Gowda
People of the Vokkaliga community ascribe various honorifics to their castemen, the most popular of which is Gauda anglicized as Gowda. Titles such as Reddy, Hegde, Shetty and so on are also popular, generally used according to their sub group, language spoken and geographical area they belong to. The words Vokkaliga and Gowda are almost synonymous in usage and in colloquial, Gowda has come to mean a Vokkaliga. However the term itself is also used by people of various other castes as an honorary title.
The etymology of Gauda is also heavily debated by scholars. The term and its archaic forms Gamunda, Gavunda, Gavuda (and hence Gauda), appear frequently in the inscriptions of Karnataka, recorded in the Epigraphia Carnatica. In fact the Epigraphia Carnatica is replete with such references to land grants, donations to temples, hero-stones (Veeragallu), stone edicts and copper plates dating back to the age of the Western Ganga Dynasty (est. 350 CE) and earlier. Attributing a Sanskrit origin, H.V.Nanjundayya has derived the word from Grama or Gava meaning a village and Munda meaning head, thus a Gamunda being the head of the village. Vokkaligas are traditionally known to have been feudal landlords and village chieftains and to this day remain major land-holders. Edgar Thurston, (Castes and Tribes of Southern India), the popular Kannada linguist Shamba Joshi and others propose a derivation from the Sanskrit - go (cow) and govala (cowherd) (Govala->Goula->Gowda). Horeover, though the Vokkaligas did practise animal husbandry, Govalas (from whence Golla) or the Yadava tribe form a separate caste group and they were traditionally herdsmen. Alternately Tamil origins to the word claim its derivation from kavundan or kamindan (one who watches over). The Vokkaligas of Tamil Nadu (found mostly in and around Coimbatore district) use 'Gowdar(though sometimes addressed by tamils as Kaundar)' as their surname. Whether the name Gauda/Gowda is an allusion to the Gauḍa region or not has not been conclusively proved.
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