Castes and Tribes of Southern India/Boddu

by Edgar Thurston

Boddu (navel). — An exogamous sept, or sub-division of Idigas and Asilis. It is recorded in the Gazetteer of the Bellary district, that "in the middle of the threshold of nearly all the gateways of the ruined fortifications round the Bellary villages will be noticed a roughly cylindrical or conical stone, something like a lingam. This is the Boddu-rāyi, literally the navel stone, and so the middle stone. Once a year, in May, just before the sowing season begins, a ceremony takes place in connection with it." (See Bāriki.)