The Music of the Melakkar

 Part 3 Melakkar and the breach of the Isai Vellalar borders. As I mentioned in the previous article, there were two distinct aspects to the Carnatic music tradition, the vocal and the non-vocal performers, i.e. the backing instrumentalists. While both were dependent on each other, the development of one or the other was intrinsically related to the positioning of the caste to which the