ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the ecological changes that have been brought out by the river-valley based agrarian system, through a transformation of non-agrarian interface zones into agrarian ones, had far reaching consequences for the agrarian system itself. Kinnari Jogis, a term usually used to refer to a specific group of itinerant singers in Karnataka, are one among several types of Jogis who have been identified as belonging to a scheduled tribe. Kinnari is a string instrument and consists of three goads, two small ones and a bigger one. The narratives of the Kinnari Jogis consider Shiva or Arjuna as their primordial hero. The versions of the Kinnari Jogi tradition also narrate Arjuna as a Jogi going to Malayala on a pilgrimage and marrying the princesses from the region, Citrangada and Ulupi.
