Vokkaliga (, also transliterated as Vokkaligar, Vakkaliga, Wakkaliga, Okkaligar, Okkiliyan) is a community of closely related castes, from the Indian states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
As a community of warriors and cultivators they have historically had notable demographic, political, and economic dominance in Old Mysore (region). It is believed by some historians that the Rashtrakutas:"The community of the land tillers or agriculturists was known as vokkaligas. The importance given to the cultivation of land is amply demonstrated by the fact that numerous tanks were dug and irrigational facilities were provided at various places. Some of the Rashtrakuta inscriptions found in the Banavasimandala carry the depiction of a plough at the top. There is a view that the Rashtrakutas were originally prosperous cultivators, who later on dominated the political scene. Some of the inscriptions refer to them as Kutumbinah which is interpreted as meaning cultivators.":"Engraved on the ladle are the badges of the different castes composing this section, such as the plough of the Okkaliga, the scales of the Banajiga, the shears of a Kuruba, the spade of a Odda, the razor of a barber, the washing stone-slab and pot of an Agasa, and the wheel of a Kumbara." and Western Gangas were of Vokkaliga origin. The Vokkaligas occupied administrative positions in the Vijayanagara Empire.:"For instance, the tax structure and the process of its collection of the Vijayanagara rulers and their feudatories enabled the Brāhamans, the Jains and the highcaste Sudras namely the Bunts the Nāyaks and the Gowdas to emerge as powerful landed gentry." They later formed the early rulers of the Nayakas of Keladi.:"Venkatappa. ruled from 1504 to 1551. His son Bhadrappa died before him. During his reign the Moghals under Ranadullakhan seized Ikkeri and set up a, viceroy there. Then Virabhadrappa Nayaka ascended the Gadi and -retiring to Bidarur ruled over his country more peacefully than before.* His rule lasted for 15 years from 1551 to 1566. During his reign the rule of Vokkaligas came to an end and was replaced by the rule of Banajigas" The Vokkaligas had the most families in the ruling classes of the 17th century when the Arasu caste of the Wodeyars was created to exclude them.:"In the 17th Century, Chikkadevaraja created the Urs caste and classified it into 31 clans. Of these, 13 clans were deemed superior, while the remaining 18 were placed lower in the hierarchy. This latter comprised ruling families in the domain he was rapidly expanding. The most populous caste in this region, the Gowdas (the caste name Vokkaliga was later affixed to it during the British Census), clearly had more families in the ruling classes. But that did not deter Chikkadevaraja from omitting them from the new caste of 'Urs' that he had created.":"The royal house came from an extremely small group, the Arasus (Urs), which claimed warrior (Kshatriya) status but were viewed by the state's two largest landowning castes, the Lingayats and the Vokkaligas, as an inferior cowherd (Yadava) caste." Under the Kingdom of Mysore they operated autonomously:”The Lingayats and Vokkaligas enjoyed an unwritten and unspoken but very real promise of non-interference from the states princely rulers who came from a cow-herding jati-indeed, some believe that they were originally potters, an even humbler caste-and who now claimed Kshatriya status.”-James Manor and also served in the army and militia. The Vokkaligas formed the landed-gentry: "Vokkaligas are the landed gentry and the agriculturist caste of Karnataka." and warrior class of Karnataka.
Most subsects of the Vokkaliga community are designated as Forward castes by the Central Government of India, while some subsects in rural areas are designated as Other Backward Class by the Karnataka Government.:"Not all 115 sub-sects of the Vokkaliga community have been included under OBC. As a result, many sub-sects are deprived of government benefits. All sub-sects must be included under OBC and we must campaign for this, campaign for this," the statement said. The pontiff also said that Vokkaligas in urban areas were in dire straits and they needed more reservation. At present, some 20 sub-sects of Vokkaligas come under Category 3A with a 4 per cent reservation in Karnataka. Vokkaligas of the Lingayat faith are treated separately.
Vokkaligas commonly carry titles such as Gowda, Hegde and Gounder.:”The community has titles viz. Gowda, Gowdar, Gounder and Kounder.”
Etymology Vokkaliga Vokkaliga is a Kannada-language word found in some of the earliest available literary works of the language, such as the Kavirajamarga, Vikramarjuna Vijaya, and Mangaraja's Nighantu. Generally, the term has come to mean an agriculturist though various etymological derivations are available:
The word okka or okkalu is a Kannada word for a family or a clan and an okkaliga is a person belonging to such a family. This is an allusion to the totemistic exogamous clans that together form an endogamous subgroup, of which there are many amongst the Vokkaligas. These clans are called Bali, Bedagu, Kutumba, Gotra or simply Okkalu all of which mean family. They are named after their progenitor, primary occupation or, in most cases, after various birds, animals or objects. Vokkaliga is analogous to Kutumbin in Sanskrit. Okkalutana in Kannada means agriculture Alternate etymologies include , which means "threshing" in Kannada, and means someone from a family that threshes
Gowda According to historian Suryanath U. Kamath, the word Gowda derives from Gavunda.: "Villages had gramakuta or gavunda (gauda), the village headman. He had under him the village militia^ later called as talaras and tolls." The German Indologist Gustav Oppert opined that the root of ‘Gowda’ is a Dravidian word meaning "mountain".
