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Saliya (also known as Saliyar, Chaliyan) is a South Indian Hindu caste. Their traditional occupation was that of weaving and they are found mostly in the regions of northern Kerala, southern coastal Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu as well as Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

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Encyclopedic overview

7 sections
Contents
  • Etymology
  • History
  • Edanga and Valanga divisions
  • Relationship to other Malayali castes
  • See also
  • References and notes
  • Additional references

Saliya (also known as Saliyar, Chaliyan) is a South Indian Hindu caste. Their traditional occupation was that of weaving and they are found mostly in the regions of northern Kerala, southern coastal Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu as well as Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

==Etymology== In the Kannada and Telugu regions, early names for weaving groups were Saliga, Sale, Sali and similar forms. Another term was Jeda (and Jandra), which meant “spider”. Scholars note that Saliga is a tadbhava form of the Sanskrit jalikha, meaning spider or weaver, while Jeda is a native Kannada word.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Chaliyan” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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