women adopt the Vyshnava women's style of wearing cloths, and to all appearance they would pass for Vyshnava women. The Vyshnava Brahmins would not allow them to mess in their houses, though they treat rice and cakes prepared by them in temples and offered to god as pure and holy, and partake of them."
(j) Sankēthi. — The Sankēthis are confined to the Mysore Province. They speak a very corrupt form of Tamil, mixed with Canarese. The following account of them is given in the Mysore Census Report, 1891." They are found chiefly in the Mysore and Hassan districts. Their colonies are also found in Kadur and Shimoga. Their number seems to have been somewhat understated; many of them have probably returned themselves as Dravidas. So far as language is an indication of race, the Sanketis are Tamilians, although their dialect is more diluted with Kanarese than that of any other Kannada ridden Tamil body. Theirs seems to have been among the earliest immigrations into Mysore from the neighbouring Tamil country. It is said that some 700 years ago, about 1,000 families of Smartha Brahmans emigrated from the vicinity of Kanchi (Conjeeveram), induced doubtless by contemporary politics. They set out in two batches towards Mysore. They were attacked by robbers on the road, but the larger party of about 700 families persevered in the march notwithstanding, and settled near the village of Kausika near Hassan, whence they are distinguished as Kausika Sanketis. Some twelve years afterwards, the other party of 300 families found a resting place at Bettadapura in the Hunsur taluk. This branch has been called Bettadapura Sanketi. Their religious and social customs are the same. The Kausika Sanketis occasionally take wives from the Bettadapura section, but, when the married
