Gavara

Gavaras are one of the many small communities or caste of Andhra who live mostly in the north coastal districts. Large concentrations of Gavara population are distributed in and around Anakapalle in Visakhapatnam district. A few isolated villages in Vizianagaram and East Godavari districts are also inhabited by Gavaras. A large number of Gavara families from these villages migrated to other parts of India mainly as Railway employees and workers in Steel factories.

The prominent towns in other states with sizeable Gavara population are Jamshedpur/Tatanagar (Jharkhand) and Kharagpur (West Bengal). During British rule, Gavaras spread to Burma (Myanmar), Malaysia, Mauritius, Fiji and South Africa. In more recent decades, educated Gavaras moved into higher jobs in Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and abroad. Gavara population in the United States of America grew in leaps and bound in the 1990s onwards compared to a handful of families until 1980s.

A similarly named Gavara Naidu/Kavarai community is prominent in southern Andhra and Tamil Nadu. Although they share a common name and Profession the Gavara Naidu are related to Kapu/Balija Naidu Community ,both the communities are not connected and there is very little social interaction between them.

Origins

Legends

Like other communities, the Gaura folklore describes interesting stories about its origin. Interestingly, some of these traditional stories closely resemble the stories of other communities like Vaisyas, Sadshusettis and Perikis. Additionally, some of the surnames and gotras of the Gauras overlap with those of the Sadhusettis, Perikis, and Vaisyas.

There are three popular stories about the origin of the Gauras. The first two legends connect them with the Kauravas of Mahabharata.

• According to one of the legends, when Parkshit become the ruler after the great Mahabharata war, he desired to marry a lady of Kaurava descent. The Kauravas did not accept his proposal and escaped to far away country, Andhra to save their honour as well as their lives. The descendents of these Kauravas gradually called themselves as Gauravas or Gavaras.
• According to the second legend, the daughter of Dussala, named Gauri married Subahu, the son of one of the kauravas. Their lineage came to be known as Gauras.
• The third legend is of historical character and closely resembles the story of the Vaisyas known from the Kanyakapurana written by Guru Bhaskaracharya of the 16th century. According to this story, once the ruler of Vengi desired to marry a lady of the Gaura community and asked them to give their consent to the marriage. Due to some reasons, the community was not prepared to give their consent. Fearing retaliation by the king, the community escaped from Vengi to Pudimadaka by sea route and settled down in the areas of Anakapalle in the Visakhapatnam district. On the other hand, the story of Vaisyas mentions the split among the Vaisya community on the issue of marriage with their community’s lady with the king. Out of 714 gotras, only 102 gotras of Vaisyas are stated to have stood for their prestige and honor by challenging the king, whereas the remaining families decided to run away from the place. Based on these parallel episodes of Gauras and Vaisyas, it can be said that the Gauras were among those 612 gotras of the Vaisyas and are an important subset of the Vaisya community.

Whatever might be the historic value of these legends, it is believed that the Gavaras were one among the many communities that came down to settle in South India from Ahichchatra from Panchala, in the early centuries of the Christian era.

• According to some reachers of Andhra University Gavaras are from srilanka. They were refused by srilanka later on, by the sea route they migrated and settled in anakapalli near visakhapatnam.

Gauri Devi

Some say that the community has come to be known as 'Gauris' or 'Gaureyas' because they worshipped 'Gauridevi', the consort of Lord Shiva, as their tutelary deity. We may trace out the antiquity of this worship of Gauri by Gauras to the practice of 'Gaurivratha' in the 13th century referenced in an inscription of the Matsyas of Oddadi. Gaurivrata is in practice even now among the women of the Gaura and Balija communities. The word 'GAURA' or 'GAVARA' also means a Vanija or businessman. According to the book, Suka Saptati, Gauras formed a separate community with business as its profession.

Literary evidence

History of Gavras is a subject of study of many books. S. Pratap Reddi in his Andhrula Sanghika Charitra refers to the Gauras (Gavaras) as the community who migrated from Bengal in 6th & 7th centuries. E. Thurston in his “Castes and Tribes of Southern India” considered Gauras as a sub-division among the Vaisyas and also complimented them as the best agriculturists of the area.

K. Bhogalingacharya in his article (1931) entitled Gauravulu Kauravulu Kara? attempted to connect the Gauras with the epic Kauravas, just on the basis of myths and legends. In a similar manner D. Adinarayana (1936) wrote an article entitled Gaura Kulobavamu tracing out the origin of the Gauras. Petakamsetty Sita Ramayya made a successful attempt to bring all the known facts about the early history of this community in his work entitled Gaurula Prachina Charitra (1961). Villuri Ramana surveyed surnames as well as the Gotras of Gavara. Karri Appala Narasimha Rao (1986) attempted to identify some of the early rulers of Andhra as Gauras in his work entitled Sri Satavahanuladrulu. Besides these, there are works like Balija Kula Charitra and Sadhusetti, which mention the details of the Gaura community too. All these works deserve credit for bringing out the historical and traditional accounts of the Gauras.

Inscriptions

Inscriptions form an important source of information on the history of the Gavaras. A number of inscriptions issued between the 13th & 15th centuries A.D. at places like Panchdarlu, Draksharamam, Gudimetta, Tatikonda, Malkapuram, Kolakaluru, Kopparam and Srisailam offer much information about the services of the Dadi and Kanisetty families under the Kakatiya dynasty power. Similarly the copper plate records like the Narsipatnam plates of Vajrahasta Deva of the Eastern Gangas dated A.D.1045 offer clues on 'Gaurasetti Vishaya', one of the early settlements of the Gauras in Andhra. The community is rarely mentioned in the literary works of early centuries. Only known work that mentioned the community is Suka Saptati written by Pala Vekari Kadiripati of the 17th century.

The inscriptions at Punganur and Nelapalli in Chittor district state about the early settlements of Gaura Settis in the in those areas even before the 10th century. On their way to Ahichchatra to Kanchipuram, they settled at various places in Andhra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

External links

http:// www.gawaraworldwide.com

• http://www.gavarakalyanam.org
• The connected Kaurava race of Sri Lanka

Surnames and Gotrams

Surname - Gotram

• Adari - Munikula
• Aitamsetti - Vajraudham
• Alla - Sowsheelya
• Badisetti - Bhardwaja
• Bheemarasetti - Sootra
• Bheesetti - Sootra
• Bhimisetti - Sootra
• Boddeti - Suwarna
• Boddeda - Suwarna
• Buddha - Haripathi
• Chadaram - Sudarshana
• Dadi - Janugula
• Doddi - Aparna
• Kalla - Mauktika
• Kandregula - Mauktika
• Kanisetti - Shrungara
• Karri - Narella
• Koilada - Supratishta
• Kodali - Supratishta
• Konathala - Sujnana
• Koribilli - Thardhya
• Maddala - Shathasosha
• Madeti - Manjula
• Malla - Midhunakula
• Marisetti - Srishaila
• Molleti - Sowjanya
• Peela - Janardhana
• Pentakota - Sowmya
• Petakamsetti - Vrushabha
• Pilla - Mangala
• Polamarasetti - Prudukula
• Polimera - Dhannulla
• Rajagiri - Prapradhama
• Rapeti - Veginati
• Sadaram - Sudharshana
• Saragadam - Panchajanya
• Sarisa - Pradyumna
• Silaparasetti - Marithi
• Surisetti - Inakula
• Tanakala - Gopraja
• Tekkali - Dhanikula
• Vodisetti - Prdhumna
• Velaga - Mardhava
• Villuri - Munikula
• Vegi - Kashmira
• Yellapu - Pydipala