This surname has been assumed by members of a caste, a hereditary group that typically followed a certain occupation or occupations.

On the occasion of the weddings of the three primeval pairs, Vishnu and Laxmi, Brahma and Saraswati, and Siva and Parvati, a gotra reciter was in great request and one was created from a clay-image with a maimed leg. He repeated the gotras at the divine nuptials and largess was bestowed upon him as recompense for his services. The descendants of the lame man have since designated as Pichakulntla, or lame beggars, and follow the profession of genealogists or gotra reciters to the Kap and Golla castes. Another more romantic version of the legend is that seven Golla women, being childless, invoked the god Shiva for progeny and were given a lame male infant whom they were ordered to bring up. In course of time the females conceived, by the grace of God, and were delivered of seven daughters whom, at the god's command, they gave in marriage to the lame boy. He was thereupon, provided with a Shankha (conch-shell), ghanta (bell), yedu (bull) and gajasulam (an iron bar) and enjoyed to lead mendicant's life, going his rounds on the bullock's back. He is claimed to be the procreator of the present Pichakunta caste, it seems not improbable that the Pichakuntalas were the illegitimate descendants of members of the Kapu and Golla castes.

- The Castes and Tribes of H.E.H. the Nizam's Dominions