The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1
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Title: The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1
Author: R. V. Russell
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Language: English
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The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India
By
R.V. Russell
Of the Indian Civil Service Superintendent of Ethnography, Central
Provinces
Assisted by
Rai Bahadur Hira Lal
Extra Assistant Commissioner
Published Under the Orders of the Central Provinces Administration
In Four Volumes
Vol. I.
Macmillan and Co., Limited St. Martin's Street, London.
1916
PREFACE
This book is the result of the arrangement made by the Government
of India, on the suggestion of the late Sir Herbert Risley, for the
preparation of an ethnological account dealing with the inhabitants
of each of the principal Provinces of India. The work for the Central
Provinces was entrusted to the author, and its preparation, undertaken
in addition to ordinary official duties, has been spread over a number
of years. The prescribed plan was that a separate account should
be written of each of the principal tribes and castes, according
to the method adopted in Sir Herbert Risley's _Tribes and Castes of
Bengal_. This was considered to be desirable as the book is intended
primarily as a work of reference for the officers of Government, who
may desire to know something of the customs of the people among whom
their work lies. It has the disadvantage of involving a large amount
of repetition of the same or very similar statements about different
castes, and the result is likely therefore to be somewhat distasteful
to the ordinary reader. On the other hand, there is no doubt that this
method of treatment, if conscientiously followed out, will produce
more exhaustive results than a general account. Similar works for some
other Provinces have already appeared, as Mr. W. Crooke's _Castes and
Tribes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh_, Mr. Edgar Thurston's
_Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, and Mr. Ananta Krishna Iyer's
volumes on Cochin, while a Glossary for the Punjab by Mr. H.A. Rose
has been partly published. The articles on Religions and Sects were
not in the original scheme of the work, but have been subsequently
added as being necessary to render it a complete ethnological account
of the population. In several instances the adherents of the religion
or sect are found only in very small numbers in the Province, and
the articles have been compiled from standard works.
In the preparation of the book much use has necessarily been made of
the standard ethnological accounts of other parts of India, especially
Colonel Tod's _Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan_, Mr. J.D. Forbes'
_Rasmala or Annals of Gujarat_, Colonel Dalton's _Ethnology of Bengal_,
Dr. Buchanan's _Eastern India_, Sir Denzil Ibbetson's _Punjab Census
Report_ for 1881, Sir John Malcolm's _Memoir of Central India_, Sir
Edward Gait's _Bengal and India Census Reports_ and article on Caste
in Dr. Hastings' _Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_, Colonel
(Sir William) Sleeman's _Report on the Badhaks_ and _Ramaseeana or
Vocabulary of the Thugs,_ Mr. Kennedy's _Criminal Classes of the Bombay
Presidency_, Major Gunthorpe's _Criminal Tribes of Bombay, Berar and
the Central Provinces_, the books of Mr. Crooke and Sir H. Risley
already mentioned, and the mass of valuable ethnological material
contained in the _Bombay Gazetteer _ (Sir J. Campbell), especially the
admirable volumes on _Hindus of Gujarat_ by Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam,
and _Parsis and Muhammadans of Gujarat_ by Khan Bahadur Fazlullah
Lutfullah Faridi, and Mr. Kharsedji Nasarvanji Seervai, J.P., and
Khan Bahadur Bamanji Behramji Patel. Other Indian ethnological works
from which I have made quotations are Dr. Wilson's _Indian Caste_
(_Times_ Press and Messrs. Blackwood). Bishop Westcott's _Kabir and the
Kabirpanth_ (Baptist Mission Press, Cawnpore), Mr. Rajendra Lal Mitra's
_Indo-Aryans_ (Newman & Co., Calcutta), _The Jainas_ by Dr. J.G. Bühler
and Mr. J. Burgess, Dr. J.N. Bhattacharya's _Hindu Castes and Sects_
(Thacker, Spink & Co., Calcutta), Professor Oman's _Mystics, Ascetics
and Saints of India, Cults, Customs and Superstitions of India_,
and _Brahmans, Theists and Muslims of India_ (T. Fisher Unwin),
Mr. V.A. Smith's _Early History of India_ (Clarendon Press), the
Rev. T.P. Hughes' _Dictionary of Islam_ (W.H. Allen & Co., and Heffer &
Sons, Cambridge), Mr. L.D. Barnett's _Antiquities of India_, M. André
Chevrillon's _Romantic India_, Mr. V. Ball's _Jungle Life in India_,
Mr. W. Crooke's _Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_,
and _Things Indian_, Captain Forsyth's _Highlands of Central India_
(Messrs. Chapman & Hall), Messrs. Yule and Burnell's _Hobson-Jobson_
(Mr. Crooke's edition), Professor Hopkins' _Religions of India_, the
Rev. E.M. Gordon's _Indian Folk-Tales_ (Elliot & Stock), Messrs. Sewell
and Dikshit's _Indian Calendar_, Mr. Brennand's _Hindu Astronomy_,
and the late Rev. Father P. Dehon's monograph on the Oraons in the
_Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_.
Ethnological works on the people of the Central Provinces are not
numerous; among those from which assistance has been obtained are Sir
C. Grant's _Central Provinces Gazetteer_ of 1871, Rev. Stephen Hislop's
_Notes on the Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Provinces_, Colonel
Bloomfield's _Notes on the Baigas_, Sir Charles Elliott's _Hoshangabad
Settlement Report_, Sir Reginald Craddock's _Nagpur Settlement Report_,
Colonel Ward's _Mandla Settlement Report_, Colonel Lucie Smith's
_Chanda Settlement Report_, Mr. G.W. Gayer's _Lectures on Criminal
Tribes_, Mr. C.W. Montgomerie's _Chhindwara Settlement Report_,
Mr. C.E. Low's _Balaghat District Gazetteer_, Mr. E.J. Kitts' _Berar
Census Report_ of 1881, and the _Central Provinces Census Reports_
of Mr. T. Drysdale, Sir Benjamin Robertson and Mr. J.T. Marten.
The author is indebted to Sir J.G. Frazer for his kind permission to
make quotations from _The Golden Bough_ and _Totemism and Exogamy_
(Macmillan), in which the best examples of almost all branches of
primitive custom are to be found; to Dr. Edward Westermarck for
similar permission in respect of _The History of Human Marriage_,
and _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_ (Macmillan);
to Messrs. A. & C. Black in respect of the late Professor Robertson
Smith's _Religion of the Semites_; to Messrs. Heinemann for those
from M. Salomon Reinach's _Orpheus_; and to Messrs. Hachette et
Cie and Messrs. Parker of Oxford for those from _La Cité Antique_
of M. Fustel de Coulanges. Much assistance has also been obtained
from Sir E. B. Tylor's _Early History of Mankind_ and _Primitive
Culture_, Lord Avebury's _The Origin of Civilisation_, Mr. E. Sidney
Hartland's _Primitive Paternity_, and M. Salomon Reinach's _Cultes,
Mythes et Religions_. The labours of these eminent authors have made
it possible for the student to obtain a practical knowledge of the
ethnology of the world by the perusal of a small number of books; and
if any of the ideas put forward in these volumes should ultimately be
so fortunate as to obtain acceptance, it is to the above books that I
am principally indebted for having been able to formulate them. Other
works from which help has been obtained are M. Emile Senart's _Les
Castes dans I'Inde_, Professor W. E. Hearn's _The Aryan Household_,
and Dr. A.H. Keane's _The World's Peoples_. Sir George Grierson's great
work, _The Linguistic Survey of India_, has now given an accurate
classification of the non-Aryan tribes according to their languages
and has further thrown a considerable degree of light on the vexed
question of their origin. I have received from Mr. W. Crooke of the
Indian Civil Service (retired) much kind help and advice during the
final stages of the preparation of this work. As will be seen from the
articles, resort has constantly been made to his _Tribes and Castes_
for filling up gaps in the local information.
Rai Bahadur Hira Lal was my assistant for several years in the
taking of the census of 1901 and the preparation of the Central
Provinces District Gazetteers; he has always given the most loyal and
unselfish aid, has personally collected a large part of the original
information contained in the book, and spent much time in collating
the results. The association of his name in the authorship is no
more than his due, though except where this has been specifically
mentioned, he is not responsible for the theories and deductions
from the facts obtained. Mr. Pyare Lal Misra, barrister, Chhindwara,
was my ethnographic clerk for some years, and he and Munshi Kanhya
Lal, late of the Educational Department, and Mr. Aduram Chandhri,
Tahsildar, gave much assistance in the inquiries on different
castes. Among others who have helped in the work, Rai Bahadur
Panda Baijnath, Diwan of the Patna and Bastar States, should be
mentioned first, and Babu Kali Prasanna Mukerji, pleader, Saugor,
Mr. Gopal Datta Joshi, District Judge, Saugor, Mr. Jeorakhan Lal,
Deputy-Inspector of Schools, and Mr. Gokul Prasad, Tahsildar, may be
selected from the large number whose names are given in the footnotes
to the articles. Among European officers whose assistance should be
acknowledged are Messrs. C.E. Low, C.W. Montgomerie, A.B. Napier,
A.E. Nelson, A.K. Smith, R.H. Crosthwaite and H.F. Hallifax, of
the Civil Service; Lt.-Col. W.D. Sutherland, I.M.S., Surgeon-Major
Mitchell of Bastar, and Mr. D. Chisholm.
Some photographs have been kindly contributed by Mrs. Ashbrooke Crump,
Mrs. Mangabai Kelkar, Mr. G.L. Corbett, C.S., Mr. R.L. Johnston,
A.D.S.P., Mr. J.H. Searle, C.S., Mr. Strachey, Mr. H.E. Bartlett,
Professor L. Scherman of Munich, and the Diwan of Raigarh State. Bishop
Westcott kindly gave the photograph of Kabir, which appears in his
own book.
Finally I have to express my gratitude to the Chief Commissioner,
Sir Benjamin Robertson, for the liberal allotment made by the
Administration for the publication of the work; and to the publishers,
Messrs. Macmillan & Co., and the printers, Messrs. R. & R. Clark, for
their courtesy and assistance during its progress through the press.
September 1915.
CONTENTS
Part I--Volume I
Introductory Essay on Caste
Articles on the Religions and Sects of the People of the Central Provinces
Glossary of Minor Castes and Other Articles, Synonyms, Subcastes,
Titles and Names of Exogamous Septs or Clans
Subject Index
Part II--Volumes II, III and IV
Descriptive Articles on the Principal
Castes and Tribes of the Central Provinces
DETAILED LIST OF CONTENTS
Part I
Articles on Religions and Sects
The articles which are considered to be of most general interest
are shown in capitals
ARYA SAMAJ RELIGION 201
BRAHMO SAMAJ RELIGION 208
Dadupanthi Sect 215
Dhami Sect 216
JAIN RELIGION 219
KABIRPANTHI SECT 232
Lingayat Sect 244
MUHAMMADAN RELIGION 247
Nanakpanthi Sect 277
Parmarthi Sect 281
PARSI OR ZOROASTRIAN RELIGION 284
Saiva Sect 302
Sakta Sect 304
SATNAMI SECT 307
Sikh Religion 317
Smarta Sect 325
Swami-Narayan Sect 326
VAISHNAVA SECT 330
Vam-Margi Sect 333
Wahhabi Sect 335
Articles on Minor Castes and Miscellaneous Notices Included in the
Glossary
Agamudayan.
Alia.
Arab.
Are.
Arora.
Bahelia.
Bahrupia.
Banka.
Bargah.
Bayar.
Belwar.
Besta.
Bhand.
Bhatia.
Bhima.
Bhona.
Bind.
Birhor.
Bopchi.
Chenchuwar.
Chero.
Dangur.
Daraihan.
Dhalgar.
Dhera.
Dohor.
Gandli.
Girgira.
Goyanda.
Hatwa.
Jasondhi.
Jokhara.
Kamad.
Kamathi.
Kamma.
Kammala.
Kandra.
Kast.
Khadal.
Khadra.
Kotwar.
Kumrawat.
Kundera.
Londhari.
Madgi.
Malyar.
Mangan.
Marori.
Medara.
Mirdha.
Mukeri.
Mutrasi.
Nagarchi.
Otari.
Pabia.
Pahalwan.
Panchal.
Pandra.
Parka.
Periki.
Redka.
Rohilla.
Sais.
Santal.
Satani.
Segidi.
Siddi.
Sidhira.
Sikligar.
Solaha.
Sonkar.
Tanti.
Tirmale.
Tiyar.
Vellala.
Wakkaliga.
Part II--Vol. II
Articles on Castes and Tribes of the Central Provinces in Alphabetical
Order
Agaria (_Iron-worker_) 3
Agharia (_Cultivator_) 8
Aghori (_Religious mendicant_) 13
Ahir (_Herdsman and milkman_) 18
Andh (_Tribe, now cultivators_) 38
Arakh (_Hunter_) 40
Atari (_Scent-seller_) 42
Audhelia (_Labourer_) 45
Badhak (_Robber_) 49
Bahna (_Cotton-cleaner_) 69
Baiga (_Forest tribe_) 77
Bairagi (_Religious mendicants_) 93
Balahi (_Labourer and village watchman_) 105
Balija (_Cultivator_) 108
Bania (_Merchant and moneylender_) 111
Subcastes of Bania
Agarwala.
Agrahari.
Ajudhiabasi.
Asathi.
Charnagri.
Dhusar.
Dosar.
Gahoi.
Golapurab.
Kasarwani.
Kasaundhan.
Khandelwal.
Lad.
Lingayat.
Maheshri.
Nema.
Oswal.
Parwar.
Srimali.
Umre.
Banjara (_Pack-carrier_) 162
Barai (_Betel-vine grower and seller_) 192
Barhai (_Carpenter_) 199
Bari (_Maker of leaf-plates_) 202
Basdewa (_Cattle-dealer and religious mendicant_) 204
Basor (_Bamboo-worker_) 208
Bedar (_Soldier and public service_) 212
Beldar (_Digger and navvy_) 215
Beria (_Vagabond gipsy_) 220
Bhaina (_Forest tribe_) 225
Bhamta (_Criminal tribe and labourers_) 234
Bharbhunja (_Grain-parcher_) 238
Bharia (_Forest tribe_) 242
Bhat (_Bard and genealogist_) 251
Bhatra (_Forest tribe_) 271
Bhil (_Forest tribe_) 278
Bhilala (_Landowner and cultivator_) 293
Bhishti (_Water-man_) 298
Bhoyar (_Cultivator_) 301
Bhuiya (_Forest tribe_) 305
Bhulia (_Weaver_) 319
Bhunjia (_Forest tribe_) 322
Binjhwar (_Cultivator_) 329
Bishnoi (_Cultivator_) 337
Bohra (_Trader_) 345
Brahman (_Priest_) 351
Subcastes of Brahman
Ahivasi.
