required for puja (worship) are placed, and the officiating priest sits near them. The enclosure is supposed to represent heaven, and the entrances are the gates leading thereto, before which food is placed on leaves. The eldest son, with the lamp, stands at the eastern entrance, while Siva is worshipped. The priest then repeats certain stanzas, of which the following is the substance. "You who come like Siddars (attendants in the abode of Siva) at midnight, muttering Siva's name, why do you come near Sivapadam? I will pierce you with my trident. Get away. Let these be taken to yamapuri, or hell." Then Siva and Parvati, hearing the noise, ask "Oh! sons, who are you that keep on saying Hara, Hara? Give out truly your names and nativity." To which the reply is given "Oh! Lord, I am a devotee of that Being who graced Markandeya, and am a Virasaiva by faith. I have come to enter heaven. We have all led pure lives, and have performed acts of charity. So it is not just that we should be prevented from entering. Men who ill-treat their parents, or superiors, those addicted to all kinds of vice, blasphemers, murderers, perverts from their own faith and priests, and other such people, are driven to hell by the southern gate." At this stage, a thread is passed round the enclosure. The son, still bearing the lamp, goes from the eastern entrance past the south and western entrances, and, breaking the thread, goes into the enclosure through the northern entrance. The Nandikol (hereditary village official) then ties a cloth first round the head of the eldest son, and afterwards round the heads of the other sons and agnates. The Valluvans abstain from eating beef. Though they mix freely with the Paraiyans, they will not eat with them, and never live in the Paraiyan quarter. The Valluvans are sometimes called Pandaram or Valluva Pandaram. In some places, the priests of the Valluvans are Vellala Pandarams. Valluvan.--A small inferior caste of fishermen and boatmen in Malabar. [106] Valmika.--Valmika or Valmiki is a name assumed by the Boyas and Paidis, who claim to be descended from Valmiki, the author of the Ramayana, who did penance for so long in one spot that a white-ant hill (valmikam) grew up round him. In a note before me, Valmiki is referred to as the Spenser of India. In the North Arcot Manual, Valmikulu, as a synonym of the Vedans, is made to mean those who live on the products of ant-hills. Val Nambi.--Recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as "a synonym for Mussad. Nambi is a title of Brahmans, and val means a sword. The tradition is that the name arose from the ancestors of the caste having lost some of the privileges of the Vedic Brahmans owing to their having served as soldiers when Malabar was ruled by the Brahmans prior to the days of the Perumals."