"A consideration of all the evidence," the Judge writes, "appears to me to prove conclusively that the plaintiff is a Nayar by caste.... What appears to me, from a consideration of the evidence, to be the safe inference to draw is that the members of the plaintiff's family, and also the descendants of certain other of the old Nayar chieftains, have for some time called themselves, and been called by others, Samantas, but that there is no distinctive caste of that name, and that the plaintiff is, as the defendant has described him, a Nayar by caste." [139] The Samantans are summed up as follows in the Gazetteer of Malabar. "Samantan is the generic name of the group of castes forming the aristocracy of Malabar, and it includes the following divisions:--Nambiyar, Unnitiri, Adiyodi, all belonging to North Malabar; and Nedungadi, Vallodi, Eradi, and Tirumulpad, all belonging to South Malabar. There are also Nayars with the title of Nambiyar and Adiyodi. Nedungadi, Vallodi and Eradi, are territorial names applied to the Samantans indigenous to Ernad, Walavanad, and Nedunganad respectively; or perhaps it may be more correct to say that the tracts in question take their names from the ruling classes, who formerly bore sway there. Eradi is the caste to which belongs the Zamorin Raja of Calicut. It is also the name of a section of Kiriyattil Nayars. The Raja of Walavanad is a Vallodi. Tirumulpad is the title of a class of Samantans, to which belong a number of petty chieftains, such as the Karnamulpad of Manjeri and the Tirumulpad of Nilambur. The ladies of this class are called Kolpads or Koilammahs. Many Nambiyars in North Malabar claim to belong to the Samantan caste, but there is at least reason to suppose that they are properly Nayars, and that the claim to the higher rank is of recent date. That such recruitment is going on is indicated by the difference between the number of persons returned as Samantans in the censuses of 1901 and 1891 (4,351 and 1,225 respectively), which is far above the normal percentage of increase of population. Kshatriyas wear the punul (thread); Samantans as a rule do not. Most Kshatriyas eat with Brahmans, and have a pollution period of eleven nights, indicating that their position in the caste hierarchy lies between the Brahmans with ten days and the Ambalavasis proper with twelve. Samantans as a rule observe fifteen days' pollution, and may not eat with Brahmans. Both follow marumakkatayam (inheritance in the female line), and their women as a rule have sambandham (alliance) only with Brahmans or Kshatriyas. Those who belong to the old Royal families are styled Raja or Tamburan (lord), their ladies Tamburattis, and their houses Kovilagams or palaces. Some Samantans have the caste titles of Kartavu and Kaimal. But it does not appear that there are really any material differences between the various classes of Samantans, other than purely social differences due to their relative wealth and influence."