Jijhotia.
Kanaujia, Kanyakubja.
Khedawal.
Maharashtra.
Maithil.
Malwi.
Nagar.
Naramdeo.
Sanadhya.
Sarwaria.
Utkal.
Chadar (_Village watchman and labourer_) 400
Chamar (_Tanner and labourer_) 403
Chasa (_Cultivator_) 424
Chauhan (_Village watchman and labourer_) 427
Chhipa (_Dyer and calico-printer_) 429
Chitari (_Painter_) 432
Chitrakathi (_Picture showman_) 438
Cutchi (_Trader and shopkeeper_) 440
Dahait (_Village watchman and labourer_) 444
Daharia (_Cultivator_) 453
Dangi (_Landowner and cultivator_) 457
Dangri (_Vegetable-grower_) 463
Darzi (_Tailor_) 466
Dewar (_Beggar and musician_) 472
Dhakar (_Illegitimate, cultivator_) 477
Dhangar (_Shepherd_) 480
Dhanuk (_Bowman, labourer_) 484
Dhanwar (_Forest tribe_) 488
Dhimar (_Fisherman, water-carrier, and household servant_) 502
Dhoba (_Forest tribe, cultivator_) 515
Dhobi (_Washerman_) 519
Dhuri (_Grain-parcher_) 527
Dumal (_Cultivator_) 530
Fakir (_Religious mendicant_) 537
Part II--Vol. III
Gadaria (_Shepherd_) 3
Gadba (_Forest tribe_) 9
Ganda (_Weaver and labourer_) 14
Gandhmali (_Uriya village priests and temple servants_) 17
Garpagari (_Averter of hailstorms_) 19
Gauria (_Snake-charmer and juggler_) 24
Ghasia (_Grass-cutter_) 27
Ghosi (_Buffalo-herdsman_) 32
Golar (_Herdsman_) 35
Gond (_Forest tribe and cultivator_) 39
Gond-Gowari (_Herdsman_) 143
Gondhali (_Religious mendicant_) 144
Gopal (_Vagrant criminal caste_) 147
Gosain (_Religious mendicant_) 150
Gowari (_Herdsman_) 160
Gujar (_Cultivator_) 166
Gurao (_Village Priest_) 175
Halba (_Forest tribe, labourer_) 182
Halwai (_Confectioner_) 201
Hatkar (_Soldier, shepherd_) 204
Hijra (_Eunuch, mendicant_) 206
Holia (_Labourer, curing hides_) 212
Injhwar (_Boatman and fisherman_) 213
Jadam (_Cultivator_) 217
Jadua (_Criminal caste_) 219
Jangam (_Priest of the Lingayat sect_) 222
Jat (_Landowner and cultivator_) 225
Jhadi Telenga (_Illegitimate, labourer_) 238
Jogi (_Religious mendicant and pedlar_) 243
Joshi (_Astrologer and village priest_) 255
Julaha (_Weaver_) 279
Kachera (_Maker of glass bangles_) 281
Kachhi (_Vegetable-grower_) 285
Kadera (_Firework-maker_) 288
Kahar (_Palanquin-bearer and household servant_) 291
Kaikari (_Basket-maker and vagrant_) 296
Kalanga (_Soldier, cultivator_) 302
Kalar (_Liquor vendor_) 306
Kamar (_Forest tribe_) 323
Kanjar (_Gipsies and prostitutes_) 331
Kapewar (_Cultivator_) 342
Karan (_Writer and clerk_) 343
Kasai (_Butcher_) 346
Kasar (_Worker in brass_) 369
Kasbi (_Prostitute_) 373
Katia (_Cotton-spinner_) 384
Kawar (_Forest tribe and cultivator_) 389
Kayasth (_Village accountant, writer and clerk_) 404
Kewat (_Boatman and fisherman_) 422
Khairwar (_Forest tribe; boilers of catechu_) 427
Khandait (_Soldier, cultivator_) 436
Khangar (_Village watchman and labourer_) 439
Kharia (_Forest tribe, labourer_) 445
Khatik (_Mutton-butcher_) 453
Khatri (_Merchant_) 456
Khojah (_Trader and shopkeeper_) 461
Khond (_Forest tribe, cultivator_) 464
Kir (_Cultivator_) 481
Kirar (_Cultivator_) 485
Kohli (_Cultivator_) 493
Kol (_Forest tribe, labourer_) 500
Kolam (_Forest tribe, cultivator_) 520
Kolhati (_Acrobat_) 527
Koli (_Forest tribe, cultivator_) 532
Kolta (_Landowner and cultivator_) 537
Komti (_Merchant and shopkeeper_) 542
Kori (_Weaver and labourer_) 545
Korku (_Forest tribe, labourer_) 550
Korwa (_Forest tribe, cultivator_) 571
Koshti (_Weaver_) 581
Part II--Vol. IV
Kumhar (_Potter_) 3
Kunbi (_Cultivator_) 16
Kunjra (_Greengrocer_) 50
Kuramwar (_Shepherd_) 52
Kurmi (_Cultivator_) 55
Lakhera (_Worker in lac_) 104
Lodhi (_Landowner and cultivator_) 112
Lohar (_Blacksmith_) 120
Lorha (_Growers of_ san-_hemp_) 126
Mahar (_Weaver and labourer_) 129
Mahli (_Forest tribe_) 146
Majhwar (_Forest tribe_) 149
Mal (_Forest tribe_) 153
Mala (_Cotton-weaver and labourer_) 156
Mali (_Gardener and vegetable-grower_) 159
Mallah (_Boatman and fisherman_) 171
Mana (_Forest tribe, cultivator_) 172
Manbhao (_Religious mendicant_) 176
Mang (_Labourer and village musician_) 184
Mang-Garori (_Criminal caste_) 189
Manihar (_Pedlar_) 193
Mannewar (_Forest tribe_) 195
Maratha (_Soldier, cultivator and service_) 198
Mehtar (_Sweeper and scavenger_) 215
Meo (_Tribe_) 233
Mina or Deswali (_Non-Aryan tribe, cultivator_) 235
Mirasi (_Bard and genealogist_) 242
Mochi (_Shoemaker_) 244
Mowar (_Cultivator_) 250
Murha (_Digger and navvy_) 252
Nagasia (_Forest tribe_) 257
Nahal (_Forest tribe_) 259
Nai (Barber) 262
Naoda (_Boatman and fisherman_) 283
Nat (_Acrobat_) 286
Nunia (_Salt-refiner, digger and navvy_) 294
Ojha (_Augur and soothsayer_) 296
Oraon (_Forest tribe_) 299
Paik (_Soldier, cultivator_) 321
Panka (_Labourer and village watchman_) 324
Panwar Rajput (_Landowner and cultivator_) 330
Pardhan (_Minstrel and priest_) 352
Pardhi (_Hunter and fowler_) 359
Parja (_Forest tribe_) 371
Pasi (_Toddy-drawer and labourer_) 380
Patwa (_Maker of silk braid and thread_) 385
Pindari (_Freebooter_) 388
Prabhu (_Writer and clerk_) 399
Raghuvansi (_Cultivator_) 403
Rajjhar (_Agricultural labourer_) 405
Rajput (_Soldier and landowner_) 410
Rajput Clans
Baghel.
Bagri.
Bais.
Baksaria.
Banaphar.
Bhadauria.
Bisen.
Bundela.
Chandel.
Chauban.
Dhakar.
Gaharwar.
Gaur.
Haihaya.
Huna.
Kachhwaha.
Nagvansi.
Nikumbh.
Paik.
Parihar.
Rathor.
Sesodia.
Solankhi.
Somvansi.
Surajvansi.
Tomara.
Yadu.
Rajwar (_Forest tribe_) 470
Ramosi (_Village watchmen and labourers, formerly thieves_) 472
Rangrez (_Dyer_) 477
Rautia (_Forest tribe and cultivators, formerly soldiers_) 479
Sanaurhia (_Criminal thieving caste_) 483
Sansia (_Vagrant criminal tribe_) 488
Sansia (Uria) (_Mason and digger_) 496
Savar (_Forest tribe_) 500
Sonjhara (_Gold-washer_) 509
Sudh (_Cultivator_) 514
Sunar (_Goldsmith and silversmith_) 517
Sundi (_Liquor distiller_) 534
Tamera (_Coppersmith_) 536
Taonla (_Soldier and labourer_) 539
Teli (_Oilman_) 542
Thug (_Criminal community of murderers by strangulation_) 558
Turi (_Bamboo-worker_) 588
Velama (_Cultivator_) 593
Vidur (_Village accountant, clerk and writer_) 596
Waghya (_Religious mendicant_) 603
Yerukala (_Criminal thieving caste_) 606
Note.--The Gonds are the most important of the non-Aryan or primitive
tribes, and their social customs are described in detail. The
Baiga, Bhil, Kawar, Khond, Kol, Korku and Korwa are other important
tribes. The two representative cultivating castes are the Kurmis and
Kunbis, and the articles on them include detailed descriptions of Hindu
social customs, and some information on villages, houses, dress, food
and manner of life. Articles in which subjects of general interest are
treated are Darzi (clothes), Sunar (ornaments), Kachera and Lakhera
(bangles), Nai (hair), Kalar (veneration of alcoholic liquor),
Bania (moneylending and interest), Kasai (worship and sacrifice of
domestic animals), Joshi (the Hindu calendar and personal names),
Bhat (suicide), Dahait (significance of the umbrella), and Kanjar
(connection of Indian and European gipsies). The articles on Badhak,
Sansia and Thug are compiled from Sir William Sleeman's reports on
these communities of dacoits and murderers, whose suppression he
achieved. For further information the Subject Index may be consulted.
MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
Maps
Map of India _Frontispiece_
Map of the Central Provinces
Map of the Central Provinces, showing principal linguistic or
racial divisions 6
Illustrations
Volume I
1. Hindu temple of the god Siva 16
2. Hindu sculptures 26
3. Peasant's hut 40
4. Group of religious mendicants 56
5. Drawing water from the village well 72
6. Gayatri or sacred verse personified as a goddess 108
7. Image of the god Jagannath, a form of Vishnu 118
8. The god Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu, with attendant
deities 144
9. Hindu bathing party 158
10. Pilgrims carrying Ganges water 184
11. A meeting of the Arya Samaj for investing boys with the sacred
thread 202
12. Jain temples at Muktagiri, Betul 220
13. Jain ascetics with cloth before mouth and sweeping-brush
224
14. Jain gods in attitude of contemplation 228
15. Jain temple in Seoni 230
16. Kabir 232
17. Beggar on artificial horse at the Muharram festival 248
18. Carrying the horse-shoe at the Muharram festival 252
19. Tazia or tombs of Hussain at the Muharram festival 256
20. Famous Tazia at Khandwa 260
21. Representing a tiger at the Muharram festival 272
22. Temple of Siva at Bandakpur, near Damoh 302
23. Images of Siva and his consort Devi, or Parvati, with the
bull and tiger 304
24. Devotees, possessed, embracing each other, while supported
on tridents, at Siva's fair at Pachmarhi 306
25. Image of the prophet Swami Narayan in the Teli temple at
Burhanpur 326
26. Images of Rama, Lachman and Sita, with attendants 330
27. Image of Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth, the consort of Vishnu,
with attendant 332
28. Image of the boar incarnation of Vishnu 334
29. Bahrupia impersonating the goddess Kali 344
30. Dasari religious mendicant with discus and conch-shell of
Vishnu 406
Volume II
31. Aghori mendicant 14
32. Ahirs decorated with cowries for the Stick Dance at Diwali
18
33. Image of Krishna as Murlidhar or the flute-player, with
attendant deities 28
34. Ahir dancers in Diwali costume 32
35. Pinjara cleaning cotton 72
36. Baiga village, Balaghat District 88
37. Hindu mendicants with sect-marks 94
38. Anchorite sitting on iron nails 98
39. Pilgrims carrying water of the river Nerbudda 100
40. _Coloured Plate_: Examples of Tilaks or sect-marks worn on
the forehead 102
41. Group of Marwari Bania women 112
42. Image of the god Ganpati carried in procession 116
43. The elephant-headed god Ganpati. His conveyance is a rat,
which can be seen as a little blob between his feet 120
44. Mud images made and worshipped at the Holi festival 126
45. Bania's shop 128
46. Banjara women with the _singh_ or horn 184
47. Group of Banjara women 188
48. Basors making baskets of bamboo 210
49. Bhat with his _putla_ or doll 256
50. Group of Bhils 278
51. Tantia Bhil, a famous dacoit 282
52. Group of Bohras at Burhanpur (Nimar) 346
53. Brahman worshipping his household gods 380
54. Brahman bathing party 384
55. Brahman Pujaris or priests 390
56. Group of Maratha Brahman men 392
57. Group of Naramdeo Brahman women 396
58. Group of Naramdeo Brahman men 398
59. Chamars tanning and working in leather 416
60. Chamars cutting leather and making shoes 418
61. Chhipa or calico-printer at work 430
62. Dhimar or fisherman's hut 502
63. Fishermen in dug-outs or hollowed tree trunks 506
64. Group of Gurujwale Fakirs 538
Volume III
65. Gond women grinding corn 42
66. Palace of the Gond kings of Garha-Mandla at Ramnagar 46
67. Gonds on a journey 62
68. Killing of Rawan, the demon king of Ceylon, from whom the
Gonds are supposed to be descended 114
69. Woman about to be swung round the post called Meghnath 116
70. Climbing the pole for a bag of sugar 118
71. Gonds with their bamboo carts at market 122
72. Gond women, showing tattooing on backs of legs 126
73. Maria Gonds in dancing costume 136
74. Gondhali musicians and dancers 144
75. Gosain mendicant 150
76. Alakhwale Gosains with faces covered with ashes 152
77. Gosain mendicants with long hair 154
78. Famous Gosain Mahant. Photograph taken after death 156
79. Gujar village proprietress and her land agent 168
80. Guraos with figures made at the Holi festival called Gangour
176
81. Group of Gurao musicians with their instruments 180
82. Ploughing with cows and buffaloes in Chhattisgarh 182
83. Halwai or confectioner's shop 202
84. Jogi mendicants of the Kanphata sect 244
85. Jogi musicians with _sarangi_ or fiddle 250
86. Kaikaris making baskets 298
87. Kanjars making ropes 332
88. A group of Kasars or brass-workers 370
89. Dancing girls and musicians 374
90. Girl in full dress and ornaments 378
91. Old type of sugarcane mill 494
92. Group of Kol women 512
93. Group of Kolams 520
94. Korkus of the Melghat hills 550
95. Korku women in full dress 556
96. Koshti men dancing a figure, holding strings and beating
sticks 582
Volume IV
97. Potter at his wheel 4
98. Group of Kunbis 16
99. Figures of animals made for Pola festival 40
100. Hindu boys on stilts 42
101. Throwing stilts into the water at the Pola festival 46
102. Carrying out the dead 48
103. Pounding rice 60
104. Sowing 84
105. Threshing 86
106. Winnowing 88
107. Women grinding wheat and husking rice 90
108. Group of women in Hindustani dress 92
109. _Coloured Plate_: Examples of spangles worn by women on the
forehead 106
110. Weaving: sizing the warp 142
111. Winding thread 144
112. Bride and bridegroom with marriage crowns 166
113. Bullocks drawing water with _mot_ 170
114. Mang musicians with drums 186
115. Statue of Maratha leader, Bimbaji Bhonsla, in armour 200
116. Image of the god Vishnu as Vithoba 248
117. Coolie women with babies slung at the side 256
118. Hindu men showing the _choti_ or scalp-lock 272
119. Snake-charmer with cobras 292
120. Transplanting rice 340
121. Group of Pardhans 350
122. Little girls playing 400
123. Gujarati girls doing figures with strings and sticks 402
124. Ornaments 524
125. Teli's oil-press 544
126. The Goddess Kali 574
127. Waghya mendicants 604
PRONUNCIATION
_a_ has the sound of _u_ in _but_ or _murmur_.
