BADAGA, (I) a term applied to Telugu people who invaded the Tamil country from Vijayanagara in the later middle ages and especially in the 16th century (Tamil vadugan, "northerner") ; (2) an agricultural tribe of the Nilgiris in southern India, which may have occupied those hills before A.D. 1200, as Badagas still worship carved cromlechs in them. But traditionally they mi grated there from Mysore between that year and i600. In type they are akin to the pastoral Todas (q.v.), but they speak a cor rupt Kanarese. They pay tribute to the Todas, influenced perhaps by fear of Toda sorcery. A highly composite body with several clans and a variety of customs, they are now mainly Lingayats (q.v.), and Shaivas.
See E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, i., Madras (1909), which gives full extracts from earlier writers; H. Yule and A. G. Burnell, ed. W. Crooke, (19o3).