 He notes that "traditions of demotion from a once higher rank are a commonplace of South Indian caste mythologies".Researcher Lloyd I. Rudolph notes that as early as in 1833, the Vanniyar, who were then known as Pallis, had ceased to accept their "low caste" status, also described as being Shudra by Christophe Jaffrelot and Kathleen Gough.Gough, however, documenting her fieldwork of 1951-53, records the Palli and the Vanniyar as separate but similar cultivating castes.