_a_ has the sound of _a_ in _bath_ or _tar_.
_e_ has the sound of _é_ in _écarté_ or _ai_ in _maid_.
_i_ has the sound of _i_ in _bit_, or (as a final letter)
of _y_ in _sulky_
_i_ has the sound of _ee_ in _beet_.
_o_ has the sound of _o_ in _bore_ or _bowl_.
_u_ has the sound of _u_ in _put_ or _bull_.
_u_ has the sound of _oo_ in _poor_ or _boot_.
The plural of caste names and a few common Hindustani words is formed
by adding _s_ in the English manner according to ordinary usage,
though this is not, of course, the Hindustani plural.
Note.--The rupee contains 16 annas, and an anna is of the same value
as a penny. A pice is a quarter of an anna, or a farthing. Rs. 1-8
signifies one rupee and eight annas. A lakh is a hundred thousand,
and a krore ten million.
PART I.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON CASTE
List of Paragraphs
1. _The Central Provinces._
2. _Constitution of the population._
3. _The word 'Caste.'_
4. _The meaning of the term 'Caste.'_
5. _The subcaste._
6. _Confusion of nomenclature._
7. _Tests of what a caste is._
8. _The four traditional castes._
9. _Occupational theory of caste._
10. _Racial theory._
11. _Entry of the Aryans into India. The Aryas and Dasyus._
12. _The Sudra._
13. _The Vaishya._
14. _Mistaken modern idea of the Vaishyas._
15. _Mixed unions of the four classes._
16. _Hypergamy._
17. _The mixed castes. The village menials._
18. _Social gradation of castes._
19. _Castes ranking above the cultivators._
20. _Castes from whom a Brahman can take water. Higher
agriculturists._
21. _Status of the cultivator._
22. _The clan and the village._
23. _The ownership of land._
24. _The cultivating status that of the Vaishya._
25. _Higher professional and artisan castes._
26. _Castes from whom a Brahman cannot take water; the
village menials._
27. _The village watchmen._
28. _The village priests. The gardening castes._
29. _Other village traders and menials._
30. _Household servants._
31. _Status of the village menials._
32. _Origin of their status._
33. _Other castes who rank with the village menials._
34. _The non-Aryan tribes._
35. _The Kolarians and Dravidians._
36. _Kolarian tribes._
37. _Dravidian tribes._
38. _Origin of the Kolarian tribes._
39. _Of the Dravidian tribes._
40. _Origin of the impure castes._
41. _Derivation of the impure castes from the indigenous
tribes._
42. _Occupation the basis of the caste-system._
43. _Other agents in the formation of castes._
44. _Caste occupations divinely ordained._
45. _Subcastes, local type._
46. _Occupational subcastes._
47. _Subcastes formed from social or religious differences,
or from mixed descent._
48. _Exogamous groups._
49. _Totemistic clans._
50. _Terms of relationship._
51. _Clan kinship and totemism._
52. _Animate Creation._
53. _The distribution of life over the body._
54. _Qualities associated with animals._
55. _Primitive language._
56. _Concrete nature of primitive ideas._
57. _Words and names concrete._
58. _The soul or spirit._
59. _The transmission of qualities._
60. _The faculty of counting. Confusion of the individual
and the species._
61. _Similarity and identity._
62. _The recurrence of events._
63. _Controlling the future._
64. _The common life._
65. _The common life of the clan._
66. _Living and eating together._
67. _The origin of exogamy._
68. _Promiscuity and female descent._
69. _Exogamy with female descent._
70. _Marriage._
71. _Marriage by capture._
72. _Transfer of the bride to her husband's clan._
73. _The exogamous clan with male descent and the village._
74. _The large exogamous clans of the Brahmans and Rajputs. The
Sapindas, the_ gens _and the_ g'enoc.
75. _Comparison of Hindu society with that of Greece and
Rome. The_ gens.
76. _The clients._
77. _The plebeians._
78. _The binding social tie in the city-states._
79. _The Suovetaurilia._
80. _The sacrifice of the domestic animal._
81. _Sacrifices of the_ gens _and phratry._
82. _The Hindu caste-feasts._
83. _Taking food at initiation._
84. _Penalty feasts._
85. _Sanctity of grain-food._
86. _The corn-spirit._
87. _The king._
88. _Other instances of the common meal as a sacrificial rite._
89. _Funeral feasts._
90. _The Hindu deities and the sacrificial meal._
91. _Development of the occupational caste from the tribe._
92. _Veneration of the caste implements._
93. _The caste_ panchayat _and its code of offences._
94. _The status of impurity._
95. _Caste and Hinduism._
96. _The Hindu reformers._
97. _Decline of the caste system._
1. The Central Provinces.
The territory controlled by the Chief Commissioner of the Central
Provinces and Berar has an area of 131,000 square miles and a
population of 16,000,000 persons. Situated in the centre of the Indian
Peninsula, between latitudes 17°47' and 24°27' north, and longitudes
76° and 84° east, it occupies about 7.3 per cent of the total area
of British India. It adjoins the Central India States and the United
Provinces to the north, Bombay to the west, Hyderabad State and the
Madras Presidency to the south, and the Province of Bihar and Orissa
to the east. The Province was constituted as a separate administrative
unit in 1861 from territories taken from the Peshwa in 1818 and the
Maratha State of Nagpur, which had lapsed from failure of heirs in
1853. Berar, which for a considerable previous period had been held on
a lease or assignment from the Nizam of Hyderabad, was incorporated
for administrative purposes with the Central Provinces in 1903. In
1905 the bulk of the District of Sambalpur, with five Feudatory States
inhabited by an Uriya-speaking population, were transferred to Bengal
and afterwards to the new Province of Bihar and Orissa, while five
Feudatory States of Chota Nagpur were received from Bengal. The
former territory had been for some years included in the scope of
the Ethnographic Survey, and is shown coloured in the annexed map of
linguistic and racial divisions.
The main portion of the Province may be divided, from north-west
to south-east, into three tracts of upland, alternating with two of
plain country. In the north-west the Districts of Sangor and Damoh lie
on the Vindhyan or Malwa plateau, the southern face of which rises
almost sheer from the valley of the Nerbudda. The general elevation
of this plateau varies from 1500 to 2000 feet. The highest part is
that immediately overhanging the Nerbudda, and the general slope is to
the north, the rivers of this area being tributaries of the Jumna and
Ganges. The surface of the country is undulating and broken by frequent
low hills covered with a growth of poor and stunted forest. The second
division consists of the long and narrow valley of the Nerbudda,
walled in by the Vindhyan and Satpura hills to the north and south,
and extending for a length of about 200 miles from Jubbulpore to
Handia, with an average width of twenty miles. The valley is situated
to the south of the river, and is formed of deep alluvial deposits of
extreme richness, excellently suited to the growth of wheat. South
of the valley the Satpura range or third division stretches across
the Province, from Amarkantak in the east (the sacred source of the
Nerbudda) to Asirgarh in the Nimar District in the west, where its
two parallel ridges bound the narrow valley of the Tapti river. The
greater part consists of an elevated plateau, in some parts merely a
rugged mass of hills hurled together by volcanic action, in others
a succession of bare stony ridges and narrow fertile valleys, in
which the soil has been deposited by drainage. The general elevation
of the plateau is 2000 feet, but several of the peaks rise to 3500,
and a few to more than 4000 feet. The Satpuras form the most important
watershed of the Province, and in addition to the Nerbudda and Tapti,
the Wardha and Wainganga rivers rise in these hills. To the east a
belt of hill country continues from the Satpuras to the wild and rugged
highlands of the Chota Nagpur plateau, on which are situated the five
States recently annexed to the Province. Extending along the southern
and eastern faces of the Satpura range lies the fourth geographical
division, to the west the plain of Berar and Nagpur, watered by the
Purna, Wardha and Wainganga rivers, and further east the Chhattisgarh
plain, which forms the upper basin of the Mahanadi. The Berar and
Nagpur plain contains towards the west the shallow black soil in which
autumn crops, like cotton and the large millet juari, which do not
require excessive moisture, can be successfully cultivated. This area
is the great cotton-growing tract of the Province, and at present the
most wealthy. The valleys of the Wainganga and Mahanadi further east
receive a heavier rainfall and are mainly cropped with rice. Many small
irrigation tanks for rice have been built by the people themselves,
and large tank and canal works are now being undertaken by Government
to protect the tract from the uncertainty of the rainfall. South of
the plain lies another expanse of hill and plateau comprised in the
zarmindari estates of Chanda and the Chhattisgarh Division and the
Bastar and Kanker Feudatory States. This vast area, covering about
24,000 square miles, the greater part of which consists of dense
forests traversed by precipitous mountains and ravines, which formerly
rendered it impervious to Hindu invasion or immigration, producing
only on isolated stretches of culturable land the poorer raincrops,
and sparsely peopled by primitive Gonds and other forest tribes,
was probably, until a comparatively short time ago, the wildest
and least-known part of the whole Indian peninsula. It is now being
rapidly opened up by railways and good roads.
2. Constitution of the population.
Up to a few centuries ago the Central Provinces remained outside the
sphere of Hindu and Muhammadan conquest. To the people of northern
India it was known as Gondwana, an unexplored country of inaccessible
mountains and impenetrable forests, inhabited by the savage tribes
of Gonds from whom it took its name. Hindu kingdoms were, it is true,
established over a large part of its territory in the first centuries
of our era, but these were not accompanied by the settlement and
opening out of the country, and were subsequently subverted by the
Dravidian Gonds, who perhaps invaded the country in large numbers from
the south between the ninth and twelfth centuries. Hindu immigration
and colonisation from the surrounding provinces occurred at a later
period, largely under the encouragement and auspices of Gond kings. The
consequence is that the existing population is very diverse, and is
made up of elements belonging to many parts of India. The people of
the northern Districts came from Bundelkhand and the Gangetic plain,
and here are found the principal castes of the United Provinces and the
Punjab. The western end of the Nerbudda valley and Betul were colonised
from Malwa and Central India. Berar and the Nagpur plain fell to the
Marathas, and one of the most important Maratha States, the Bhonsla
kingdom, had its capital at Nagpur. Cultivators from western India
came and settled on the land, and the existing population are of
the same castes as the Maratha country or Bombay. But prior to the
Maratha conquest Berar and the Nimar District of the Central Provinces
had been included in the Mughal empire, and traces of Mughal rule
remain in a substantial Muhammadan element in the population. To
the south the Chanda District runs down to the Godavari river, and
the southern tracts of Chanda and Bastar State are largely occupied
by Telugu immigrants from Madras. To the east of the Nagpur plain
the large landlocked area of Chhattisgarh in the upper basin of the
Mahanadi was colonised at an early period by Hindus from the east of
the United Provinces and Oudh, probably coming through Jubbulpore. A
dynasty of the Haihaivansi Rajput clan established itself at Ratanpur,
and owing to the inaccessible nature of the country, protected as
it is on all sides by a natural rampart of hill and forest, was able
to pursue a tranquil existence untroubled by the wars and political
vicissitudes of northern India. The population of Chhattisgarh thus
constitutes to some extent a distinct social organism, which retained
until quite recently many remnants of primitive custom. The middle
basin of the Mahanadi to the east of Chhattisgarh, comprising the
Sambalpur District and adjoining States, was peopled by Uriyas from
Orissa, and though this area has now been restored to its parent
province, notices of its principal castes have been included in
these volumes. Finally, the population contains a large element of
the primitive or non-Aryan tribes, rich in variety, who have retired
before the pressure of Hindu cultivators to its extensive hills and
forests. The people of the Central Provinces may therefore not unjustly
be considered as a microcosm of a great part of India, and conclusions
drawn from a consideration of their caste rules and status may claim
with considerable probability of success to be applicable to those of
the Hindus generally. For the same reason the standard ethnological
works of other Provinces necessarily rank as the best authorities on
the castes of the Central Provinces, and this fact may explain and
excuse the copious resort which has been made to them in these volumes.
