Guru Karona, the dead of the okka

The Kodava dead are the karana of the okka, the patrilineal clan, and the founders of the okka are its Guru Karona. They are not ancestors in the sense of people who are remembered: they are present, they are in the kanni kombare at the end of the ain mane, the clan house, and they are served before the living at every occasion the okka holds. Kodavas describe themselves as Hindu and return that on a census, so what is distinctive here is not a separate religion but the form of the rite, which has no brahmin, no fire and no mantra in it, and which gives the dead meat and drink rather than the sesame and water a brahminical shraddha gives. The senior man of the okka does it, and the okka rather than a temple is the unit it is done by.

There is no image. The kanni kombare is a room, kept at one end of the ain mane, and what stands in it is the lamp, the arms of the house and the vessels of the okka; some houses keep a plain stone or a low platform and nothing more. The ain mane itself is the thing that is cared for: the house belongs to the okka, it is not sold, and a family that has moved away comes back to it on the days the karana are served.

The reckoning is by okka and not by a pantheon. Each okka has its own karana and its own Guru Karona among them, and no okka's dead are another okka's. Descent is patrilineal, a woman joins her husband's okka at marriage and is served by it when she dies, and the okka name is the first thing a Kodava gives when asked who they are. Beyond the okka stand the deity of the village and the deity of the place, and the karana are neither above nor below those but of another order altogether.

At the ain mane, by the okka, on the okka's own occasions: at Puthari, at Kailpodh, at a wedding, at a birth, at a death, and on the days each ain mane keeps for its own founders. Meat, rice and drink are set down for them in the kanni kombare by the senior man of the house, and nobody living eats or drinks until they have had their share. The younger touch the feet of the elders in the same hall and in the same breath, so that the living and the dead of the okka are honoured in one movement. No priest is called and nothing is read.

Kodagu

The religious centre of Kodava life, and the reason the okka rather than a temple is the unit. The karana are served at the ain mane at Puthari, at Kailpodh, at a wedding and at a birth, and a Kodava will name their okka before they name anything else.

Tulu Nadu

The coast next door holds the same shape of thing in its own way, a lineage served at its own shrine by its own people and not by a brahmin, which is why the Kodava karana and the Tulu daivas are so often described together.

• Kailpodh · Kail Muhurtha
• Puthari · Huthari