Govala/Golla and tamil KOvalar tribes

[Swaminathan Madhuresan]

 Important to know that a cognate of tamil kOvalar is found
in North India with the name, Govala/Goala. kOval is an
ancient town with major temples to both Vishnu and Shiva.

 C. P. Brown in his Telugu-English dictionary derives
Golla from Gorre 'a kind of sheep'. Compare with the
Tamil cognates from OTL:

koRi 02 1. sheep; 2. aries, a constellation of the zodiac

koRi-ttal 01 1. to nip off the husks of grains; to nibble grain; 2. to graze;
 to pick up food here and there, as cattle; to eat scantily;

koRRi 1. young calf; 2. cow with a young calf.

--- "Dr. N. Ganesan" <naga_ganesan at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
> Few years ago, Prof. Peter J. Claus, an anthropologist from
> California asked me how to explain the name of the
> herding caste name, "Golla". Gollas are found in all Indian
> region including the Deccan, Bihar, ... That time I did not
> have an answer to the Tulu expert, P. J. Claus who has
> written fieldwork regarding the yAdhavization phenomenon
> happening among various Golla tribes/castes.
>
> Online Tamil lexicon entry:
> *kOvalar* = 1) men of the sylvan tract, 2) herdsmen
>
> There are 100s of references for "kOvalar" as
> herdsmen in Sangam poetry and Alvar/NAyanmAr bhakti corpus.
> An example:
> kuRuntokai - "pal An2 kOvalar"
> tEvAram - "kollaivAyk kuruntu ocittuk kuzalum Utum kOvalan2um"
> (Krishna is the cowherd called Kovalan here.)
>
> In old times, Gollas were called "Govalas", usually
> rendered in English as Goalas. An example:
> Sir. Herbert Hope Risley, The People of India, 1908, Calcutta,
> p. 28:
> "In Bihar or the United Provinces the casteless tribes,
> Kols, Korwas, Mundas, and the like, who have not yet entered
> the Brahminical system, occupy the lowest place ... Then
> come the vermin-eating Musahars and the leather-dressing
> Chamars. This fisher castes, Bauri, Bind and Kewat, are
> a trifle higher in the scale; the pastoral *Goala*, the
> cultivating Kurmi, and the group of cognate castes from
> whose hands a Brahmin may take water follow in due order,
> and from them we pass to the trading Khatris, the
> landholding Babhans, and the upper crust of Hindu society."
>
> Obviously, tamil "kOvalar" > Govala (=Goala) > Golla.
>
> Regards,
> N. Ganesan
>


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