About us
About the Academy
The path the Kamma clan has travelled — and the work we carry forward today.
Our story
The path the Kamma clan has travelled
Our ancestors did not walk paths strewn with flowers to live in palaces. They swam through rivers of fire to shape the prosperous life we have today.
As the ages passed and the reign of kings came to an end, they stood out again in the struggle for freedom — as patriots who gave much in sacrifice.
Today the Kammavar community lives on as a community of many gifts — administrators, lawyers, doctors and farmers among us. We live as people devoted in faith, generous of heart, and unafraid of hard work.
Footprints of our past
How Madurai was saved
The events of the fourteenth century that brought our forebears to Tamil Nadu.
-
1311
The temples are plundered
In March and April 1311, Malik Kafur, general of Alauddin Khilji, plundered the great spiritual and cultural centres of the south — the Nataraja temple at Chidambaram, the Ranganathaswamy temple at Srirangam, and after them the Meenakshi Amman temple at Madurai — carrying away tonnes of priceless gold, diamonds and precious jewels, and thousands of horses and elephants.
-
1323
A second invasion
Soon after Malik Kafur departed with his plunder, Muhammad bin Tughluq of the Tughluq dynasty invaded once again.
-
1378
Madurai is freed
Prince Kumara Kampana of the Vijayanagara empire marched on Madurai, drove out the Sultanate's forces, and put an end to their tyranny.
-
Madhura Vijayam
A princess records the victory
The prince's wife, Gangadevi, was a scholar who could read, write and speak many languages. She recorded this history in Sanskrit as "Madhura Vijayam" — a work that is still read today.
-
Kammavar Naidu
Who we are
The generals and administrators who came with Prince Kumara Kampana to save Madurai are those known today as the Kammavar Naidu. Every other Telugu-speaking community, too, migrated with the prince and fought against the Sultanate.
-
Restoration
The temples rise again
Every temple the Sultanate had razed was rebuilt on a grand scale and restored to worship, and hundreds of acres of land were granted for its upkeep and worship. The temples became not only places of prayer but part of the administration, and a refuge for the people in times of war and danger. The great festivals of Tamil Nadu's foremost temples were given their splendid form — the most celebrated of them, Madurai's Chithirai festival.
Had Kumara Kampana not come from Andhra to save Tamil Nadu, every temple beyond Madurai would have been plundered. Had the raiders not been beaten at Madurai and driven north, many temples — the Nellaiappar temple at Tirunelveli among them — would have suffered, and after them the Anantha Padmanabhaswamy temple at Thiruvananthapuram would have been plundered too.
We must never forget that the warriors who saved Tamil Nadu from that great danger were Telugus.
What guides us
Our belief and our ideal
Our belief
We hold, wholeheartedly, that the one path for our community to rise is spirituality and the way of life that grows from it.
“Every girl is a form of the Goddess; every boy is Rama.”
The Kammavar Cultural Academy works steadily towards this ideal.
Our work
The objectives of the Kammavar Cultural Academy
Our work, temple by temple and family by family.
-
Through our kuladeivam temples
We visit kuladeivam (family-deity) temples across Tamil Nadu, consult their administrators, and enrol one of them as a member of the Kammavar Cultural Academy Charitable Trust.
-
Knowing every family
Through that member we gather the details of the families of the temple — how many boys and how many girls in each, which of them are in high school, higher secondary or college, and their ages.
-
Maha Sankalpam
For these children we hold "Maha Sankalpam" in the temples, impressing upon them the unity of their families and the elevated way of life of the Kamma clan.
-
Towards positions of authority
So that our children take their place in positions of authority in government, we encourage students in every way to sit for and succeed in UPSC, TNPSC and every government examination — and provide the facilities they need.
-
A life of devotion
Believing that spirituality is the path to our community's rise, we hold the Thiruppavai conference of Andal — "Soodikodutha Sudarkodi" — and Vishnu Sahasranama recitals, again and again.