or king. These names included Nair itself, Kurup, Menon, and Pillai. A re-evaluation of the broad system of classification took place from the late 1950s. Fuller, writing in 1975, claims that the approach to classification by use of titular names was a misconception. People could and did award themselves the titles; and on those occasions when a title was in fact bestowed, it nonetheless did not signify their subgroup. He argues that the broad outline of the subdivisions M. N. Srinivas observed in 1957 that, "Varna has been the model to which observed facts have been fitted, and this is true not only of educated Indians, but also of sociologists to some extent." Instead of analysing the structure of the subgroups independently, commentators had explained them inappropriately by using an existing but alien social structure. From this unsuitable methodology had come the notion that the groups were subcastes rather than subdivisions. He also argued, in 1966, that "Some Nayars "ripened" into Samantans and Kshatriyas. The royal lineages of Calicut, Walluvanad, Palghat and Cochin, for instance, although of Nayar origin, considered themselves superior in ritual rank to their Nayar subjects." That is to say, they assumed a position above the status that they were perceived as being by others. The hypothesis, proposed by writers such as Fuller and Louis Dumont, that most of the subgroups were not subcastes arises in large part because of the number of ways in which Nairs classified themselves, which far exceeded the 18 or so groups which had previously been broadly accepted. Dumont took the extreme view that the Nairs as a whole could not be defined as a caste in the traditional sense, but Fuller believed this to be unreasonable as, "since the Nayars live in a caste society, they must evidently fit into the caste system at some level or another." The 1891 Census of India listed a total of 128 Nair subgroups in the Malabar region and 55 in the Cochin region, as well as a further 10 in the Madras area but outside Malabar. There were 44 listed in Travancore in the census of 1901. These designations were, however, somewhat fluid: the numbers tended to rise and fall, dependent upon which source and which research was employed; it is likely also that the figures were skewed by Nairs claiming a higher status than they actually had, which was a common practice throughout