英和和英

出典:『Wikipedia』 (2011/06/21 05:10 UTC 版)

英語による解説

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Moothath (IAST:Mūttatu) (also written as Moothatu, Muttatu, Moosad, Musad) is a Hindu caste in Kerala. They belong to the Ambalavasi category as per the Kerala government census but are a closed community that neither belong to the Namboothiri nor adhering to the Pushpaka Brahmin. Thus they have a unique identity and mostly inter marry within the same community. Like Namboothiri Brahmins and certain other castes in Kerala they are also family oriented community and known through different family names. Punnessry, Vattapalli, Padakassery, etc. are few of these families and the importance of family name rather than the individual can be traced back to practices in the central/North Travancore(erstwhile) region. Though some of the members have the surname Sarma/Sharma majority of the people still keep Moothathu as their surname. The house of a Moothath is known as Illom or Mana. The married woman of a Moothathu community is known as Manayamma. Their main duties were taking the Ottu(Bronze)thidambu during Seeveli (Sree Bhutha bali), attend inside duties of Sreekovil during Deeparadhana, cleaning of Sopanam which is considered as "Padam"(Leg) of deity, arranging ingredients for temple requirements & festivals, and for Yagnas & yagas too. Most of this community members had the responsibility to keep the keys to the temple main deity(sreekovil) while some families had additional responsibility of Thiru Aparanam(Temple Jewellery). Present times have seen them migrating to other fields or cities and eventually giving temple responsibilities to Devasam Board. But community wise they can be reckoned as united and highly communicative knowing the members through families.