Chennai
Chennai
The Telugu speaking community has scattered itself, over time, throughout South India.
The Telugu community can be broadly divided into two divisions, KAMMAS & KAPUS. Balija Chetty,which we belong to, comes under the section KAPUS. The Balijas are said to have two main sub-divisions, namely Desa (Kota or a Fort) and Peta (Street)Desa Balija are those whose ancestors are believed to be the Balija (Nayak ) Kings of Madura, Tanjore and Vijayanagar or provincial governor in those kingdoms. Peta Balijas are those like Gajulas (Bangle sellers)and Perika (salt sellers) who live by trade. In Tamil districts, Balijas are known as Vadagams (Telugu people) and Kavarais (Gavara in Tamil).
The name Balija is said to be derived from the Sanskrit word Bali(a sacrifice) and Ja (born )signifying that the Balijas owe their origin to the performance of the yagam.
Like other Telugu castes, the Balijas have many “House names” (Inti peru). The following are some examples:
There are numerous sub-divisions of the Balijas, the following are some of them:-
Each one of the “House names” have their own Gothras.
Having read about the Balija community in general, we would like to mention a few interesting points about our community. Our community calls itself as “Desayi Gavara” (Kavarai). Balijas were basically a trading community, majority of them settled in villages and towns in and around Chinglepet and Madras. (Chennai). We presume our ancestors were traders as most of them have the title “Chetty”added to their names similar to the “Chettiars” of Tamilnadu and Shetty of Karnataka.
Our community has many “House names”(inti peru) We do not know how these names originated , probably these name came into being over time based on their vocation, place of stay, habits etc,
Some of the House names of our community are as follows:
Gudusai (hut)
Kooraku (greens)
Nandi (bull)
Thaati
Gowri
Gopathi (Godla)
Kanni
Katakam
Paranji
Pathal
Lala
Verry
Thriuvalam
Acharavakkam
Mangalam
Kottala
Gidingi
Rakkas /Kukala
Gunnam
Beemala
Gejjala
Dhandu
And many more