3. The word 'Caste.'
The word 'Caste,' Dr. Wilson states, [1] is not of Indian origin,
but is derived from the Portuguese _casta_, signifying race, mould
or quality. The Indian word for caste is _jat_ or _jati_, which has
the original meaning of birth or production of a child, and hence
denotes good birth or lineage, respectability and rank. _Jatha_
means well-born. Thus _jat_ now signifies a caste, as every Hindu
is born into a caste, and his caste determines his social position
through life.
4. The meaning of the term 'Caste.'
The two main ideas denoted by a caste are a community or persons
following a common occupation, and a community whose members marry
only among themselves. A third distinctive feature is that the
members of a caste do not as a rule eat with outsiders with the
exception of other Hindu castes of a much higher social position
than their own. None of these will, however, serve as a definition
of a caste. In a number of castes the majority of members have
abandoned their traditional occupation and taken to others. Less
than a fifth of the Brahmans of the Central Provinces are performing
any priestly or religious functions, and the remaining four-fifths
are landholders or engaged in Government service as magistrates,
clerks of public offices, constables and orderlies, or in railway
service in different grades, or in the professions as barristers and
pleaders, doctors, engineers and so on. The Rajputs and Marathas
were originally soldiers, but only an infinitely small proportion
belong to the Indian Army, and the remainder are ruling chiefs,
landholders, cultivators, labourers or in the various grades of
Government service and the police. Of the Telis or oil-pressers
only 9 per cent are engaged in their traditional occupation, and
the remainder are landholders, cultivators and shopkeepers. Of
the Ahirs or graziers only 20 per cent tend and breed cattle. Only
12 per cent of the Chamars are supported by the tanning industry,
and so on. The Bahnas or cotton-cleaners have entirely lost their
occupation, as cotton is now cleaned in factories; they are cartmen
or cultivators, but retain their caste name and organisation. Since
the introduction of machine-made cloth has reduced the profits of
hand-loom weaving, large numbers of the weaving castes have been
reduced to manual labour as a means of subsistence. The abandonment
of the traditional occupation has become a most marked feature of
Hindu society as a result of the equal opportunity and freedom in the
choice of occupations afforded by the British Government, coupled with
the rapid progress of industry and the spread of education. So far it
has had no very markedly disintegrating effect on the caste system,
and the status of a caste is still mainly fixed by its traditional
occupation; but signs are not wanting of a coming change. Again,
several castes have the same traditional occupation; about forty of
the castes of the Central Provinces are classified as agriculturists,
eleven as weavers, seven as fishermen, and so on. Distinctions of
occupation therefore are not a sufficient basis for a classification
of castes. Nor can a caste be simply defined as a body of persons who
marry only among themselves, or, as it is termed, an endogamous group;
for almost every important caste is divided into a number of subcastes
which do not marry and frequently do not eat with each other. But it
is a distinctive and peculiar feature of caste as a social institution
that it splits up the people into a multitude of these divisions and
bars their intermarriage; and the real unit of the system and the basis
of the fabric of Indian society is this endogamous group or subcaste.
5. The subcaste.
The subcastes, however, connote no real difference of status or
occupation. They are little known except within the caste itself, and
they consist of groups within the caste which marry among themselves,
and attend the communal feasts held on the occasions of marriages,
funerals and meetings of the caste _panchayat_ or committee for the
judgment of offences against the caste rules and their expiation by
a penalty feast; to these feasts all male adults of the community,
within a certain area, are invited. In the Central Provinces the 250
groups which have been classified as castes contain perhaps 2000
subcastes. Except in some cases other Hindus do not know a man's
subcaste, though they always know his caste; among the ignorant lower
castes men may often be found who do not know whether their caste
contains any subcastes or whether they themselves belong to one. That
is, they will eat and marry with all the members of their caste within
a circle of villages, but know nothing about the caste outside those
villages, or even whether it exists elsewhere. One subdivision of
a caste may look down upon another on the ground of some difference
of occupation, of origin, or of abstaining from or partaking of some
article of food, but these distinctions are usually confined to their
internal relations and seldom recognised by outsiders. For social
purposes the caste consisting of a number of these endogamous groups
generally occupies the same position, determined roughly according
to the respectability of its traditional occupation or extraction.
6. Confusion of nomenclature.
No adequate definition of caste can thus be obtained from community
of occupation or intermarriage; nor would it be accurate to say
that every one must know his own caste and that all the different
names returned at the census may be taken as distinct. In the Central
Provinces about 900 caste-names were returned at the census of 1901,
and these were reduced in classification to about 250 proper castes.
In some cases synonyms are commonly used. The caste of _pan_ or
betel-vine growers and sellers is known indifferently as Barai,
Pansari or Tamboli. The great caste of Ahirs or herdsmen has several
synonyms--as Gaoli in the Northern Districts, Rawat or Gahra in
Chhattisgarh, Gaur among the Uriyas, and Golkar among Telugus. Lohars
are also called Khati and Kammari; Masons are called Larhia, Raj
and Beldar. The more distinctly occupational castes usually have
different names in different parts of the country, as Dhobi, Warthi,
Baretha, Chakla and Parit for washermen; Basor, Burud, Kandra and
Dhulia for bamboo-workers, and so on. Such names may show that the
subdivisions to which they are applied have immigrated from different
parts of India, but the distinction is generally not now maintained,
and many persons will return one or other of them indifferently. No
object is gained, therefore, by distinguishing them in classification,
as they correspond to no differences of status or occupation, and at
most denote groups which do not intermarry, and which may therefore
more properly be considered as subcastes.
Titles or names of offices are also not infrequently given as caste
names. Members of the lowest or impure castes employed in the office
of Kotwar or village watchmen prefer to call themselves by this name,
as they thus obtain a certain rise in status, or at least they think
so. In some localities the Kotwars or village watchmen have begun
to marry among themselves and try to form a separate caste. Chamars
(tanners) or Mahars (weavers) employed as grooms will call themselves
Sais and consider themselves superior to the rest of their caste. The
Thethwar Rawats or Ahirs will not clean household cooking-vessels,
and therefore look down on the rest of the caste and prefer to call
themselves by this designation, as 'Theth' means 'exact' or 'pure,'
and Thethwar is one who has not degenerated from the ancestral
calling. Salewars are a subcaste of Koshtis (weavers), who work
only in silk and hence consider themselves as superior to the other
Koshtis and a separate caste. The Rathor subcaste of Telis in Mandla
have abandoned the hereditary occupation of oil-pressing and become
landed proprietors. They now wish to drop their own caste and to be
known only as Rathor, the name of one of the leading Rajput clans, in
the hope that in time it will be forgotten that they ever were Telis,
and they will be admitted into the community of Rajputs. It occurred
to them that the census would be a good opportunity of advancing a
step towards the desired end, and accordingly they telegraphed to the
Commissioner of Jubbulpore before the enumeration, and petitioned the
Chief Commissioner after it had been taken, to the effect that they
might be recorded and classified only as Rathor and not as Teli; this
method of obtaining recognition of their claims being, as remarked
by Sir Bampfylde Fuller, a great deal cheaper than being weighed
against gold. On the other hand, a common occupation may sometimes
amalgamate castes originally distinct into one. The sweeper's calling
is well-defined and under the generific term of Mehtar are included
members of two or three distinct castes, as Dom, Bhangi and Chuhra;
the word Mehtar means a prince or headman, and it is believed that
its application to the sweeper by the other servants is ironical. It
has now, however, been generally adopted as a caste name. Similarly,
Darzi, a tailor, was held by Sir D. Ibbetson to be simply the name
of a profession and not that of a caste; but it is certainly a true
caste in the Central Provinces, though probably of comparatively late
origin. A change of occupation may transfer a whole body of persons
from one caste to another. A large section of the Banjara caste of
carriers, who have taken to cultivation, have become included in the
Kunbi caste in Berar and are known as Wanjari Kunbi. Another subcaste
of the Kunbis called Manwa is derived from the Mana tribe. Telis or
oilmen, who have taken to vending liquor, now form a subcaste of the
Kalar caste called Teli-Kalar; those who have become shopkeepers
are called Teli-Bania and may in time become an inferior section
of the Bania caste. Other similar subcastes are the Ahir-Sunars or
herdsmen-goldsmiths, the Kayasth-Darzis or tailors, the Kori-Chamars
or weaver-tanners, the Gondi Lohars and Barhais, being Gonds who have
become carpenters and blacksmiths and been admitted to these castes;
the Mahar Mhalis or barbers, and so on.
7. Tests of what a caste is.
It would appear, then, that no precise definition of a caste can
well be formulated to meet all difficulties. In classification, each
doubtful case must be taken by itself, and it must be determined, on
the information available, whether any body of persons, consisting
of one or more endogamous groups, and distinguished by one or more
separate names, can be recognised as holding, either on account of its
traditional occupation or descent, such a distinctive position in the
social system, that it should be classified as a caste. But not even
the condition of endogamy can be accepted as of universal application;
for Vidurs, who are considered to be descended from Brahman fathers and
women of other castes, will, though marrying among themselves, still
receive the offspring of such mixed alliances into the community; in
the case of Gosains and Bairagis, who, from being religious orders,
have become castes, admission is obtained by initiation as well
as by birth, and the same is the case with several other orders;
some of the lower castes will freely admit outsiders; and in parts
of Chhattisgarh social ties are of the laxest description, and the
intermarriage of Gonds, Chamars and other low castes are by no means
infrequent. But notwithstanding these instances, the principle of
the restriction of marriage to members of the caste is so nearly
universal as to be capable of being adopted as a definition.
8. The four traditional castes.
The well-known traditional theory of caste is that the Aryans were
divided from the beginning of time into four castes: Brahmans or
priests, Kshatriyas or warriors, Vaishyas or merchants and cultivators,
and Sudras or menials and labourers, all of whom had a divine origin,
being born from the body of Brahma--the Brahmans from his mouth,
the Kshatriyas from his arms, the Vaishyas from his thighs, and the
Sudras from his feet. Intermarriage between the four castes was not
at first entirely prohibited, and a man of any of the three higher
ones, provided that for his first wife he took a woman of his own
caste, could subsequently marry others of the divisions beneath his
own. In this manner the other castes originated. Thus the Kaivarttas
or Kewats were the offspring of a Kshatriya father and Vaishya mother,
and so on. Mixed marriages in the opposite direction, of a woman of
a higher caste with a man of a lower one, were reprobated as strongly
as possible, and the offspring of these were relegated to the lowest
position in society; thus the Chandals, or descendants of a Sudra
father and Brahman mother, were of all men the most base. It has been
recognised that this genealogy, though in substance the formation of
a number of new castes through mixed descent may have been correct,
is, as regards the details, an attempt made by a priestly law-giver
to account, on the lines of orthodox tradition, for a state of society
which had ceased to correspond to them.
9. Occupational theory of caste.
In the ethnographic description of the people of the Punjab, which
forms the Caste chapter of Sir Denzil Ibbetson's _Census Report_ of
1881, it was pointed out that occupation was the chief basis of the
division of castes, and there is no doubt that this is true. Every
separate occupation has produced a distinct caste, and the status of
the caste depends now mainly or almost entirely on its occupation. The
fact that there may be several castes practising such important
callings as agriculture or weaving does not invalidate this in any way,
and instances of the manner in which such castes have been developed
will be given subsequently. If a caste changes its occupation it may,
in the course of time, alter its status in a corresponding degree. The
important Kayasth and Gurao castes furnish instances of this. Castes,
in fact, tend to rise or fall in social position with the acquisition
of land or other forms of wealth or dignity much in the same manner
as individuals do nowadays in European countries. Hitherto in India
it has not been the individual who has undergone the process; he
inherits the social position of the caste in which he is born, and, as
a rule, retains it through life without the power of altering it. It
is the caste, as a whole, or at least one of its important sections
or subcastes, which gradually rises or falls in social position,
and the process may extend over generations or even centuries.
In the _Brief Sketch of the Caste System of the North-Western
Provinces and Oudh_, Mr. J.C. Nesfield puts forward the view that
the whole basis of the caste system is the division of occupations,
and that the social gradation of castes corresponds precisely to
the different periods of civilisation during which their traditional
occupations originated. Thus the lowest castes are those allied to
the primitive occupation of hunting, Pasi, Bhar, Bahelia, because
the pursuit of wild animals was the earliest stage in the development
of human industry. Next above these come the fishing castes, fishing
being considered somewhat superior to hunting, because water is a more
sacred element among Hindus than land, and there is less apparent
cruelty in the capturing of fish than the slaughtering of animals;
these are the Kahars, Kewats, Dhimars and others. Above these come the
pastoral castes--Ghosi, Gadaria, Gujar and Ahir; and above them the
agricultural castes, following the order in which these occupations
were adopted during the progress of civilisation. At the top of the
system stands the Rajput or Chhatri, the warrior, whose duty is to
protect all the lower castes, and the Brahman, who is their priest and
spiritual guide. Similarly, the artisan castes are divided into two
main groups; the lower one consists of those whose occupations preceded
the age of metallurgy, as the Chamars and Mochis or tanners, Koris
or weavers, the Telis or oil-pressers, Kalars or liquor-distillers,
Kumhars or potters, and Lunias or salt-makers. The higher group
includes those castes whose occupations were coeval with the age
of metallurgy, that is, those who work in stone, wood and metals,
and who make clothing and ornaments, as the Barhai or worker in wood,
the Lohar or worker in iron, the Kasera and Thathera, brass-workers,
and the Sunar or worker in the precious metals, ranking precisely in
this order of precedence, the Sunar being the highest. The theory is
still further developed among the trading castes, who are arranged
in a similar manner, beginning from the Banjara or forest trader,
the Kunjra or greengrocer, and the Bharbhunja or grain-parcher,
up to the classes of Banias and Khatris or shopkeepers and bankers.
It can hardly be supposed that the Hindus either consciously or
unconsciously arranged their gradation of society in a scientific
order of precedence in the manner described. The main divisions
of social precedence are correctly stated by Mr. Nesfield, but it
will be suggested in this essay that they arose naturally from the
divisions of the principal social organism of India, the village
community. Nevertheless Mr. Nesfield's book will always rank as a
most interesting and original contribution to the literature of the
subject, and his work did much to stimulate inquiry into the origin
of the caste system.
