Brahmin presence in the Tamil country is attested from the Sangam period onward. Based on the fact that Nambudiris are Pūrvaśikhā Brahmins wearing the traditional hair tuft on the front, T.P Mahadevan proposes that they are the descendants of these Sangam age Brahmins who moved west into the region of Malabar during the Kalabhra interregnum. This sets them apart from the later Aparaśikhā Brahmin (wearing their hair tufts on the back) migrants to South India such as the Tamil Iyers. According to T.P Mahadevan, the Nambudiris brought with them a very early recension of the Mahabharata which became the basis of the Malayalam language version of the epic.