Tradition has it that when the Chettiars migrated from Chola Nadu, they settled in and around a village called Ilayanthankudi in Pandya Nadu. And here the Pandya king granted to their care the village temple. Over the near decade or so, groups of Chettiars moved on from here to settle in other villages not far from their first settlement and, in time, eight other clusters of villages with Chettiar settlement had been established. To each of them the Pandya king granted a temple in perpetuity. The nine temples, thus, became the ‘family’ temples of the clusters and each cluster evolved as a subdivision of the Chettiars of what might be described as a fraternal clan. These fraternal members and their families are called pangalis. Once, when everyone knew each other, the pangalis bond was one of the strongest factors in keeping the Community cohesive. Over the years, pangalis have spread further and further and today, few know any but the pangalis in villages immediately neighboring theirs and more often only those pangalis with whom they share a common ancestor.
The contribution of Tamil country of the Nagarathar people of traditions
