, &c., by her friends and relatives, to whom a feast is given. Her children are also placed on an adorned seat (Hasê), and after receiving presents of flowers, fruits, &c., their ears are pierced in the usual manner. It is said that to do so before would be sacrilege.
Class II. consists of a section of the Marasa Vakkaligaru who, after performing the foregoing preliminaries, substitute for the fingers a piece of gold wire, of the same value as the carpenter's fee above stated, twisted round the fingers in the shape of rings. Instead of cutting the fingers off, the carpenter removes and appropriates the rings.
Class III.-Some families of the Marasa Vakkaligaru have altogether repudiated the worship
PYAL SCHOOLS IN MADRAS.
BY THE LATE CHARLES E. GOVER, M.R.A.S., MADRAS.
BUILT against the front wall of every Hindu house in Southern India, and I believe it is so in other parts of India also, is a bench about three feet high and as many broad. It extends along the whole frontage, except where the house door stands. It is usually sheltered from sun and rain by a veranda, or by a pandal or temporary erection of bamboo and leaves. The posts of the veranda or pandal are fixed in the ground a few feet in front of the bench, enclosing a sort of platform: for the basement of the house is generally two or three feet above the street level. The raised bench is called the Pyal, and is the lounging-place by day. It also serves in the hot months as a couch for the night. The raised pavement is termed the Koradu. Koradu and Pyal are very important portions of every house. There the visitor is received; there the bargaining is done; there the beggar plies his trade, and the yogi, sounds his conch; there also the members of the household clean their tecth, amusing themselves the while with belches and other frightful noises. It is, however, of a nobler use of the Koradu and Pyal that this paper shall speak, as may be gathered from its title.
[FEBRUARY, 1873.
of the Bhandi Dêvaru, and owe their allegiance to Vishnu in his several manifestations of Tirupati Venkataramanasvâmi, Chennarayasvâmi, Kadari Narsinhasvami, &c. They do not therefore undergo the revolting sacrifice.
Enveloped as this tradition and practice are in the haze of antiquity, it is difficult, if not almost impossible, to account for them. The Bhagavata is silent regarding the part which the Marasa Vakkaliga is said to have played in the foregoing legend in the destruction of Vrikâsura. Under these circumstances, a suggestion may be made. that the origin of the practice may not improbably have been in some attempted feminine rebellion against the authority of the "lords of the creation," and in the consequent measures. to suppress it.
Every village has its school; a large village will have several. It need hardly be said that there are no special school-buildings, no infant galleries, no great black-board, no dominie's desk. No: the most convenient and airy Pyal is chosen. It must have a good Koradu. Usually it is the headman who lends his for the purpose, for the headman's house ought to be the best in the village. In the northern Telugu districts each village has a "Kótham" or meeting-place in a central spot, like the "mandu" of a Kargi village. In that case the school meets there, under the pagoda mantapam, or even in a thatched shed. But in the Tamil
country the school is in the Pyal. When the lads come of a morning, they sit in line upon the Pyal, leaving the Koradu for the teacher and for their own passage.
In the great towns a great conflict rages between the new-fangled English Anglo-Vernacular schools and the Pyal schools. There is no denying that the latter are going to the wall. Even in the larger villages the Anglo-Vernacular school is pushing forward and elbows the more humble institution out of the place. In time a Pyal school will be as rare as the megatherium. Before it loses its pristine vigour or remodels itself after the English fashion, let us see what it is like, what it teaches, what it leaves undone. I have a weakness for these out-of-the-way aspects of native life, and have found such pleasure in studying this particular feature, that I feel as if I too had sat at the feet of the irritable Pandit, had studied his strange arithmetic, and been soundly rapped on the knuckles for having dropped a syllable in trying to repeat the Kural by rote.
They instruct in the three "R's," the first two very fairly, but of arithmetic only the very elements are taught. On the other hand, much time is often given to construing beautiful but obscure poems written in the high dialect, and, except as moral teachers, of little use in the concerns of daily life. The average number of children in each school is less than twenty-one, and it is, therefore, quite impos. sible for adequate teaching power to be employed. There is no apparatus beyond the sandy ground, certain small black-boards, and some kajáns. A sort of discipline is maintained by a constant and often severe use of the cane. Unruly or truant boys are coerced by punishments that partake of the nature of torture. They are compelled to sit or
