Iyers Today
The traditional occupation of Iyers involved ministering in temples or performing Hindu religious rites. However, since ancient times, Iyers were never prohibited from taking to secular occupations. Iyers were frequently employed as administrators by ancient Tamil kings. During the rule of the Medieval Cholas, they even gave the kingdom its chief army commanders.
In addition to their earlier occupations, Iyers today have diversified into a variety of fields. Three of India's Nobel laureates, Sir C. V. Raman, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan hail from the community. It is a small percentage of Iyers who voluntarily choose, in this era, to pursue the traditional vocation of priesthood.
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“Justice begins with the recognition of the necessity of sharing. The oldest law is that which regulates it, and this is still the most important law today and, as such, has remained the basic concern of all movements which have at heart the community of human activities and of human existence in general.”
—Elias Canetti (b. 1905)