The Tuluva families of the coastal country
A community rooted in the paddy country of Tulu Nadu, that reckons its line through the mother, that names a bari before an alliance is considered and a guttu when it speaks of home, deserves a matrimony space that asks the right questions first — sub-community, bari and ancestral house, native district and mother tongue, and family character, all on the profile from the start.
Begin when you are ready
Creating an account takes a few minutes. If your family prefers to understand the space first, the sections below walk through the community's Tuluva homeland, the names it carries, the bari and guttu system, the faith kept close to the land, and the dhare that makes a marriage.
Registrations from this page stay within the Bunt community — every profile your family sees and contacts belongs to the community.
A heritage of the coast, the field, and the mother's line
The Bunts — known also as Nadava across the northern reaches of their homeland, and as okkelme, the cultivators — are a Tuluva community of Tulu Nadu, the coastal country of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi in Karnataka and Kasaragod in Kerala, where Tulu is the mother tongue and Kannada is widely spoken in the north. Theirs is a land of paddy and areca, of coconut palms and laterite, of monsoon rivers running west to the sea.
By long tradition most Bunt families reckon descent through the mother, under the custom known as Aliyasantana, and a family's bari — the matrilineal clan that Tuluva usage treats as the counterpart of a gotra — is settled before an alliance is considered, since families of the same bari do not marry. The ancestral guttu, the pillared and tile-roofed house a family is named for, remains for many households the place a lineage is traced from, and the carved woodwork of its verandahs and doorways is among the finest domestic craft of coastal Karnataka.
Sri Guru Raghavendra Matrimony presents those details on every profile, in the order your elders actually weigh them — so a Bunt alliance begins informed, and with the dignity your family expects.
What families often ask first
What your family will find inside
These are the details Bunt households settle first — and they are visible before any contact is exchanged.
Members who complete Government ID verification carry a clear mark, giving your family added reassurance at a glance.
Narrow the search by sub-community — Masadika, Nadava, Parivara and more — and by bari, ancestral house, native district, mother tongue, and family origin.
Degrees, professions, and family character read clearly on every profile, in the same order elders weigh an alliance.
Write your family's bari and your guttu — the ancestral house — in your own words, exactly as your family names them. There is no list you have to fit into.
Phone numbers and email are not shown openly on profiles. A member uses the Reveal Contact feature to see another member's details and reach out directly when they are ready to take an introduction forward.
Shortlists and the profiles your family has already opened stay saved, so you can return to a promising profile after the household has talked it over.
Built around how Bunt alliances actually happen
Whether your family's search stays within one taluk of the coast or reaches to Bengaluru, Mumbai and beyond, the details that matter — sub-community, bari, ancestral house and native district — are always in view.
Why families feel at ease
The details that decide an alliance sit together in one place, presented the way your family would present them.
Your search stays among Bunt families, so every introduction starts from shared roots in the Tuluva country.
Masadika and Nadava families of the north and Parivara households of the southern taluks are all welcome, each with its own option so families recognise and match within their own group.
Whether the search is led by a parent, a sibling, or the member themselves, the profile reads clearly for all of them.
Move at your family's pace, with tradition honoured up front and you reach out when your family is ready.
Understanding the heritage
Tulu Nadu is the narrow, green country between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea, and the Bunt community belongs to it entirely — to its paddy fields and areca gardens, its laterite soil and its monsoon.
Dakshina Kannada and Udupi in Karnataka and Kasaragod in Kerala make up the homeland, with Mangalore as its principal city. Tulu is the mother tongue of the community, and Kannada is widely spoken across the northern reaches.
The community's own dignified name for itself is okkelme, the cultivators. For generations Bunt families worked the paddy and the areca of the coast, and that quiet, land-rooted self-reliance is carried today into the professions, into business, and into households far from the coast.
Practice and emphasis differ from one family network to another — this is heritage held with pride, not a single rule book.
One community, its own names
Across Tulu Nadu the community carries more than one name, and within it are groups that families still name for themselves. Each registers as its own sub-community here, so households recognise and match within their own people.
Bunt is the name most widely used, and Nadava — also written Nadavaru — is the name families use across the northern reaches of Tulu Nadu, around Kundapura and north of Brahmavar. Bant, Banta and Bantaru are the same name written as families and records have written it.
Within the community, households name their own group — and each is welcome here on its own terms, with its own option.
If your family's group is not listed separately, Other Bunt community keeps you within the same community space. Families of Uttara Kannada who call themselves Nadavar belong to a different community with its own history, and are not covered by this page.
Understanding the traditions
Before education, often before the horoscope itself, a Bunt alliance turns to the family's bari — and to the guttu, the ancestral house a family is named for. These are the markers families use to keep an alliance outside the same ancestral line.
The bari is the family's clan, and Tuluva usage treats it as the counterpart of a gotra — with one difference that matters at every alliance: a bari is taken from the mother's side, not the father's. Two people of one bari are regarded as of one ancestral line, so alliances are sought outside it while the match stays within the community.
