THE CHOZHIYA DYNASTY

Everybody says diarys have to be written atleast once in 24 hours .Is it a must? Don’t give me that damn smile.you old swine.,how dare you?.o.k agreed, I will never again try to attempt to write a diary,the ultimate loser will be English,as you know very well. Somebody was saying why don’t you try something serious ‘,to what extend can I venture as far as seriousness is concerned I query?’.the so called some one sneers ‘upto the zone of a TREATISE’ ‘.Are you joking ‘ and pat came the reply ‘after all you are a ‘chozhiyan’ you can go to[ stoop down] ? to any level’The term was a novelty,a double edged one to be exact and I could never come to a conclusion. as to what he meant .This term usually invokes a sense of underlying shame in me which I can never express openly,like’ black’ or’ jew ‘or’ parayan ‘

About 35 years back at thekkamadom,Cochin , I was asking the same question to one elderly worldly wise Ooramby mama[a first cousin of Chandramouli mama my potential father in law 7 yrs later] ‘ can you tell me about this so called chozhiyar epithet,which is haunting me,he had this sagely smile lit up on his bearded face and explained “ you never need to be sorry to be a chozhiyan .I don’t want to exaggerate their [our] claims of being descendents of the great Chanakya,its highly unlikely to have migrated from the princely state of Magadha I mean Bihar at present,although some of our features have some semblance to the present Lalluji. atleast. As far as the name goes even a chozhiya can safely assume that he has come from the land of Cholas-- Trichy and around..Their claims of being in the tribe of Adi sankara cannot be ruled out though.One thing I can be sure,some times in their dark medeaval ages due to some reason most probably economic in nature,they strayed out of their sagely priest hood and began conducting rituals and other functions for sub brahminical classes and out of poverty degraded to attend funeral rituals as brahmanas and thevasom functions. So the other sub sects began to look down up on them and hence the misnomer.

To be brief these people from the chola desa and also from the Pandiya desa from the areas around Tirunelveli were forced to migrate about 3 to 4 centuries back to the present day Kerala.They might have descended through the shencottai passes from Tirunelveli and via Adoor they could have reached Kollam and later spread to the north of kerala settling in Kollam,Alleppey,Cochin upto trichur and calicut, and to the south to varkala and Trivandrum..The Palghat iyers have a differenet story to offer.Now as far as I know, which is very little, with little authentications, to present, these shenkottai migrators were illiterates and were mostly agriculturers.money lendors,cloth merchants and petty tradesmen,cooks but were SHREWD and thrived in the Parasuramakshetra.Their uniqueness as in all other Iyers were their ability to isolate themselves in groups in agraharas around temples they established or in isolated houses called madoms.,at the same time mingled with the local population,quickly learning the local dialect and most importantly they deferred from the Namboothiris,the sons of the soil Brahmins,in their persecution of the lower classes except for a sambandham with a nayar lady here and there,.”
Thus Oorambi mama gave me the primary education regd the Chozhias in Kerala.As for some great Chozhians starting from The Great Chanakya who went to Takshasila to challenge the Nandas by the Tamil nadu Express.,The Adi sankara who did his Bachelors in Sankara college ,Kalady,before the great conquest of North India ultimately establishing the 5 great colonies in Kashi,Dwarika ,Puri,Sringeri and Kanchi,The Chembai Vaidyanatha bhagavathar,Sri Ravishankar of the Art of Living,Sundaram Ramaswami the writer Krishna premi,The Great Galatta kootam which finally thrashed the tag of illiteracy in Chozhians .,As for as the legend of Cho. Ramaswami goes I don’t have his birth certificate nor can I attest to the chozhiyans claim of Obama being one of them through Kenyan geneology.

I am certain about the following assertions that I am about to present before you that one Sankara iyer 6 generations[my grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather] above me proceeded from Kongalakurissy from Tirunelveli dist with Bhairavar as family deity at Kongalakurissy and 3 generations later landed in Haripad as Krishnaiyer,my father’s grand father and founded the Koipallimadom.. My father’s grand mother Mrs.Kuppuchy[Swarnamuky] landed in Haripad from Varkala..My maternal grandfather A.Ramaswami iyer’s grand father Mr.Subbu iyer and Lekshmi ammal landed from Kadamboduvazhvu,near Nangunery in Tirunelveli dist. with family deity of Perumal of Vaseppunery, at Kollam.. Hence I am proud to say that I am a hundred% pure CHOZHIYIAN from Pandiya desha from Tirunelveli dist migrated to Kerala around 300 years back. and also married a 100% chozhiyachy Ponni the Great ,born of Chandramouleeswara iyer whose grand father’s grandfather L. Subba iyer hailed from Kadayanallur of Tirunelveli dist,with Vasakappanery Perumal as family deity . The perfect chozhiya family at Madhuvan Ottapalam with 2 great chozhiya kids and the great migration continues North with added dilution the Chanakya route. LONG LIVE THE CHOZHIYA DYNASTY.