Kerala tradition says Parashurama gave the land to Brahmins; only eldest Namboodiri sons could marry so estates never split, and land reform took them in 1969

The Keralolpathi, a chronicle whose surviving versions date from the 15th to the 19th century, says the god Parashurama raised Kerala from the sea with a throw of his axe and settled Brahmins in 64 villages, 32 of them in Kerala. Historians doubt it as history. Land held by Brahmins was classed as janmam, and the Namboodiri Brahmins and Nair chiefs were the landlords (janmis). To keep each family estate (illam) whole, only the eldest Namboodiri son married within the caste, taking up to three wives. Younger sons stayed single or formed unions (sambandham) with women of matrilineal castes such as the Nairs. In 1908 the Yogakshema Sabha, a Namboodiri reform body, demanded that younger sons be allowed to marry within the community, calling sambandham "humiliating to both communities." Laws in Cochin, Travancore and Malabar followed, and large households began to partition. Kerala's 1957 land bill was struck down; the 1963 Act and its 1969 amendment ended landlordism, made cultivating tenants owners and gave hut-dwellers their house plots. A Namboodiri family interviewed for a 2024 oral history said they lacked food after giving their land to tenants, that compensation was set at 12 times the rent, and that a tribunal case was still pending.