Kadyamada Okka

About the Okka

Kadyamada okka used to be called Kaḍi thakka, when they were paỊeyagaras in Arvathoklu – they do not know why. Hence their name became Kaḍiyamaḍa and then Kaḍyamaḍa. 

One of the early ancestors of this okka went with his Amma friend to the Bottlappa namme (in Kunda). When they returned home they heard the sounds of a tiger roar and a cock crow, but could not find the tiger or the cock. They only found a stone cock. Later, when the friends went to the forest to hunt – the Kaḍyamaḍa ancestor with his bow and arrow, and his friend with his hunting dogs – they found Botekara Ayyappa and established him here. He was called Kaḍlayyappa because his shrine was inside a thick forest.

This was a rich okka that periodically took rice on bullocks (eth por) to Malabar and traded it for oil, chillies, gold etc.

They became paỊeyagaras in the late 16th Century and defeated Nanjunḍarasa of Mysore who waged war on them on two occasions. Nanjunḍarasa vowed to Kaḍlayyappa that if he won the war the next time, he would offer the god seven moras (bamboo winnowing fans) filled with gold sovereigns. When Nanjunḍarasa attacked them the third time, their ancestor Appayya went to Kaḍlayyappa (to the thaere possessed by the god) to consult him, as he always did – but the god said nothing. Angered and disappointed, their ancestor cursed Kaḍlayyappa saying “Ind pareyatha nāvu endoo pareyathiraḍ” (let the tongue that speaks not today remain speechless forever). Even today Kāḍlayyappa there does not talk.

In the 17th century AD, Nanjunḍarasa of Mysore attacked the Kaḍyamaḍa okka for the third time with an army of 10,000, armed with information on the Kaḍyamaḍa okka’s war strategies, given to them by mischief-makers from the Apattira okka and BaỊajira okkas. (Since then the Kaḍyamaḍa okka has not had any marriage alliances with the Apattira or the BaỊajira okkas.) All the young men in the okka were killed in the war, and only women and children were left. Not wanting them to be captured by the enemy, Appayya set fire to their thatched mund mane with all of them inside it and jumped into the fire himself. Only Ammavva, of this okka, who was pregnant at the time and had gone to her thamane (Achikanḍa) was saved. She gave birth to a son Appayya, and came back to Arvathoklu with her son who revived the okka and is considered its karanava.

Appayya had only one son, and his son too had only one son. As a result, the okka was substantially depleted in numbers during the rule of the Rajas and the British.

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Kadiyamada Rhea Achaiah