Thuluveeran is the chief among the Theyyas who came to the Malanadu from Thulu Nadu. Thuluveeran Theyam is performed only in very few places. Thuluveeran Theyyam belongs to the group of heroes who became gods after death. Thuluveeran Theyyam is based in the region near Udupi in Karnataka. Anjutan category in Vela community have the right to perform Thuluveeran Theyam.
This is the story about the origin of Thuluveeran Theyyam. Thulu Raja Ballal was a king who ruled Thulu Nadu around the 16th century. One day, when Ballal Rajan was hunting in the forest, he tripped on a big thorn in his leg. Rajan, writhing in pain, finished hunting and returned to the palace. But despite the best efforts of the doctors in the palace, they could not remove the thorn from the king’s leg and relieve the excruciating pain. Despite the efforts of many skilled physicians, there was no relief from the king’s pain. Knowing this information, a woman from the Villava community named Thei expressed her interest in treating the king and the king agreed to it. Thei, who was an expert in treating poisons, easily removed the thorn from the king’s leg and applied medicine to relieve the pain. The King and the Queen congratulated Thei and praised her talent.
Thei was fully pregnant at the time of the king’s treatment. After treatment, thei felt sick and collapsed. Realizing the condition of Thei, the king’s wife immediately arranged for Thei to give birth in the palace. Thei gave birth to two devine sons. But thei died with the birth of children. The king and his wife brought up the two children, orphaned by the death of their mother, with their own sons in the palace. At that time, when casteism was rampant, many people were intolerant of the Ballal king and his wife, who belonged to the Brahmin community, raising the children of a Villava woman. The most intolerant of the group was the minister of the palace. It was beyond what the minister could bear to see the children of the two Villava communities growing up together with the princes. The minister always tried to blame and humiliate those two children whenever he got the chance.
Despite the ridicule and accusations of others, both children learned all the shasthras and grew up to be very clever. But one day when the taunts of the minister became too much to bear, the children attacked the minister sportingly. The king, who was saddened by this, sent the children to a distant place with some agricultural land. So they both farmed and lived on that farm land. But the minister did not give peace to the children there either. The minister was constantly harassing the children by buying another land next to their farm. So one day the impatient children shot the minister with an arrow and killed him.
Remembering the consequences of killing the minister, both of them left the country. They saw Kunthapuram, Karkala, Enmur, Kunhinji and Mangalore. Finally they stayed in the house of a person called Inni Mani. They quickly became the favorites of the locals, by helping the good people and punishing miscreants. And so the king of Udupi took these brave men into his army. With the strength of both of them, the king resisted and defeated the attack from the enemy country. But one of the twins was killed by the deception. The one who left also committed suicide in the distress of knowing the death of his brother.
Both of them who were divine by birth became God’s sons by death and established themselves in Innimani’s village. The two people who became sons of God started their migration. One migrated in Thulu Nadu itself but the other went to Malanad. Thus, the hero who went from Thulu Nadu to Malanadu is known as Thuluveeran. Thuluveeran reached Malanad and joined Bhagwati in Thulu forest. Thuluveeran, who reached the Tulur forest, later reached Maviccheri Bhagavathy’s guard.
