Sankethi Brahmins of Karnataka( Migrants from Chenkottai of Tamil Nadu to Karnataka )
Compiled by
P.R.Ramachander
(one of the sects of Karnataka Brahmins , known for their intelligence are Sankethi Brahmins., who are migrants from Shenkota of tamil nadu. I have compiled tid bits of info about them .Those who want to read more about them may refer
https://www.thelightbaggage.com/2019/08/the-forgotten-story-of-migration.html)
In a village Called Shenkotta , there lived a poor woman called Nacharu with her husband and son.One saint gave them a medicine called Jyothishmathi Thaila.He said it could kill a person or make him mad or make him wise .All three of them took it. The boy died, the man became mad and she became wise. The local villagers became jealous of her and tried to insult her . She cursed them that if they stay there they will perish and along with a Sangam of 1000 (group) people left her village and they called themselves SAngethi .It seems they travelled through Kerala and the people had doubt on them (sankha) and the sangethis turned in to Sankhethis. They reached end of kerala and crossed over to Karnataka,By that time they started calling Nacharu as Nacharamma and they were speaking a mixture of Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada and developed a dialect of their own called SAnkethi. (One sentence which has words from Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada can be - 'Unde Peri Yenaki Gottille' meaning 'I don't know your name'.)Their travails also made them learn several new dishes and they developed a sankhethi cusine. It seems in a place called Kowshika in the Lakshmi Keshava temple there is an idol of Nacharamma
Many groups from their village followed and settled in various places of Karnataka.(some of them settled in different parts of Thirunelveli district also) They have sub groups based on the place of their settlement The two important settlements are KOwshika and Bettadahalli.Most of the earlier people were devoted to Vedas , Sanskrit and music. Even today in a village populated mainly by them called Mathur they speak only n Sanskrit
Today, most of the Sankethis have been uprooted from their rural agricultural and Vedic background to urban life. A visit to a typical Sankethi house in Bangalore will greet one with 'Warango' meaning 'Welcome'. Their meal will have 'Chaar Saa' (word combination of Saaru in Kannada + Sadam in Tamil), Pulikeri, Oorvatlu and Gojju. Though the dialect of Sankethi is slowly dying, as more people from this generation are speaking the respective State language wherever they settle in, the legend of Nacharamma remains forever in their mind.
Sankethis are attached to the Sringeri Mutt .It seems once when the Sringeri Mutt wanted a competent Pandit to teach the young Swamiji of that Samasthanam in those early days, the choice fell upon one Vidyanipuna Ramasastry of the Sanketi community. When at the close of the course of study he was asked what he would desire to have as fee for teaching, he asked for exemption of his community from the customary fees payable by the disciples. This privilege is enjoyed by the Sanketi community even today.They believe That Ramayyan Dalavai , the great minister of the Travancore king Marthanda Varma, who advised him to give his kingdom to God Padmanabha was a Sankethi.- Vidwan Subbaraya Sastry who was later known as Advaitha Ananda , Markandeya Avadhani , SSri .H.R.Kesavamurthy , Mathur Krishnamurthy, Nanda Kumar, Sathyanarayan Shasthry staffing the Bharatheeya Vidya Bhavan in London; M.R. Narasimha Murthy, on the staff of Indian Institute of Science, recipient of Bhatnagar award; scores of professionals spread over India; and Mr. M.R. Balakrishna, H.S. Ramaswamy and a score of others working abroad are but a few of the Sanketjhi greats
