vaDama etc

[K V N Gopal]

On Thu, 13 May 1999, nanda chandran wrote:

That there have been conversions from Smartha to Vaishnava and
vice-versa will be clear when the history of many of the brahmin
communities over the centuries are examined. An example is the
history of the community of 'Puduru Dravidas' in Andhra to which
i belong. The group appears to have migrated to Andhra around the
11th-12thc A.D.

The elders claim to belong to the 'kanDramANikya bR^ihaccharaNam' group.
But we have both Smartas and SriVaishnavas amongst us sharing the same
family name and gotra with some families appearing to have links to
Ramanuja and Yamunacharya and other early SriVaishnava Acharyas. Some
of them have become Smartas again sometime after the fall of the
Vijayanagar empire.


Gopal