Kerala_Iyers
Kerala Iyers
Brahmin Subcaste
Kerala Iyers, Pattars or Bhattars, are Brahmins of the Indian state of Kerala ; people who were residents in the Kerala region. They are Hindus. The community consists of two groups - the Palakkad Iyers and Iyers of the Cochin and Travancore regions.[1]
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Kerala Iyers, like the Iyers of Tamil Nadu and the Nambudiris of Kerala, belonged to the Pancha-Dravida classification of India's Brahmin community. They mostly belonged to the Vadama and Brahacharanam sub-sects. Iyers were usually not recruited as the priest (shanthi) in Kerala temples which followed Tantric rituals. So Iyers being Vedic scholars built their own temples in their Agraharams to conduct pooja, since they followed different rituals and not the Tantric rituals of the Nambudiris.[2]