Indian Antiquary Vol 61

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 191

SEPTEMBER, 1932] NOTE ON THE CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE WYNAD
173
adopted the title "Subduer of the Nilgiris." The last of these, the chiefs of Ummattûr, who were Vira-Saivas by faith, made a bid for independence during the revolutions which shook the Empire at the close of the fifteenth century. The great Krishna Dêva brought them to heel in 1510.
The Ummattûr tradition is still alive among the Badagas of the Nilgiris. Nellialam, in the heart of the Nilgiri Wynad, is the seat of a Kanarese Vira-Saiva, overlord of a wide extent of landed property, who is popularly entitled Arasu or "king."13 He still exercises a general authority over the Baḍagas as a court of appeal in communal disputes. The legends of his family connect it with Ummattûr, and state that his ancestors, when ruling the Nilgiris, wrested Nelliâlam from a Nayar chief.
Meanwhile in the N.W., beyond the Wynad border, a prince of the house of Keladi1 established himself as ruler of Coorg.
Conflict ensued between this new Coorg State and the rulers of Mysore. Taking advantage of this, the Kottayam Chief invaded Coorg and was annihilated. This disaster the Kottayam princes never forgot or forgave.
In 1765 Haidar Ali, now master of Mysore, but bankrupt with his Maratha wars, decided to replenish his treasury by the conquest of Malabar. To secure his communications with Malabar he attacked Coorg. Malabar fell to him in 1766, but he was not yet strong enough to annex it all permanently. Meanwhile Coorg held out. Haidar then resorted to diplomacy, and Coorg was placated (1768). In 1773 Haidar descended on S. Malabar by a bold march through the Wynad and the Tâmarasaêri Pass. This time he annexed all Malabar. In the following year the Coorg Raja, with Haidar's connivance, wrested the Wynad from his hereditary foe of Kottayam and established a garrison at Kalpatta. In 1779, however, while Haidar was busy elsewhere, Kottayam recovered possession, and in 1780 Haidar annexed Coorg.
War with the English followed. Haidar died in 1782 and the war ended with the Treaty of Mangalore (1784) by which Tipu Sultan retained all Malabar and the Wynad. But in 1792, by the Treaty of Seringapatam, Tipu was stripped of half his dominions. The British thought the Wynad was included in the territory ceded, but the terms of the Treaty were not explicit on the point. The consequences were awkward. Shortly after the Treaty was signed the "Pytchy Raja," as the English called the Prince of the Western Branch of the Kottayam Dynasty, went into rebellion, and after three years of defiance retreated to the Wynad. The British followed and Tipu promptly protested that the Wynad was his. After two years' discussion the Governor-General decided that the Wynad belonged to Mysore. When in 1799 Mysore was restored to her rightful Râjas, the Wynad, as if to make amends for past omissions, was ceded to the Company under one name and to Mysore under another, and supplementary treaty had to be signed in 1803 to make the
Wynad British.
III. Ethnology.
Anthropologically the Wynad has never been intensively studied, but such evidence as is recorded is extremely interesting.16
"Until the introduction of tea and coffee planting the population of the Wynad was mostly confined to the swampy ground along the river valleys. They cleared the swamps, and grew paddy. They had no use for the forest land. The low hillocks standing out of the 13 Nilgiri Gazetteer, p. 370 sq.
13 Rice, Mysore Inscriptions, pp. 153-5.
1 A dynasty of Kanarese Vira-Saivas who built up a state in Shimoga District in the N.W. of the present State of Mysore and made themselves masters of the Kanara coast from Hondwar to the frontiers of Malabar. They are also called Ikkeri or Bednûr Rajas, from the names of their later capitals. They fell to Haidar Ali in 1763.
15 Especially the little book, already cited, by Rao Bahadur C. Gopalan Nair, who has a keen sense of relevant fact. See also Thurston's Castes and Tribes, and the Malabar and Nilgiri District Gazetteers.