Madampi ''(equivalent to

Lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or ar ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

)'' is an aristocratic title given to the uppermost subdivisions of

Nair The Nair , also known as Nayar, are a group of Indian Hindu castes, described by anthropologist Kathleen Gough as "not a unitary group but a named category of castes". The Nair include several castes and many subdivisions, not all of whom histor ...

s in Kerala, by the

Maharajah Mahārāja (; also spelled Maharajah, Maharaj) is a Sanskrit title for a "great ruler", "great king" or " high king". A few ruled states informally called empires, including ruler raja Sri Gupta, founder of the ancient Indian Gupta Empire, an ...

s of

Travancore The Kingdom of Travancore ( /ˈtrævənkɔːr/), also known as the Kingdom of Thiruvithamkoor, was an Indian kingdom from c. 1729 until 1949. It was ruled by the Travancore Royal Family from Padmanabhapuram, and later Thiruvananthapuram. At ...

and

Cochin Kochi (), also known as Cochin ( ) ( the official name until 1996) is a major port city on the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea, which is a part of the Arabian Sea. It is part of the district of Ernakulam in the state of K ...

. Usually, it was given in addition to the Pillai title. Madampis served as ''

Jenmi Jenmi is the term used to refer to the landed aristocracy of Kerala. They formed the landowning nobility as well as the landed gentry of the region during Medieval times, and the majority of the estates and feudal properties were owned by this ...

s'' or landlords during the pre-independence era. Their power was severely reduced after the

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

government passed the

Land Reforms Ordinance Due to the ancient land relations and taxation and regulation under the British Raj, at the time of independence, India inherited a semi-feudal agrarian system, with ownership of land concentrated in the hands of a few individual landlords. Sinc ...

. The title Madampi was also used in Cochin, to denote the 71 Nayar chiefs who ruled under the Maharajah of Cochin. A few

Nambuthiri The Nambudiri (), also transliterated as Nampoothiri, Nambūdiri, Namboodiri, Nampoothiri, and Nampūtiri, are a Malayali Brahmin caste, native to what is now the state of Kerala, India, where they constituted part of the traditional feudal el ...

landlord families, most notable of whom being those in Vanjipuzha and Makilanjeri, were also given the Madampi title. In Cochin, the Madampis had their own armies, but seldom numbered more than 100. Their power was only a little bit higher than that of the ''Desavazhis''. Madampis supplied chieftains along with soldiers in times of war to the King.Kerala district gazetteers, Volume 10 By A. Sreedhara Menon p.108 This title is equivalent to others such as

Eshmanan Eshmanan (corruption of Yajamaana Sanskrit ''leader'') is a term used in Kerala (south India) to refer to a feudal landlord.{{citation needed, date=April 2019 The term means "lord" in Old Malayalam and referred to Chemb azhi nambi or (Chengazhi n ...

, Eman and

Mannadiyar Mannadiar (or Mannadiyar) kshathriya Nair caste Palakkad region of Kerala. A majority of Mannadiars are land owners, agriculture being their traditional occupation, ranging from farmers to large feudal landlords (jenmis). They had relocated from ...

which were used in

and

Malabar Malabar may refer to the following: People * Malabars, people originating from the Malabar region of India * Malbars or Malabars, people of Tamil origin in Réunion Places * Malabar Coast, or Malabar, a region of the southwestern shoreline o ...

areas. Other titles used by the Nairs include Kurup, Pillai, Panikker, Valiathan, Menon, Kaimal, Thampi, Chempakaraman, Nambiar, Nayanar, Kartha and Unnithan.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Madampi (Nair Title) Nair Mad

See also

References