Writing early in the nineteenth century, Buchanan refers [148] to a dispute at Gubbi in the Mysore State between the Komatis and Banajigas, which arose from the former building a temple to their goddess Kanyakamma. Purnia, the Prime-minister, divided the town by a wall, thus separating the two parties. The Komatis claimed that it had been the custom for all parties to live together, and that it would be an infringement of the rules of caste for them to be forced into a separate quarter. The chief of the Komatis entered the town in procession, on horseback with an umbrella held over his head. This assumption of rank was regarded by the Banajigas with the utmost indignation. To such a pitch did the quarrel reach that, at the time of Buchanan's visit, there was a rumour current as to the necessity of killing a jack-ass in the street, which would cause the immediate desolation of the place. "There is," he writes, "not a Hindu in Karnata, that would remain another night in it, unless by compulsion. Even the adversaries of the party would think themselves bound in honour to fly. This singular custom seems to be one of the resources upon which the natives have fallen to resist arbitrary oppression, and may be had recourse to whenever the Government infringes, or is considered to have infringed upon the custom of any caste. It is of no avail against any other kind of oppression." A brief reference may be made to the part which the Komatis took, in bygone days, in the faction fights known as right and left-hand caste disputes. Some of the South Indian castes, including the Komatis, belong to the former, and others to the latter. Those belonging to the left-hand would not let those belonging to the right-hand pass through their streets with their marriage and other processions. The right-hand section was equally jealous of the left. The Komatis, who were among the early settlers in the town of Madras in the seventeenth century, were involved in faction disputes on two recorded occasions, once, in 1652 A.D., during the Governorship of Aaron Baker, and later on during that of William Pitt, [149] in 1707. When a wedding procession of members of one section passed through the streets of the other section, Pitt summoned twelve of the heads of each section, and locked them up in a room together, until the dispute should be adjusted. An agreement was speedily arrived at, according to which the right-hand settled on the west side of the town, now known as Pedda Naikan Pettah, and the left-hand on the east side, in what is at present called Mutialu Pettah. The Komatis accordingly are now mainly found in the western part of the city of Madras.