10. Racial Theory.
In his Introduction to the _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_ Sir Herbert
Risley laid stress on the racial basis of caste, showing that
difference of race and difference of colour were the foundation of
the Indian caste system or division of the people into endogamous
units. There seems reason to suppose that the contact of the
Aryans with the indigenous people of India was, to a large extent,
responsible for the growth of the caste system, and the main racial
divisions may perhaps even now be recognised, though their racial
basis has, to a great extent, vanished. But when we come to individual
castes and subcastes, the scrutiny of their origin, which has been
made in the individual articles, appears to indicate that caste
distinctions cannot, as a rule, be based on supposed difference of
race. Nevertheless Sir H. Risley's _Castes and Tribes of Bengal_ and
_Peoples of India_ will, no doubt, always be considered as standard
authorities, while as Census Commissioner for India and Director of
Ethnography he probably did more to foster this branch of research
in India generally than any other man has ever done.
11. Entry of the Aryans into India. The Aryas and Dasyus.
M. Emile Senart, in his work _Les Castes dans l'Inde_, gives an
admirable sketch of the features marking the entry of the Aryans
into India and their acquisition of the country, from which the
following account is largely taken. The institution of caste as it
is understood at present did not exist among the Aryans of the Vedic
period, on their first entry into India. The word _varna_, literally
'colour,' which is afterwards used in speaking of the four castes,
distinguishes in the Vedas two classes only: there are the Arya Varna
and the Dasa Varna--the Aryan race and the race of enemies. In other
passages the Dasyus are spoken of as black, and Indra is praised
for protecting the Aryan colour. In later literature the black race,
Krishna Varna, are opposed to the Brahmans, and the same word is used
of the distinction between Aryas and Sudras. The word _varna_ was
thus used, in the first place, not of four castes, but of two hostile
races, one white and the other black. It is said that Indra divided
the fields among his white-coloured people after destroying the Dasyus,
by whom may be understood the indigenous barbarian races. [2] The word
Dasyu, which frequently recurs in the Vedas, probably refers to the
people of foreign countries or provinces like the Goim or Gentiles
of the Hebrews. The Dasyus were not altogether barbarians, for they
had cities and other institutions showing a partial civilisation,
though the Aryas, lately from more bracing climes than those which
they inhabited, proved too strong for them. [3] To the Aryans the word
Dasyu had the meaning of one who not only did not perform religious
rites, but attempted to harass their performers. Another verse says,
"Distinguish, O Indra, between the Aryas and those who are Dasyus:
punishing those who perform no religious rites; compel them to
submit to the sacrifices; be thou the powerful, the encourager of
the sacrificer." [4]
Rakshasa was another designation given to the tribes with whom
the Aryans were in hostility. Its meaning is strong, gigantic or
powerful, and among the modern Hindus it is a word for a devil
or demon. In the Satapatha Brahmana of the white Yajur-Veda the
Rakshasas are represented as 'prohibiters,' that is 'prohibiters of
the sacrifice.' [5] Similarly, at a later period, Manu describes
Aryavarrta, or the abode of the Aryas, as the country between the
eastern and western oceans, and between the Himalayas and the Vindhyas,
that is Hindustan, the Deccan being not then recognised as an abode
of the Aryans. And he thus speaks of the country: "From a Brahman born
in Aryavarrta let all men on earth learn their several usages." "That
land on which the black antelope naturally grazes, is held fit for
the performance of sacrifices; but the land of Mlechchhas (foreigners)
is beyond it." "Let the three first classes (Brahmans, Kshatriyas and
Vaishyas) invariably dwell in the above-mentioned countries; but a
Sudra distressed for subsistence may sojourn wherever he chooses." [6]
Another passage states: "If some pious king belonging to the Kshatriya
or some other caste should defeat the Mlechchhas [7] and establish
a settlement of the four castes in their territories, and accept the
Mlechchhas thus defeated as Chandalas (the most impure caste in ancient
Hindu society) as is the case in Aryavarrta, then that country also
becomes fit for sacrifice. For no land is impure of itself. A land
becomes so only by contact." This passage is quoted by a Hindu writer
with the same reference to the Code of Manu as the preceding one,
but it is not found there and appears to be a gloss by a later writer,
explaining how the country south of the Vindhyas, which is excluded by
Manu, should be rendered fit for Aryan settlement. [8] Similarly in
a reference in the Brahmanas to the migration of the Aryans eastward
from the Punjab it is stated that Agni the fire-god flashed forth from
the mouth of a priest invoking him at a sacrifice and burnt across all
the five rivers, and as far as he burnt Brahmans could live. Agni, as
the god of fire by which the offerings were consumed, was addressed as
follows: "We kindle thee at the sacrifice, O wise Agni, the sacrificer,
the luminous, the mighty." [9] The sacrifices referred to were, in the
early period, of domestic animals, the horse, ox or goat, the flesh of
which was partaken of by the worshippers, and the sacred Soma-liquor,
which was drunk by them; the prohibition or discouragement of animal
sacrifices for the higher castes gradually came about at a later time,
and was probably to a large extent due to the influence of Buddhism.
The early sacrifice was in the nature of a communal sacred meal at
which the worshippers partook of the animal or liquor offered to the
god. The Dasyus or indigenous Indian races could not worship the Aryan
gods nor join in the sacrifices offered to them, which constituted
the act of worship. They were a hostile race, but the hostility was
felt and expressed on religious rather than racial grounds, as the
latter term is understood at present.
12. The Sudra.
M. Senart points out that the division of the four castes appearing
in post-Vedic literature, does not proceed on equal lines. There were
two groups, one composed of the three higher castes, and the other
of the Sudras or lowest. The higher castes constituted a fraternity
into which admission was obtained only by a religious ceremony of
initiation and investment with the sacred thread. The Sudras were
excluded and could take no part in sacrifices. The punishment for the
commission of the gravest offences by a Brahman was that he became
a Sudra, that is to say an outcast. The killing of a Sudra was an
offence no more severe than that of killing certain animals. A Sudra
was prohibited by the severest penalties from approaching within a
certain distance of a member of any of the higher castes. In the Sutras
[10] it is declared [11] that the Sudra has not the right (Adhikara)
of sacrifice enjoyed by the Brahman, Kshatriya and Vaishya. He was
not to be invested with the sacred thread, nor permitted, like them,
to hear, commit to memory, or recite Vedic texts. For listening to
these texts he ought to have his ears shut up with melted lead or
lac by way of punishment; for pronouncing them, his tongue cut out;
and for committing them to memory, his body cut in two. [12] The Veda
was never to be read in the presence of a Sudra; and no sacrifice
was to be performed for him. [13] The Sudras, it is stated in the
Harivansha, are sprung from vacuity, and are destitute of ceremonies,
and so are not entitled to the rites of initiation. Just as upon the
friction of wood, the cloud of smoke which issues from the fire and
spreads around is of no service in the sacrificial rite, so too the
Sudras spread over the earth are unserviceable, owing to their birth,
to their want of initiatory rites, and the ceremonies ordained by the
Vedas. [14] Again it is ordained that silence is to be observed by
parties of the three sacrificial classes when a Sudra enters to remove
their natural defilements, and thus the servile position of the Sudra
is recognised. [15] Here it appears that the Sudra is identified with
the sweeper or scavenger, the most debased and impure of modern Hindu
castes. [16] In the Dharmashastras or law-books it is laid down that
a person taking a Sudra's food for a month becomes a Sudra and after
death becomes a dog. Issue begotten after eating a Sudra's food is of
the Sudra caste. A person who dies with Sudra's food in his stomach
becomes a village pig, or is reborn in a Sudra's family. [17] An
Arya who had sexual intimacy with a Sudra woman was to be banished;
but a Sudra having intimacy with an Arya was to be killed. If a Sudra
reproached a dutiful Arya, or put himself on equality with him on a
road, on a couch or on a seat, he was to be beaten with a stick. [18]
A Brahman might without hesitation take the property of a Sudra; he,
the Sudra, had indeed nothing of his own; his master might, doubtless,
take his property. [19] According to the Mahabharata the Sudras are
appointed servants to the Brahmans, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas. [20]
A Brahman woman having connection with a Sudra was to be devoured by
dogs, but one having connection with a Kshatriya or Vaishya was merely
to have her head shaved and be carried round on an ass. [21] When a
Brahman received a gift from another Brahman he had to acknowledge it
in a loud voice; from a Rajanya or Kshatriya, in a gentle voice; from a
Vaishya, in a whisper; and from a Sudra, in his own mind. To a Brahman
he commenced his thanks with the sacred syllable Om; to a king he gave
thanks without the sacred Om; to a Vaishya he whispered his thanks;
to a Sudra he said nothing, but thought in his own mind, _svasti_,
or 'This is good.' [22] It would thus seem clear that the Sudras
were distinct from the Aryas and were a separate and inferior race,
consisting of the indigenous people of India. In the Atharva-Veda
the Sudra is recognised as distinct from the Arya, and also the
Dasa from the Arya, as in the Rig-Veda. [23] Dr. Wilson remarks,
"The aboriginal inhabitants, again, who conformed to the Brahmanic
law, received certain privileges, and were constituted as a fourth
caste under the name of Sudras, whereas all the rest who kept aloof
were called Dasyus, whatever their language might be." [24] The
Sudras, though treated by Manu and Hindu legislation in general as a
component, if enslaved, part of the Indian community, not entitled to
the second or sacramental birth, are not even once mentioned in the
older parts of the Vedas. They are first locally brought to notice in
the Mahabharata, along with the Abhiras, dwelling on the banks of the
Indus. There are distinct classical notices of the Sudras in this very
locality and its neighbourhood. "In historical times," says Lassen,
"their name reappears in that of the town Sudros on the lower Indus,
and, what is especially worthy of notice, in that of the people Sudroi,
among the Northern Arachosians." [25]
"Thus their existence as a distinct nation is established in the
neighbourhood of the Indus, that is to say in the region in which, in
the oldest time, the Aryan Indians dwelt. The Aryans probably conquered
these indigenous inhabitants first; and when the others in the interior
of the country were subsequently subdued and enslaved, the name Sudra
was extended to the whole servile caste. There seems to have been some
hesitation in the Aryan community about the actual religious position
to be given to the Sudras. In the time of the liturgical Brahmanas
of the Vedas, they were sometimes admitted to take part in the Aryan
sacrifices. Not long afterwards, when the conquests of the Aryans were
greatly extended, and they formed a settled state of society among
the affluents of the Jumna and Ganges, the Sudras were degraded to
the humiliating and painful position which they occupy in Manu. There
is no mention of any of the Sankara or mixed castes in the Vedas." [26]
From the above evidence it seems clear that the Sudras were really
the indigenous inhabitants of India, who were subdued by the Aryans as
they gradually penetrated into India. When the conquering race began
to settle in the land, the indigenous tribes, or such of them as did
not retire before the invaders into the still unconquered interior,
became a class of menials and labourers, as the Amalekites were to the
children of Israel. The Sudras were the same people as the Dasyus of
the hymns, after they had begun to live in villages with the Aryans,
and had to be admitted, though in the most humiliating fashion,
into the Aryan polity. But the hostility between the Aryas and the
Dasyus or Sudras, though in reality racial, was felt and expressed
on religious grounds, and probably the Aryans had no real idea of
what is now understood by difference of race or deterioration of
type from mixture of races. The Sudras were despised and hated as
worshippers of a hostile god. They could not join in the sacrifices
by which the Aryans renewed and cemented their kinship with their god
and with each other; hence they were outlaws towards whom no social
obligations existed. It would have been quite right and proper that
they should be utterly destroyed, precisely as the Israelites thought
that Jehovah had commanded them to destroy the Canaanites. But they
were too numerous, and hence they were regarded as impure and made to
live apart, so that they should not pollute the places of sacrifice,
which among the Aryans included their dwelling-houses. It does not
seem to have been the case that the Aryans had any regard for the
preservation of the purity of their blood or colour. From an early
period men of the three higher castes might take a Sudra woman in
marriage, and the ultimate result has been an almost complete fusion
between the two races in the bulk of the population over the greater
part of the country. Nevertheless the status of the Sudra still
remains attached to the large community of the impure castes formed
from the indigenous tribes, who have settled in Hindu villages and
entered the caste system. These are relegated to the most degrading
and menial occupations, and their touch is regarded as conveying
defilement like that of the Sudras. [27] The status of the Sudras
was not always considered so low, and they were sometimes held to
rank above the mixed castes. And in modern times in Bengal Sudra
is quite a respectable term applied to certain artisan castes which
there have a fairly good position. But neither were the indigenous
tribes always reduced to the impure status. Their fortunes varied,
and those who resisted subjection were probably sometimes accepted as
allies. For instance, some of the most prominent of the Rajput clans
are held to have been derived from the aboriginal [28] tribes. On the
Aryan expedition to southern India, which is preserved in the legend of
Rama, as related in the Ramayana, it is stated that Rama was assisted
by Hanuman with his army of apes. The reference is generally held to
be to the fact that the Aryans had as auxiliaries some of the forest
tribes, and these were consequently allies, and highly thought of,
as shown by the legend and by their identification with the mighty
god Hanuman. And at the present time the forest tribes who live
separately from the Hindus in the jungle tracts are, as a rule, not
regarded as impure. But this does not impair the identification of the
Sudras with those tribes who were reduced to subjection and serfdom
in the Hindu villages, as shown by the evidence here given. The view
has also been held that the Sudras might have been a servile class
already subject to the Aryans, who entered India with them. And in
the old Parsi or Persian community four classes existed, the Athornan
or priest, the Rathestan or warrior, the Vasteriox or husbandman,
and the Hutox or craftsman. [29] The second and third of these names
closely resemble those of the corresponding Hindu classical castes,
the Rajanya or Kshatriya and the Vaishya, while Athornan, the name
for a priest, is the same as Atharvan, the Hindu name for a Brahman
versed in the Atharva-Veda. Possibly then Hutox may be connected with
Sudra, as _h_ frequently changes into _s_. But on the other hand the
facts that the Sudras are not mentioned in the Vedas, and that they
succeeded to the position of the Dasyus, the black hostile Indians,
as well as the important place they fill in the later literature,
seem to indicate clearly that they mainly consisted of the indigenous
subject tribes. Whether the Aryans applied a name already existing
in a servile class among themselves to the indigenous population whom
they subdued, may be an uncertain point.
