Karanavar or Karanavan or Karanava, parsimoniously speaking, was used as a title or to denote the male head in

Malayali The Malayali people (; also spelt Malayalee and sometimes known by the demonym Keralite) are a Dravidian ethnolinguistic group originating from the present-day state of Kerala and Union Territory of Lakshadweep in India, occupying its south ...

, Tulu and

Coorg Kodagu district () (also known by its former name Coorg) is an administrative district in the Karnataka state of India. Before 1956, it was an administratively separate Coorg State at which point it was merged into an enlarged Mysore State ...

society. Karnavar is also a title for some aristocratic Nair families in and around Budhanur, Chenganoor, Kerala. These families are all branches of the same original family from Budhanur. One legend is that it was conferred by

Marthanda Varma Anizham Thirunal Marthanda Varma (Malayalam: ; 1706 – 7 July 1758) was the founding monarch of the southern Indian Kingdom of Travancore (previously Venadu) from 1729 until his death in 1758. He was succeeded by Rama Varma ("Dharma Raja") ...

the King of

Travancore The kingdom of Travancore (), also known as the kingdom of Thiruvithamkoor () or later as Travancore State, was a kingdom that lasted from until 1949. It was ruled by the Travancore Royal Family from Padmanabhapuram, and later Thiruvanan ...

, while consolidating his newly found Kingdom of Thiruvithamkur (Travancore), the nephew Rama Varma (later Dharma Raja) and the sister of Marthanda Varma were passing through the said area under the protection of Vattaparambil Valiathan when they were attacked by the powerful Nair Lords,

Ettuveetil Pillamar The Ettuveetil Pillamar (Lords of the Eight Noble Houses) were Nair, Nair nobles from eight ruling Houses in erstwhile Travancore, Travancore Kingdom in the present-day Kerala, India. They were associated with the Padmanabhaswamy temple in Vena ...

Venad Venad was a medieval kingdom between the Western Ghat mountains of India with its capital at city of Quilon.Noburu Karashmia (ed.), A Concise History of South India: Issues and Interpretations. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014. 143 ...

. Marthanda Varma's brother-in-law and other fighters lost their lives, but the sister, the Rani of Attingal, and her son escaped and ran through the fields ("Budhanoor padam"), where they encountered an aristocratic Nair family man who was managing farming in the field. They addressed the man as "Karnavar" and asked for his help. He helped them by hiding in his tharavad from the Ettuveettil Nairs, protecting him, and informing the nearby King's ally known as Aaruveetil Madampimar who in turn informed the Vakkavanjipuzha Madhom, whose head, known as the Vanjipuzha Thampuran, was an ally of Marthanda Varma. Later Marthanda Varma endowed him with riches and the hereditary surname of "Karnavar" when he became the Maharajah.

Kerala

The senior most maternal uncle was the head of the matrilineal joint families or

Tharavadu Tharavad, also spelled as Tharavadu () (തറവാട്), is the Malayalam word for the ancestral home of aristocratic Nair families in Kerala, which usually served as the common residence for the Matrilineality, matrilineal joint family ...

was called Karnavar. The authority of the Karnavar in a family is unquestionable. Even after the decline of Matrilineal system, the word is used to denote authority, and elderly person. This titile is given by the Maharaja of Travancore to an aristocratic

Nair The Nair (, ) also known as Nayar, are a group of Indian Hindu castes, described by anthropologist Kathleen Gough as "not a unitary group but a named category of castes". The Nair include several castes and many subdivisions, not all of whom hi ...

family because they have saved the Rani of Attingal. The honorific plural 'Karanavar' is used for the community point man or head of

Bhagavathi Bhagavatī (Devanagari: भगवती, IAST: Bhagavatī), is an Indian epithet of Sanskrit origin, used as an honorific title for goddesses in Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, it is primarily used to address the goddesses Sarasvati, Lak ...

temples. In the old days, the 'Koil Thampuran (a Namboothiri ruler) would nominate him.

Kodagu and Tulu

The founder of a Kodava ''Okka'' (clannish family) was known as "karona". During ancestral spirit worship, a Malayali would act as a

shaman Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...

and would get possessed by Karona spirit of a particular Okka.

References

{{Reflist Kerala society Karnataka society Nair