Of the Holeyas of the Mysore province, the following account is given in the Mysore Census Reports, 1891 and 1901. "The Holeyas number 502,493 persons, being 10.53 per cent. of the total population. They constitute, as their name implies, the back-bone of cultivation in the country. Hola is the Kanarese name for a dry-crop field, and Holeya means the man of such field. The caste has numerous sub-divisions, among which are Kannada, Gangadikara, Maggada (loom), and Morasu. The Holeyas are chiefly employed as labourers in connection with agriculture, and manufacture with hand-looms various kinds of coarse cloth or home-spun, which are worn extensively by the poorer classes, notwithstanding that they are being fast supplanted by foreign cheap fabrics. In some parts of the Mysore district, considerable numbers of the Holeyas are specially engaged in betel-vine gardening. As labourers they are employed in innumerable pursuits, in which manual labour preponderates. The Aleman sub-division furnishes recruits as Barr sepoys. It may not be amiss to quote here some interesting facts denoting the measure of material well-being achieved by, and the religious recognition accorded to the outcastes at certain first-class shrines in Mysore. At Melkote in the Mysore district, the outcastes, i.e., the Holeyas and Madigs, are said to have been granted by the great Visishtadvaita reformer, Ramanujacharya, the privilege of entering the Vishnu temple up to the sanctum sanctorum, along with Brahmans and others, to perform worship there for three days during the annual car procession. The following anecdote, recorded by Buchanan, [167] supplies the raison d'être for the concession, which is said to have also been earned by their forebears having guarded the sacred murti or idol. On Ramanujacharya going to Melkota to perform his devotions at that celebrated shrine, he was informed that the place had been attacked by the Turk King of Delhi, who had carried away the idol. The Brahman immediately set out for that capital, and on arrival found that the King had made a present of the image to his daughter, for it is said to be very handsome, and she asked for it as a plaything. All day the princess played with the image, and at night the god assumed his own beautiful form, and enjoyed her bed, for Krishna is addicted to such forms of adventures. Ramanujacharya, by virtue of certain mantras, obtained possession of the image, and wished to carry it off. He asked the Brahmans to assist him, but they refused; on which the Holeyas volunteered, provided the right of entering the temple was granted to them. Ramanujacharya accepted their proposal, and the Holeyas, having posted themselves between Delhi and Melkota, the image of the god was carried down in twenty-four hours. The service also won for the outcastes the envied title of Tiru-kulam or the sacred race. In 1799, however, when the Dewan (prime minister) Purnaiya visited the holy place, the right of