Dear Dr. Palaniappan,

In his article "Sociological Aspects of the Personal Names and Titles" (in the new volume South India Under the Cholas, OUP 2012 pp. 49-53; the relevant part of which was previously published as "The Mangala title in Pandya Inscriptions" in Rajagopal, ed. Kaveri: Studies in Epigraphy, Archaeology, and History, Panpattu Veliittakam, Chennai 2001), Y. Subbarayalu has discussed the occurrence of these figures in a series of seventh and eight century Pāṇṭiya records.  Differing from K V. Raman who shares your interpretation of these figures as brahmans (citing "The History of the Pandyas (in Tamil) Madras, 1977"; the only reference I can find for a 1977 Tamil language publication by this scholar is his Tolliyal āyvukaḷ, Chennai: Cekar Patippakam), Y.S. suggests that these figures were members of the barber caste, as well as medical practitioners.  I do not have the epigraphical publications to hand as I write this, but he reports that they are identified as members of the vaidyakula, which Raman saw as a derived from Veda, and hence presumed them to be Brahmans. By contrast, Y.S. reports (I did not know this myself) that maṅkala/maṅkaliyan is a name for a member of the barber community (citing the Tamil Lexicon; the MTL also has "மங்கலவினைஞன் maṅkala-viṉaiñaṉ, n. < id. +. 1. Barber, as doing auspicious work"), a caste-title also apparently available in Telugu.  The connection between medicine and barbers is a natural one, as Y.S. points out (p. 52), "barbers were also rural physicians [and the] ladies of the barber community were used to be [sic] midwives in villages".  

This is something that was paralleled in Europe, where the surgical profession emerged from barbers' guilds, rather than from the university educated doctors of medicine (surgeons in Britain, for instance, are still routinely addressed as "Mr./Mrs." instead of "Dr.").  

Best,

Whitney Cox

--


Dr. Whitney Cox
Senior Lecturer in Sanskrit
Department of the Languages and Cultures of South Asia,
School of Oriental and African Studies
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square
London WC1H 0XG