13. The Vaishya.
In the Vedas, moreover, M. Senart shows that the three higher castes
are not definitely distinguished; but there are three classes--the
priests, the chiefs and the people, among whom the Aryans were
comprised. The people are spoken of in the plural as the clans who
followed the chiefs to battle. The word used is Visha. One verse
speaks of the Vishas (clans) bowing before the chief (Rajan), who was
preceded by a priest (Brahman). Another verse says: "Favour the prayer
(Brahma), favour the service; kill the Rakshasas, drive away the evil;
favour the power (_khatra_) and favour the manly strength; favour the
cow (_dherm_, the representative of property) and favour the people
(or house, _visha_)." [30]
Similarly Wilson states that in the time of the Vedas, _visha_ (related
to _vesha_, a house or district) signified the people in general;
and Vaishya, its adjective, was afterwards applied to a householder,
or that appertaining to an individual of the common people. The Latin
_vicus_ and the Greek o>=ikoc are the correspondents of _vesha_. [31]
The conclusion to be drawn is that the Aryans in the Vedas, like other
early communities, were divided by rank or occupation into three
classes--priests, nobles and the body of the people. The Vishas or
clans afterwards became the Vaishyas or third classical caste. Before
they entered India the Aryans were a migratory pastoral people,
their domestic animals being the horse, cow, and perhaps the sheep
and goat. The horse and cow were especially venerated, and hence were
probably their chief means of support. The Vaishyas must therefore
have been herdsmen and shepherds, and when they entered India and took
to agriculture, the Vaishyas must have become cultivators. The word
Vaishya signifies a man who occupies the soil, an agriculturist, or
merchant. [32] The word Vasteriox used by the ancestors of the Parsis,
which appears to correspond to Vaishya, also signifies a husbandman,
as already seen. Dr. Max Müller states: "The three occupations of the
Aryas in India were fighting, cultivating the soil and worshipping
the gods. Those who fought the battles of the people would naturally
acquire influence and rank, and their leaders appear in the Veda as
Rajas or kings. Those who did not share in the fighting would occupy a
more humble position; they were called Vish, Vaishyas or householders,
and would no doubt have to contribute towards the maintenance of the
armies. [33] According to Manu, God ordained the tending of cattle,
giving alms, sacrifice, study, trade, usury, and also agriculture
for a Vaishya." [34] The Sutras state that agriculture, the keeping
of cattle, and engaging in merchandise, as well as learning the
Vedas, sacrificing for himself and giving alms, are the duties of a
Vaishya. [35] In the Mahabharata it is laid down that the Vaishyas
should devote themselves to agriculture, the keeping of cattle and
liberality. [36] In the same work the god Vayu says to Bhishma:
"And it was Brahma's ordinance that the Vaishya should sustain the
three castes (Brahman, Kshatriya and Vaishya) with money and corn;
and that the Sudra should serve them." [37]
In a list of classes or occupations given in the White Yajur-Veda,
and apparently referring to a comparatively advanced state of Hindu
society, tillage is laid down as the calling of the Vaishya, and
he is distinguished from the Vani or merchant, whose occupation is
trade or weighing. [38] Manu states that a Brahman should swear by
truth; a Kshatriya by his steed and his weapons; a Vaishya by his
cows, his seed and his gold; and a Sudra by all wicked deeds. [39]
Yellow is the colour of the Vaishya, and it must apparently be taken
from the yellow corn, and the yellow colour of _ghi_ or butter, the
principal product of the sacred cow; yellow is also the colour of
the sacred metal gold, but there can scarcely have been sufficient
gold in the hands of the body of the people in those early times to
enable it to be especially associated with them. The Vaishyas were
thus, as is shown by the above evidence, the main body of the people
referred to in the Vedic hymns. When these settled down into villages
the Vaishyas became the householders and cultivators, among whom the
village lands were divided; the Sudras or indigenous tribes, who also
lived in the villages or in hamlets adjoining them, were labourers
and given all the most disagreeable tasks in the village community,
as is the case with the impure castes at present.
14. Mistaken modern idea of the Vaishyas.
The demonstration of the real position of the Vaishyas is important,
because the Hindus themselves no longer recognise this. The name
Vaishya is now frequently restricted to the Bania caste of bankers,
shopkeepers and moneylenders, and hence the Banias are often supposed
to be the descendants and only modern representatives of the original
Vaishyas. Evidence has been given in the article on Bania to show that
the existing Bania caste is mainly derived from the Rajputs. The name
Bani, a merchant or trader, is found at an early period, but whether
it denoted a regular Bania caste may be considered as uncertain. In
any case it seems clear that this comparatively small caste, chiefly
coming from Rajputana, cannot represent the Vaishyas, who were the
main body or people of the invading Aryans. At that time the Vaishyas
cannot possibly have been traders, because they alone provided
the means of subsistence of the community, and if they produced
nothing, there could be no material for trade. The Vaishyas must,
therefore, as already seen, have been shepherds and cultivators,
since in early times wealth consisted almost solely of corn and
cattle. At a later period, with the increased religious veneration
for all kinds of life, agriculture apparently fell into some kind of
disrepute as involving the sacrifice of insect life, and there was
a tendency to emphasise trade as the Vaishya's occupation in view
of its greater respectability. It is considered very derogatory for
a Brahman or Rajput to touch the plough with his own hands, and the
act has hitherto involved a loss of status: these castes, however,
did not object to hold land, but, on the contrary, ardently desired
to do so like all other Hindus. Ploughing was probably despised as a
form of manual labour, and hence an undignified action for a member
of the aristocracy, just as a squire or gentleman farmer in England
might consider it beneath his dignity to drive the plough himself. No
doubt also, as the fusion of races proceeded, and bodies of the
indigenous tribes who were cultivators adopted Hinduism, the status
of a cultivator sank to some extent, and his Vaishyan ancestry was
forgotten. But though the Vaishya himself has practically disappeared,
his status as a cultivator and member of the village community appears
to remain in that of the modern cultivating castes, as will be shown
subsequently.
15. Mixed unions of the four classes.
The settlement of the Aryans in India was in villages and not in
towns, and the Hindus have ever since remained a rural people. In
1911 less than a tenth of the population of India was urban, and
nearly three-quarters of the total were directly supported by
agriculture. Apparently, therefore, the basis or embryo of the
gradation of Hindu society or the caste system should be sought
in the village. Two main divisions of the village community may be
recognised in the Vaishyas or cultivators and the Sudras or impure
serfs and labourers. The exact position held by the Kshatriyas and the
constitution of their class are not quite clear, but there is no doubt
that the Brahmans and Kshatriyas formed the early aristocracy, ranking
above the cultivators, and a few other castes have since attained to
this position. From early times, as is shown by an ordinance of Manu,
men of the higher castes or classes were permitted, after taking
a woman of their own class for the first wife, to have second and
subsequent wives from any of the classes beneath them. This custom
appears to have been largely prevalent. No definite rule prescribed
that the children of such unions should necessarily be illegitimate,
and in many cases no doubt seems to exist that, if not they themselves,
their descendants at any rate ultimately became full members of the
caste of the first ancestor. According to Manu, if the child of a
Brahman by a Sudra woman intermarried with Brahmans and his descendants
after him, their progeny in the seventh generation would become full
Brahmans; and the same was the case with the child of a Kshatriya or a
Vaishya with a Sudra woman. A commentator remarks that the descendants
of a Brahman by a Kshatriya woman could attain Brahmanhood in the
third generation, and those by a Vaishya woman in the fifth. [40]
Such children also could inherit. According to the Mahabharata, if
a Brahman had four wives of different castes, the son by a Brahman
wife took four shares, that by a Kshatriya wife three, by a Vaishya
wife two, and by a Sudra wife one share. [41] Manu gives a slightly
different distribution, but also permits to the son by a Sudra wife
a share of the inheritance. [42] Thus the fact is clear that the son
of a Brahman even by a Sudra woman had a certain status of legitimacy
in his father's caste, as he could marry in it, and must therefore
have been permitted to partake of the sacrificial food at marriage;
[43] and he could also inherit a small share of the property.
16. Hypergamy.
The detailed rules prescribed for the status of legitimacy and
inheritance show that recognised unions of this kind between men of a
higher class and women of a lower one were at one time fairly frequent,
though they were afterwards prohibited. And they must necessarily
have led to much mixture of blood in the different castes. A trace
of them seems to survive in the practice of hypergamy, still widely
prevalent in northern India, by which men of the higher subcastes of
a caste will take daughters in marriage from lower ones but will not
give their daughters in return. This custom prevails largely among the
higher castes of the Punjab, as the Rajputs and Khatris, and among the
Brahmans of Bengal. [44] Only a few cases are found in the Central
Provinces, among Brahmans, Sunars and other castes. Occasionally
intermarriage between two castes takes place on a hypergamous basis;
thus Rajputs are said to take daughters from the highest clans of
the cultivating caste of Dangis. More commonly families of the lower
subcastes or clans in the same caste consider the marriage of their
daughters into a higher group a great honour and will give large sums
of money for a bridegroom. Until quite recently a Rajput was bound to
marry his daughters into a clan of equal or higher rank than his own,
in order to maintain the position of his family. It is not easy to
see why so much importance should be attached to the marriage of a
daughter, since she passed into another clan and family, to whom her
offspring would belong. On the other hand, a son might take a wife
from a lower group without loss of status, though his children would
be the future representatives of the family. Another point, possibly
connected with hypergamy, is that a peculiar relation exists between a
man and the family into which his daughter has married. Sometimes he
will accept no food or even water in his son-in-law's village. The
word _sala_, signifying wife's brother, when addressed to a man,
is also a common and extremely offensive term of abuse. The meaning
is now perhaps supposed to be that one has violated the sister of
the person spoken to, but this can hardly have been the original
significance as _sasur_ or father-in-law is also considered in a
minor degree an opprobrious term of address.
17. The mixed castes. The village menials.
But though among the four classical castes it was possible for the
descendants of mixed unions between fathers of higher and mothers of
lower caste to be admitted into their father's caste, this would not
have been the general rule. Such connections were very frequent and
the Hindu classics account through them for the multiplication of
castes. Long lists are given of new castes formed by the children
of mixed marriages. The details of these genealogies seem to be
destitute of any probability, and perhaps, therefore, instances of
them are unnecessary. Matches between a man of higher and a woman of
lower caste were called _anuloma_, or 'with the hair' or 'grain,'
and were regarded as suitable and becoming. Those between a man of
lower and a woman of higher caste were, on the other hand, known as
_pratiloma_ or 'against the hair,' and were considered as disgraceful
and almost incestuous. The offspring of such unions are held to
have constituted the lowest and most impure castes of scavengers,
dog-eaters and so on. This doctrine is to be accounted for by the
necessity of safeguarding the morality of women in a state of society
where kinship is reckoned solely by male descent. The blood of the
tribe and clan, and hence the right to membership and participation
in the communal sacrifices, is then communicated to the child through
the father; hence if the women are unchaste, children may be born
into the family who have no such rights, and the whole basis of
society is destroyed. For the same reason, since the tribal blood
and life is communicated through males, the birth and standing of
the mother are of little importance, and children are, as has been
seen, easily admitted to their father's rank. But already in Manu's
time the later and present view that both the father and mother must
be of full status in the clan, tribe or caste in order to produce a
legitimate child, has begun to prevail, and the children of all mixed
marriages are relegated to a lower group. The offspring of these mixed
unions did probably give rise to a class of different status in the
village community. The lower-caste mother would usually have been
taken into the father's house and her children would be brought up in
it. Thus they would eat the food of the household, even if they did
not participate in the sacrificial feasts; and a class of this kind
would be very useful for the performance of menial duties in and about
the household, such as personal service, bringing water, and so on,
for which the Sudras, owing to their impurity, would be unsuitable. In
the above manner a new grade of village menial might have arisen and
have gradually been extended to the other village industries, so that
a third group would be formed in the village community ranking between
the cultivators and labourers. This gradation of the village community
may perhaps still be discerned in the main social distinctions of the
different Hindu castes at present. And an attempt will now be made
to demonstrate this hypothesis in connection with a brief survey of
the castes of the Province.
18. Social gradation of castes.
An examination of the social status of the castes of the Central
Provinces, which, as already seen, are representative of a great part
of India, shows that they fall into five principal groups. The highest
consists of those castes who now claim to be directly descended from
the Brahmans, Kshatriyas or Vaishyas, the three higher of the four
classical castes. The second comprises what are generally known
as pure or good castes. The principal mark of their caste status
is that a Brahman will take water to drink from them, and perform
ceremonies in their houses. They may be classified in three divisions:
the higher agricultural castes, higher artisan castes, and serving
castes from whom a Brahman will take water. The third group contains
those castes from whose hands a Brahman will not take water; but
their touch does not convey impurity and they are permitted to enter
Hindu temples. They consist mainly of certain cultivating castes
of low status, some of them recently derived from the indigenous
tribes, other functional castes formed from the forest tribes, and
a number of professional and menial castes, whose occupations are
mainly pursued in villages, so that they formerly obtained their
subsistence from grain-payments or annual allowances of grain from
the cultivators at seedtime and harvest. The group includes also some
castes of village priests and mendicant religious orders, who beg
from the cultivators. In the fourth group are placed the non-Aryan
or indigenous tribes. Most of these cannot properly be said to form
part of the Hindu social system at all, but for practical purposes
they are admitted and are considered to rank below all castes except
those who cannot be touched. The lowest group consists of the impure
castes whose touch is considered to defile the higher castes. Within
each group there are minor differences of status some of which will
be noticed, but the broad divisions may be considered as representing
approximately the facts. The rule about Brahmans taking water from
the good agricultural and artisan castes obtains, for instance, only
in northern India. Maratha Brahmans will not take water from any but
other Brahmans, and in Chhattisgarh Brahmans and other high castes
will take water only from the hands of a Rawat (grazier), and from
no other caste. But nevertheless the Kunbis, the great cultivating
caste of the Maratha country, though Brahmans do not take water from
them, are on the same level as the Kurmis, the cultivating caste of
Hindustan, and in tracts where they meet Kunbis and Kurmis are often
considered to be the same caste. The evidence of the statements made
as to the origin of different castes in the following account will
be found in the articles on them in the body of the work.