The guttu is the ancestral home: a pillared, tile-roofed house set around its courtyard, with the daivakone, the room kept for the family's guardian spirits. Families still name their guttu when they speak of where they are from, and here it stands as your family's own name, honoured alongside the bari.
Households differ in how they weigh the lineage line, and Parivara families reckon descent through the father rather than the mother — so the bari is recorded where a family keeps one, and never required of a family that does not.
The figure the coast remembers
Bunt families look to no single guru, and Tulu Nadu holds no Bunt matha — faith here has always lived closer to home. The one figure the whole coast remembers is Siri, a woman of the guttu houses, honoured as the ancestress from whom the line through the daughters is traced.
As Tulu Nadu tells it, Siri was found as an infant among areca flowers and raised at Satyanapura in the house of Berma Alva, and her story carries on through her son Kumara and her daughter Sonne. That story is sung as the Siri paddana, which folklorists who recorded it line by line hold to be the longest poem in the Tulu language, running to more than fifteen thousand lines. It is the community's cherished lore rather than documented history, and is shared here in that spirit.
Between February and May, on a full-moon night, families gather at the Adi Alade shrines for the Siri Jatre — at Hiriadka, Pangala and Nandalike in Udupi district, and at Kavathar and Nidgal in Dakshina Kannada. Siri is not honoured by one community alone; the gathering is Tuluva, and families of every background come to it, which is why she is spoken of here as a figure the coast shares rather than one it owns.
Siri, these shrines and this gathering are mentioned with reverence and gratitude alone, as heritage shared across the Tuluva world. No endorsement is implied, and devotional matters rest with each family and its elders.
A heritage of devotion
Bunt devotion belongs to the soil of Tulu Nadu. Families keep the guardian daivas of house, field and village, and across the coast households tend a nagabana, the sacred grove where the serpent deity is revered.
Bunt families have long been the traditional patrons of daiva aradhane, the reverence offered to the guardian spirits of the household, the field and the village. It is a devotion the whole Tuluva world shares, kept with great seriousness and passed down within the family.
Across Tulu Nadu households tend a nagabana — a small grove left standing, with carved naga stones set beneath the trees, where the serpent deity is honoured and the family gathers at the appointed season.
These deities, groves and sacred places are mentioned with reverence and gratitude alone, as heritage shared across the Tuluva world. No endorsement is implied, and devotional matters rest with each family and its elders.
The wedding and the year
A Bunt wedding turns on a single moment — the dhare — and the community's year is coloured by the arts, the new year and the food of the Tuluva coast.
The bride's right hand is laid over the bridegroom's, a decorated vessel of water crowned with a coconut and the flower of the areca palm is held above their joined hands by the elders of both families, and the water is poured through — the moment at which the marriage is held to be made. The betrothal that precedes it is the ponnapathera, the nischaya tambula.
Yakshagana, the night-long dance theatre of the coast, is carried forward by Bunt families alongside the wider Tuluva world. Bisu Parba, the Tuluva new year, falls in the middle of April, and neer dosa — the soft, unfermented rice crepe whose name comes from neer, water in Tulu — belongs to every gathering.
Festivals, weddings and their customs are cherished differently from one household to another; they are shared here as heritage the community holds dear.
A community that builds together
Wherever Bunt families settled, they organised — and what they built first were schools, hostels and dispensaries for their own young people and for the wider town.
Community associations were founded at Mangalore in 1908, at Mumbai in 1927 and at Bengaluru in 1958, and they have long run schools, hostels, night schools and welfare work — a habit of putting education first that families still carry.
Bunt families have been part of Bengaluru's life for generations, and Sri Guru Raghavendra Matrimony is based in the city — so a search that begins on the coast and a search that begins in Bengaluru meet in the same place.
Community institutions are mentioned as heritage and service alone; this space is not affiliated with any association.
Questions families ask
Yes. Registering through this page places your profile in the dedicated Bunt section — Bunt and Nadava, Masadika and Parivara families — and every profile you see, match with, or contact belongs to it.
Yes. Nadava, also written Nadavaru, is the name families use across the northern reaches of Tulu Nadu, around Kundapura and north of Brahmavar, and Nadava is one of the sub-communities you can choose here. Families of Uttara Kannada who call themselves Nadavar belong to a different community with its own history, and are not covered by this page.
Your bari and your guttu — the ancestral house — each sit in their own place, written in your own words, exactly as your family names them. There is no single list of baris drawn up, so nothing is chosen for you. Bari names differ between the Tuluva heartland and the northern taluks, and Parivara families who reckon descent through the father may leave the bari blank — it is never required.
No. Those are surnames and honoured titles carried by Bunt families, but several of them are carried by other communities of the coast as well. Your community and sub-community are what you choose on your profile — a surname is never used to decide them.
It is not shown openly on your profile. A member who wants to take an introduction forward can see your contact through the app's Reveal Contact feature and reach you directly, and Government-ID-verified badges help you know who you are speaking with.
Next step
Create your account and step into the Bunt section of Sri Guru Raghavendra Matrimony, where sub-community, the bari your family names from the mother's side, the guttu or ancestral house, and native district are part of every profile — for Bunt, Nadava, Masadika and Parivara families, and your family sets the pace.
