Ramu Kaviyoor

  Part 5 Settlement of People Around Mahādéva Temple & Etymology of Place Names The caste system prevalent in Travancore was different from the one in Malabar. Yet there was something common about the distribution of people in villages till the end of 19 th  century. In the Kaviyoor  Brahmin   Grāmam , non-Hindus and ‘low-caste’ Hindus including ordinary  Nair s at the lower end of the hierarchy of the  Nair  caste were never allowed to construct houses near  illam s and temples so long as the  Brahmin s ruled. The study here is confined to Kaviyoor  Désham , not the ancient Kaviyoor  Brahmin   Grāmam . How cunning and exploitative the system was could be gauged from the following information. The settlement of people was such that the preferred categories stayed within ¾ th of a km of the Mahādéva temple. Others were kept out of this zone. List of castes which had residences within about 3/4 th  of a km of the Kaviyoor Mahādéva temple : (Excluded here are