19. Castes ranking above the cultivators.
The castes of the first group are noted below:
Bania.
Bhat.
Brahman.
Gurao.
Karan.
Kayasth and Prabhu.
Khatri.
Rajput.
The Brahmans are, as they have always been, the highest caste. The
Rajputs are the representatives of the ancient Kshatriyas or second
caste, though the existing Rajput clans are probably derived from
the Hun, Gujar and other invaders of the period before and shortly
after the commencement of the Christian era, and in some cases from
the indigenous or non-Aryan tribes. It does not seem possible to
assert in the case of a single one of the present Rajput clans that
any substantial evidence is forthcoming in favour of their descent
from the Aryan Kshatriyas, and as regards most of the clans there are
strong arguments against such a hypothesis. Nevertheless the Rajputs
have succeeded to the status of the Kshatriyas, and an alternative
name for them, Chhatri, is a corruption of the latter word. They are
commonly identified with the second of the four classical castes,
but a Hindu law-book gives Rajaputra as the offspring of a Kshatriya
father and a mother of the Karan or writer caste. [45] This genealogy
is absurd, but may imply the opinion that the Rajputs were not the
same as the Aryan Kshatriyas. The Khatris are an important mercantile
caste of the Punjab, who in the opinion of most authorities are
derived from the Rajputs. The name is probably a corruption of
Kshatri or Kshatriya. The Banias are the great mercantile, banking
and shopkeeping caste among the Hindus and a large proportion of
the trade in grain and _ghi_ (preserved butter) is in their hands,
while they are also the chief moneylenders. Most of the important
Bania subcastes belonged originally to Rajputana and Central India,
which are also the homes of the Rajputs, and reasons have been given
in the article on Bania for holding that they are derived from the
Rajputs. They, however, are now commonly called Vaishyas by the Hindus,
as, I think, under the mistaken impression that they are descended
from the original Vaishyas. The Bhats are the bards, heralds and
genealogists of India and include groups of very varying status. The
Bhats who act as genealogists of the cultivating and other castes and
accept cooked food from their clients may perhaps be held to rank with
or even below them. But the high-class Bhats are undoubtedly derived
from Brahmans and Rajputs, and rank just below those castes. The bard
or herald had a sacred character, and his person was inviolable like
that of the herald elsewhere, and this has given a special status to
the whole caste. [46] The Kayasths are the writer caste of Hindustan,
and the Karans and Prabhus are the corresponding castes of Orissa and
Bombay. The position of the Kayasths has greatly risen during the last
century on account of their own ability and industry and the advantages
they have obtained through their high level of education. The original
Kayasths may have been village accountants and hence have occupied a
lower position, perhaps below the cultivators. They are an instance of
a caste whose social position has greatly improved on account of the
wealth and importance of its members. At present the Kayasths may be
said to rank next to Brahmans and Rajputs. The origin of the Prabhus
and Karans is uncertain, but their recent social history appears to
resemble that of the Kayasths. The Guraos are another caste whose
position has greatly improved. They were priests of the village
temples of Siva, and accepted the offerings of food which Brahmans
could not take. But they also supplied leaf-plates for festivals,
and were village musicians and trumpeters in the Maratha armies,
and hence probably ranked below the cultivators and were supported
by contributions of grain from them. Their social position has been
raised by their sacred character as priests of the god Siva and they
are now sometimes called Shaiva Brahmans. But a distinct recollection
of their former status exists.
Thus all the castes of the first group are derived from the
representatives of the Brahmans and Kshatriyas, the two highest
of the four classical castes, except the Guraos, who have risen in
status owing to special circumstances. The origin of the Kayasths is
discussed in the article on that caste. Members of the above castes
usually wear the sacred thread which is the mark of the Dwija or
twice-born, the old Brahmans, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas. The thread is
not worn generally by the castes of the second group, but the more
wealthy and prominent sections of them frequently assume it.
20. Castes from whom a Brahman can take water. Higher agriculturists.
The second group of good castes from whom a Brahman can take water
falls into three sections as already explained: the higher agricultural
castes, the higher artisans, and the serving or menial castes from
whom a Brahman takes water from motives of convenience. These last
do not properly belong to the second group but to the next lower one
of village menials. The higher agricultural castes or those of the
first section are noted below:
Agharia.
Ahir.
Bhilala.
Bishnoi.
Chasa.
Daharia.
Dangi.
Dumal.
Gujar.
Jadum.
Jat.
Khandait.
Kirar.
Kolta.
Kunbi.
Kurmi.
Lodhi.
Mali.
Maratha.
Mina or Deswali.
Panwar Rajput.
Raghuvansi.
Velama.
In this division the Kurmis and Kunbis are the typical agricultural
castes of Hindustan or the plains of northern India, and the Bombay
or Maratha Deccan. Both are very numerous and appear to be purely
occupational bodies. The name Kurmi perhaps signifies a cultivator
or worker. Kunbi may mean a householder. In both castes, groups of
diverse origin seem to have been amalgamated owing to their common
calling. Thus the Kunbis include a subcaste derived from the Banjara
(carriers), another from the Dhangars or shepherds, and a third
from the Manas, a primitive tribe. In Bombay it is considered that
the majority of the Kunbi caste are sprung from the non-Aryan or
indigenous tribes, and this may be the reason why Maratha Brahmans do
not take water from them. But they have now become one caste with a
status equal to that of the other good cultivating castes. In many
tracts of Berar and elsewhere practically all the cultivators of
the village belong to the Kunbi caste, and there is every reason to
suppose that this was once the general rule and that the Kunbis or
'householders' are simply the cultivators of the Maratha country who
lived in village communities. Similarly Sir H. Risley considered that
some Kurmis of Bihar were of the Aryan type, while others of Chota
Nagpur are derived from the indigenous tribes. The Chasas are the
cultivating caste of Orissa and are a similar occupational group. The
word Chasa has the generic meaning of a cultivator, and the caste are
said by Sir H. Risley to be for the most part of non-Aryan origin,
the loose organisation of the caste system among the Uriyas making it
possible on the one hand for outsiders to be admitted into the caste,
and on the other for wealthy Chasas, who gave up ploughing with their
own hands and assumed the respectable title of Mahanti, to raise
themselves to membership among the lower classes of Kayasths. The
Koltas are another Uriya caste, probably an offshoot of the Chasas,
whose name may be derived from the _kulthi_ [47] pulse, a favourite
crop in that locality.
Similarly the Vellalas are the great cultivating caste of the Tamil
country, to whom by general consent the first place in social esteem
among the Tamil Sudra castes is awarded. In the _Madras Census Report_
of 1901 Mr. Francis gives an interesting description of the structure
of the caste and its numerous territorial, occupational and other
subdivisions. He shows also how groups from lower castes continually
succeed in obtaining admission into the Vellala community in the
following passage: "Instances of members of other castes who have
assumed the name and position of Vellalas are the Vettuva Vellalas,
who are only Puluvans; the Illam Vellalas, who are Panikkans;
the Karaiturai (lord of the shore) Vellalas, who are Karaiyans;
the Karukamattai (palmyra leaf-stem) Vellalas, who are Balijas; the
Guha (Rama's boatmen) Vellalas, who are Sembadavans; and the Irkuli
Vellalas, who are Vannans. The children of dancing-girls also often
call themselves Mudali, and claim in time to be Vellalas, and even
Paraiyans assume the title of Pillai and trust to its eventually
enabling them to pass themselves off as members of the caste."
This is an excellent instance of the good status attaching to the
chief cultivating caste of the locality and of the manner in which
other groups, when they obtain possession of the land, strive to get
themselves enrolled in it.
The Jats are the representative cultivating caste of the Punjab. They
are probably the descendants of one of the Scythian invading hordes
who entered India shortly before and after the commencement of the
Christian era. The Scythians, as they were called by Herodotus,
appear to have belonged to the Mongolian racial family, as also did
the white Huns who came subsequently. The Gujar and Ahir castes, as
well as the Jats, and also the bulk of the existing Rajput clans, are
believed to be descended from these invaders; and since their residence
in India has been comparatively short in comparison with their Aryan
predecessors, they have undergone much less fusion with the general
population, and retain a lighter complexion and better features,
as is quite perceptible to the ordinary observer in the case of the
Jats and Rajputs. The Jats have a somewhat higher status than other
agricultural castes, because in the Punjab they were once dominant,
and one or two ruling chiefs belonged to the caste. [48] The bulk of
the Sikhs were also Jats. But in the Central Provinces, where they are
not large landholders, and have no traditions of former dominance,
there is little distinction between them and the Kurmis. The Gujars
for long remained a pastoral freebooting tribe, and their community
was naturally recruited from all classes of vagabonds and outlaws, and
hence the caste is now of a mixed character, and their physical type
is not noticeably distinct from that of other Hindus. Sir G. Campbell
derived the Gujars from the Khazars, a tribe of the same race as the
white Huns and Bulgars who from an early period had been settled in
the neighbourhood of the Caspian. They are believed to have entered
India during the fifth or sixth century. Several clans of Rajputs,
as well as considerable sections of the Ahir and Kunbi castes were,
in his opinion, derived from the Gujars. In the Central Provinces the
Gujars have now settled down into respectable cultivators. The Ahirs
or cowherds and graziers probably take their name from the Abhiras,
another of the Scythian tribes. But they have now become a purely
occupational caste, largely recruited from the indigenous Gonds and
Kawars, to whom the business of tending cattle in the jungles is
habitually entrusted. In the Central Provinces Ahirs live in small
forest villages with Gonds, and are sometimes scarcely considered as
Hindus. On this account they have a character for bucolic stupidity,
as the proverb has it: 'When he is asleep he is an Ahir and when he is
awake he is a fool.' But the Ahir caste generally has a good status
on account of its connection with the sacred cow and also with the
god Krishna, the divine cowherd.
The Marathas are the military caste of the Maratha country, formed
into a caste from the cultivators, shepherds and herdsmen, who took
service under Sivaji and subsequent Maratha leaders. The higher clans
may have been constituted from the aristocracy of the Deccan states,
which was probably of Rajput descent. They have now become a single
caste, ranking somewhat higher than the Kunbis, from whom the bulk
of them originated, on account of their former military and dominant
position. Their status was much the same as that of the Jats in the
Punjab. But the ordinary Marathas are mainly engaged in the subordinate
Government and private service, and there is very little distinction
between them and the Kunbis. The Khandaits or swordsmen (from _khanda_,
a sword) are an Uriya caste, which originated in military service,
and the members of which belonged for the most part to the non-Aryan
Bhuiya tribe. They were a sort of rabble, half military and half
police, Sir H. Risley states, who formed the levies of the Uriya
zamindars. They have obtained grants of land, and their status has
improved. "In the social system of Orissa the Sreshta (good) Khandaits
rank next to the Rajputs, who are comparatively few in number, and
have not that intimate connection with the land which has helped to
raise the Khandaits to their present position." [49] The small Rautia
landholding caste of Chota Nagpur, mainly derived from the Kol tribe,
was formed from military service, and obtained a higher status with
the possession of the land exactly like the Khandaits.
Several Rajput clans, as the Panwars of the Wainganga Valley,
the Raghuvansis, the Jadums derived from the Yadava clan, and the
Daharias of Chhattisgarh, have formed distinct castes, marrying among
themselves. A proper Rajput should not marry in his own clan. These
groups have probably in the past taken wives from the surrounding
population, and they can no longer be held to belong to the Rajput
caste proper, but rank as ordinary agricultural castes. Other
agricultural castes have probably been formed through mixed descent
from Rajputs and the indigenous races. The Agharias of Sambalpur say
they are sprung from a clan of Rajputs near Agra, who refused to bend
their heads before the king of Delhi. He summoned all the Agharias to
appear before him, and fixed a sword across the door at the height
of a man's neck. As the Agharias would not bend their heads they
were as a natural consequence all decapitated as they passed through
the door. Only one escaped, who had bribed a Chamar to go instead
of him. He and his village fled from Agra and came to Chhattisgarh,
where they founded the Agharia caste. And, in memory of this, when an
Agharia makes a libation to his ancestors, he first pours a little
water on the ground in honour of the dead Chamar. Such stories may
be purely imaginary, or may contain some substratum of truth, as that
the ancestors of the caste were Rajputs, who took wives from Chamars
and other low castes. The Kirars are another caste with more or less
mixed descent from Rajputs. They are also called Dhakar, and this
means one of illegitimate birth. The Bhilalas are a caste formed of the
offspring of mixed alliances between Rajputs and Bhils. In many cases
in Nimar Rajput immigrants appear to have married the daughters of Bhil
chieftains and landholders, and succeeded to their estates. Thus the
Bhilalas include a number of landed proprietors, and the caste ranks as
a good agricultural caste, from whom Brahmans will take water. Among
the other indigenous tribes, several of which have in the Central
Provinces retained the possession of large areas of land and great
estates in the wilder forest tracts, a subcaste has been formed of
the landholding members of the tribe. Such are the Raj-Gonds among
the Gonds, the Binjhals among Baigas, and the Tawar subtribe of the
Kawar tribe of Bilaspur, to which all the zamindars [50] belong. These
last now claim to be Tomara Rajputs, on the basis of the similarity
of the name. These groups rank with the good agricultural castes,
and Brahmans sometimes consent to take water from them. The Dangis
of Saugor appear to be the descendants of a set of freebooters in the
Vindhyan hills, much like the Gujars in northern India. The legend of
their origin is given in Sir B. Robertson's _Census Report_ of 1891:
"The chief of Garhpahra or old Saugor detained the palanquins of
twenty-two married women and kept them as his wives. The issue of the
illicit intercourse were named Dangis, and there are thus twenty-two
subdivisions of these people. There are also three other subdivisions
who claim descent from pure Rajputs, and who will take daughters
in marriage from the remaining twenty-two, but will not give their
daughters to them." Thus the Dangis appear to have been a mixed group,
recruiting their band from all classes of the population, with some
Rajputs as leaders. The name probably means hillman, from _dang_, a
hill. _Khet men bami, gaon men Dangi_ or 'A Dangi in the village is
like the hole of a snake in one's field,' is a proverb showing the
estimation in which they were formerly held. They obtained estates
in Saugor and a Dangi dynasty formerly governed part of the District,
and they are now highly respectable cultivators. The Minas or Deswalis
belonged to the predatory Mina tribe of Rajputana, but a section of
them have obtained possession of the land in Hoshangabad and rank as a
good agricultural caste. The Lodhas of the United Provinces are placed
lowest among the agricultural castes by Mr. Nesfield, who describes
them as little better than a forest tribe. The name is perhaps derived
from the bark of the _lodh_ tree, which was collected by the Lodhas
of northern India and sold for use as a dyeing agent. In the Central
Provinces the name has been changed to Lodhi, and they are said to
have been brought into the District by a Raja of the Gond-Rajput
dynasty of Mandla in the seventeenth century, and given large grants
of waste land in the interior in order that they might clear it of
forest. They have thus become landholders, and rank with the higher
agricultural castes. They are addressed as Thakur, a title applied
to Rajputs, and Lodhi landowners usually wear the sacred thread.