The term "Gowda" and its archaic forms in Old Kannada such as Gamunda, Gavunda, Gavuda, Gonda, appear frequently in the inscriptions of Karnataka. The Epigraphia Carnatica is replete with references to land grants, donations to temples, hero-stones (Veeragallu), stone edicts and copper plates dating back to the age of the Western Ganga Dynasty (est. 350 CE) and earlier. The Gavundas were landlords that collected taxes and rendered military service to the kings. Noboru Karashima says the Gavundas had functions corresponding to that of the Chola Vellala Nattars.:"They are, for example, Gavunda chiefs and heggade revenue officers vis-à-vis the Chola Vellala nattars; kalnad military tenure vis-à-vis padai-parru or parigraham tenure in the Chola state" The majority of the gavundas were derived from the Vokkaligas; but by the 10th century, the term gavunda also came to denote chiefship of a community or group and was adopted by the heads of other communities assimilated into the early medieval state.
The Vokkaligas of Tamil Nadu use Gowdar and Gounder as their surname. The Tamil origins to the word Gounder claim its derivation from kavundan or kamindan (one who watches over).
Subgroups The term Vokkaliga was used to refer to Canarese cultivators. Vokkaliga community has several sub-groups within its fold such as Gangadhikara, Namdhari Vokkaliga, Morasu Vokkaliga, Kunchitiga, Halikkar(Palikkar) Vokkaliga, Reddy Vokkaliga, Gounder, Tulu Gowda. etc.:"The main sub-divisions are 'Morasu Vokkaliga', 'Gangadikara Vokkaliga', Kudu Vokkaliga, Kunchitiga, Hallikar(Pallikar) Vokkaliga, Namdhari Vokkaliga, Reddy Vokkaliga, Telugu Vokkaliga, Sarpa Vokkaliga, Uppinakolagada Vokkaliga, Mustiku Vokkaliga, Kapu Vokkaliga, Pakanatha Reddy Vokkaliga, Nadashetty Vokkaliga, Gowdas, Gounder and Vokkaliga Hegde." Lingayat converts of the various Vokkaligas are categorised as Lingayats.:"Lingayat converts of the various Vokkaligas are treated separately and kept under Lingayats."
Exogamy at the family/clan level is strictly controlled by using the idiom of Mane Devaru (the patron god of the given exogamic clan) which dictates that the followers of same Mane Devaru are siblings and marriage is thus forbidden, allowing marital alliances only with another clan and not within.
Gangadikara Vokkaliga The Gangadikara Vokkaligas, also known as the Gangatkars are numerically the largest among the Vokkaliga. The Gangadikaras are mostly found in the Mysore, Mandya, Chamarajnagar, Hassan, Bangalore, Ramanagara and Tumkur districts of Karnataka. Gangawadi was the name for the area covering these districts, ruled over by the Western Ganga Dynasty and Gangadikara is a contraction of the term Gangawadikara (A man of Gangawadi). According to Burton Stein and L. K. Iyer the Ganga rulers were Gangadikara Vokkaliga chiefs.:"Indeed, the very lacklustre of the Ganga rulers who preceded the Cholas and Hoysalas suggests that they were essentially peasant chiefs who neither sought nor managed to break their ties with the dominant peasant folk of the territory. That peasantry still identifies itself with the ancient Ganga designation; they are called, garigadikaras who in 1891 comprised forty-four per cent of the total population of the land-controlling peasantry of Mysore State (i.e. Vokkaligas). Gangadikara is a slight contraction of the term gangavadikara, ‘men of the Ganga country’.":"The Gangadikara seem to be a more recent stratum, whose name reminds us of the Ganga-kings, who ruled in Mysore in the 10th century. We may regard their connections with the former ancient ruling house as very similar to those of the Arasu, the present-day aristocracy of Mysore, with the present- day ruling family. " The Gangadikara Gowdas claim to be descendants of the erstwhile Ganga rulers. The administrative setup of Gangas vested power in the Ooru Gauda, Nadu Gauda, Pergade (archaic for Hegde, Pergade->Peggade->Heggade) and so on, at various levels of administration and apart from administrative duties, the Gauda was expected to raise militia when called for.
The Gangadikaras and other Vokkaligas were considered analogous to the Vellalar Chieftains of Tamil Country.:"Sharing an equally prestigious role in Karnataka, the Vokkaligas are divided into a number of territorial divisions. The Gangadikara Vokkaiigas (Karalar) are concentrated in the south-central portion of Karnataka abutting modern Andhra having long shared the territory with Telugu speaking Reddis; Nonaba Vokkaiigas inhabit the tract on the northern bank of the Tungabhadra, medieval Nolambavadi. Other Vokkaliga groups are similarly clustered in other parts of modern Karnataka" They are Deccan Kshatriyas corresponding to Marathas of Maharashtra. The Gangadikaras and the Kongu Vellalars could possibly share a common origin.:"The Gangadikara peasantry of Gangavadi appears to have been more significantly linked to the Kongu peasantry to the south than to peasant peoples in the central and northern parts of medieval Karnataka. Similarly, the Marasu Vokkaligas of eastern Bangalore and central and southern Kolar districts appear to have been linked to Tondaimandalam" In fact, the word Konga is the Tamil equivalent for Ganga.
The Gangadikaras have two primary sections – the Bujjanige (or Dhaare Shastradavaru) and the Pettige (or Veelyada Shastradavaru) based on differences in rituals performed during the wedding ceremony. They can be Shaiva or Vaishnava in religious affiliation (called Mullu and Dasa sects). Cheluru Gangadikaras (also called Chelaru), another small sub-sect, are said to be strictly vegetarian, a vestige of the times when the Gangas followed Jainism. Oral traditions of the people maintain that after the decline of the Ganga power they reverted to Hinduism retaining certain Jain practices. The Gangadikara Vokkaligas have as many as 40 kulas, exogamous clans, known in Kannada as Bedagu.
Morasu Vokkaliga