21. Status of the cultivator.
The above details have been given to show how the different
agricultural castes originated. Though their origin is so diverse they
have, to a great extent, the same status, and it seems clear that this
status is dependent on their possession of the land. In the tracts
where they reside they are commonly village proprietors and superior
tenants. Those who rank a little higher than the others, as the Jats,
Marathas, Dangis and Lodhis, include in their body some ruling chiefs
or large landed proprietors, and as a rule were formerly dominant
in the territory in which they are found. In primitive agricultural
communities the land is the principal, if not almost the sole,
source of wealth. Trade in the modern sense scarcely exists, and what
interchange of commodities there is affects, as a rule, only a trifling
fraction of the population. India's foreign trade is mainly the
growth of the last century, and the great bulk of the exports are of
agricultural produce, yet in proportion to the population the trading
community is still extremely small. It thus seems quite impossible that
the Aryans could have been a community of priests, rulers and traders,
because such a community would not have had means of subsistence. And
if the whole production and control of the wealth and food of the
community had been in the hands of the Sudras, they could not have
been kept permanently in their subject, degraded position. The flocks
and herds and the land, which constituted the wealth of early India,
must thus have been in the possession of the Vaishyas; and grounds of
general probability, as well as the direct evidence already produced,
make it clear that they were the herdsmen and cultivators, and the
Sudras the labourers. The status of the modern cultivators seems to
correspond to that of the Vaishyas, that is, of the main body of the
Aryan people, who were pure and permitted to join in sacrifices. The
status, however, no longer attaches to origin, but to the possession of
the land; it is that of a constituent member of the village community,
corresponding to a citizen of the city states of Greece and Italy. The
original Vaishyas have long disappeared; the Brahmans themselves say
that there are no Kshatriyas and no Vaishyas left, and this seems to be
quite correct. But the modern good cultivating castes retain the status
of the Vaishyas as the Rajputs retain that of the Kshatriyas. The case
of the Jats and Gujars supports this view. These two castes are almost
certainly derived from Scythian nomad tribes, who entered India long
after the Vedic Aryans. And there is good reason to suppose that a
substantial proportion, if not the majority, of the existing Rajput
clans were the leaders or aristocracy of the Jats and Gujars. Thus it
is found that in the case of these later tribes the main body were
shepherds and cultivators, and their descendants have the status
of good cultivating castes at present, while the leaders became the
Rajputs, who have the status of the Kshatriyas; and it therefore seems
a reasonable inference that the same had previously been the case with
the Aryans themselves. It has been seen that the word Visha or Vaishya
signified one of the people or a householder. The name Kunbi appears
to have the same sense, its older form being _kutumbika_, which is
a householder or one who has a family, [51] a _pater familias_.
22. The clan and the village.
It has been seen also that Visha in the plural signified clans. The
clan was the small body which lived together, and in the patriarchal
stage was connected by a tie of kinship held to be derived from a
common ancestor. Thus it is likely that the clans settled down in
villages, the cultivators of one village being of the same exogamous
clan. The existing system of exogamy affords evidence in favour of this
view, as will be seen. All the families of the clan had cultivating
rights in the land, and were members of the village community; and
there were no other members, unless possibly a Kshatriya headman or
leader. The Sudras were their labourers and serfs, with no right to
hold land, and a third intermediate class of village menials gradually
grew up.
The law of Mirasi tenures in Madras is perhaps a survival of the
social system of the early village community. Under it only a few
of the higher castes were allowed to hold land, and the monopoly was
preserved by the rule that the right of taking up waste lands belonged
primarily to the cultivators of the adjacent holdings; no one else
could acquire land unless he first bought them out. The pariahs or
impure castes were not allowed to hold land at all. This rule was
pointed out by Mr. Slocock, and it is also noticed by Sir Henry Maine:
"There are in Central and Southern India certain villages to which a
class of persons is hereditarily attached, in such a manner that they
form no part of the natural and organic aggregate to which the bulk
of the villagers belong. These persons are looked upon as essentially
impure; they never enter the village, or only enter reserved portions
of it; and their touch is avoided as contaminating. Yet they bear
extremely plain marks of their origin. Though they are not included
in the village, they are an appendage solidly connected with it;
they have definite village duties, one of which is the settlement of
boundaries, on which their authority is allowed to be conclusive. They
evidently represent a population of alien blood whose lands have been
occupied by the colonists or invaders forming the community." [52]
Elsewhere, Sir Henry Maine points out that in many cases the outsiders
were probably admitted to the possession of land, but on an inferior
tenure to the primary holders or freemen who formed the cultivating
body of the village; and suggests that this may have been the ground
for the original distinction between occupancy and non-occupancy
tenants. The following extract from a description of the Maratha
villages by Grant Duff [53] may be subjoined to this passage:
"The inhabitants are principally cultivators, and are now either
Mirasidars or Ooprees. These names serve to distinguish the tenure
by which they hold their lands. The Oopree is a mere tenant-at-will,
but the Mirasidar is a hereditary occupant whom the Government cannot
displace so long as he pays the assessment on his field. With various
privileges and distinctions in his village of minor consequence,
the Mirasidar has the important power of selling or transferring his
right of occupancy at pleasure. It is a current opinion in the Maratha
country that all the lands were originally of this description."
As regards the internal relations of clans and village groups, Sir
H. Maine states: "The men who composed the primitive communities
believed themselves to be kinsmen in the most literal sense of
the word; and, surprising as it may seem, there are a multitude of
indications that in one stage of thought they must have regarded
themselves as equals. When these primitive bodies first make their
appearance as landowners, as claiming an exclusive enjoyment in a
definite area of land, not only do their shares of the soil appear to
have been originally equal, but a number of contrivances survive for
preserving the equality, of which the most frequent is the periodical
redistribution of the tribal domain." [54] Similarly Professor
Hearn states: "The settlement of Europe was made by clans. Each
clan occupied a certain territory--much, I suppose, as an Australian
squatter takes up new country. The land thus occupied was distributed
by metes and bounds to each branch of the clan; the remainder, if any,
continuing the property of the clan." [55] And again: "In those cases
where the land had been acquired by conquest there were generally
some remains of the conquered population who retained more or less
interest in the lands that had once been their own. But as between
the conquerors themselves it was the clansmen, and the clansmen only,
who were entitled to derive any advantage from the land that the clan
had acquired. The outsiders, the men who lived with the clan but were
not of the clan, were no part of the folk, and had no share in the
folkland. No services rendered, no participation in the common danger,
no endurance of the burden and heat of the day, could create in an
outsider any colour of right. Nothing short of admission to the clan,
and of initiation in its worship, could enable him to demand as of
right the grass of a single cow or the wood for a single fire." [56]
23. The ownership of land.
Thus it appears that the cultivating community of each village
constituted an exogamous clan, the members of which believed themselves
to be kinsmen. When some caste or tribe occupied a fresh area of land
they were distributed by clans in villages, over the area, all the
cultivators of a village being of one caste or tribe, as is still
the case with the Kunbis in Berar. Sometimes several alien castes or
groups became amalgamated into a single caste, such as the Kurmis and
Kunbis; in others they either remained as a separate caste or became
one. When the non-Aryan tribes retained possession of the land, there
is every reason to suppose that they also were admitted into Hinduism,
and either constituted a fresh caste with the cultivating status, or
were absorbed into an existing one with a change of name. Individual
ownership of land was probably unknown. The _patel_ or village headman,
on whom proprietary right was conferred by the British Government,
certainly did not possess it previously. He was simply the spokesman
and representative of the village community in its dealings with the
central or ruling authority. But it seems scarcely likely either that
the village community considered itself to own the land. Cases in
which the community as a corporate body has exercised any function
of ownership other than that of occupying and cultivating the soil,
if recorded at all, must be extremely rare, and I do not know that
any instance is given by Sir Henry Maine. A tutelary village god
is to be found as a rule in every Hindu village. In the Central
Provinces the most common is Khermata, that is the goddess of the
village itself or the village lands. She is a form of Devi, the
general earth-goddess. When a village is founded the first thing to
be done is to install the village god. Thus the soil of the village
is venerated as a goddess, and it seems doubtful whether the village
community considered itself the owner. In the Maratha Districts,
Hanuman or Mahabir, the monkey god, is the tutelary deity of the
village. His position seems to rest on the belief of the villagers
that the monkeys were the lords and owners of the soil before their own
arrival. For the worship of these and the other village gods there is
usually a village priest, known as Bhumka, Bhumia, Baiga or Jhankar,
who is taken from the non-Aryan tribes. The reason for his appointment
seems to be that the Hindus still look on themselves to some extent
as strangers and interlopers in relation to the gods of the earth and
the village, and consider it necessary to approach these through the
medium of one of their predecessors. The words Bhumka and Bhumia both
mean lord of the soil, or belonging to the soil. As already seen,
the authority of some menial official belonging to the indigenous
tribes is accepted as final in cases of disputed boundaries, the idea
being apparently that as his ancestors first occupied the village,
he has inherited from them the knowledge of its true extent and
limits. All these points appear to tell strongly against the view
that the Hindu village community considered itself to own the village
land as we understand the phrase. They seem to have looked on the
land as a god, and often their own tutelary deity and protector. What
they held themselves to possess was a right of occupancy, in virtue
of prescriptive settlement, not subject to removal or disturbance,
and transmitted by inheritance to persons born into the membership of
the village community. Under the Muhammadans the idea that the state
ultimately owned the land may have been held, but prior to them the
existence of such a belief is doubtful. The Hindu king did not take
rent for land, but a share of the produce for the support of his
establishments. The Rajput princes did not call themselves after
the name of their country, but of its capital town, as if their own
property consisted only in the town, as Jodhpur, Jaipur and Udaipur,
instead of Marwar, Dhundhar and Mewar. Just as the village has a
priest of the non-Aryan tribes for propitiating the local gods, so
the Rajput chief at his accession was often inducted to the royal
cushion by a Bhil or Mina, and received the badge of investiture as
if he had to obtain his title from these tribes. Indeed the right
of the village community to the land was held sometimes superior to
that of the state. Sir J. Malcolm relates that he was very anxious to
get the village of Bassi in Indore State repopulated when it had lain
waste for thirty-six years. He had arranged with the Bhil headman of
a neighbouring village to bring it under cultivation on a favourable
lease. The plan had other advantages, and Holkar's minister was most
anxious to put it into execution, but said that this could not be done
until every possible effort had been made to discover whether any
descendant of the former _patel_ or of any _watandar_ or hereditary
cultivator of Bassi was still in existence; for if such were found,
he said, "even we Marathas, bad as we are, cannot do anything which
interferes with their rights." None such being found at the time, the
village was settled as proposed by Malcolm; but some time afterwards,
a boy was discovered who was descended from the old _patel's_ family,
and he was invited to resume the office of headman of the village of
his forefathers, which even the Bhil, who had been nominated to it,
was forward to resign to the rightful inheritor. [57] Similarly the
Maratha princes, Sindhia, Holkar and others, are recorded to have
set more store by the headship of the insignificant Deccan villages,
which were the hereditary offices of their families, than by the
great principalities which they had carved out for themselves with
the sword. The former defined and justified their position in the
world as the living link and representative of the continuous family
comprising all their ancestors and all their descendants; the latter
was at first regarded merely as a transient, secular possession,
and a source of wealth and profit. This powerful hereditary right
probably rested on a religious basis. The village community was
considered to be bound up with its village god in one joint life,
and hence no one but they could in theory have the right to cultivate
the lands of that village. The very origin and nature of this right
precluded any question of transfer or alienation. The only lands in
which any ownership, corresponding to our conception of the term,
was held to exist, were perhaps those granted free of revenue for
the maintenance of temples, which were held to be the property of the
god. In Rome and other Greek and Latin cities the idea of private or
family ownership of land also developed from a religious sentiment. It
was customary to bury the dead in the fields which they had held,
and here the belief was that their spirits remained and protected
the interests of the family. Periodical sacrifices were made to them
and they participated in all the family ceremonies. Hence the land
in which the tombs of ancestors were situated was held to belong to
the family, and could not be separated from it. [58] Gradually, as
the veneration for the spirits of ancestors decayed, the land came
to be regarded as the private property of the family, and when this
idea had been realised it was made alienable, though not with the same
freedom as personal property. But the word _pecunia_ for money, from
_pecus_ a flock, like the Hindi _dhan_, which means wealth and also
flocks of goats and sheep, and feudal from the Gaelic _fiu_, cattle,
point to conditions of society in which land was not considered a
form of private property or wealth. M. Fustel de Coulanges notices
other primitive races who did not recognise property in land:
"The Tartars understand the term property as applying to cattle,
but not as applying to land. According to some authors, among the
ancient Germans there was no ownership of land; every year each member
of the tribe received a holding to cultivate, and the holding was
changed in the following year. The German owned the crop; he did not
own the soil. The same was the case among a part of the Semitic race
and certain of the Slav peoples." [59] In large areas of the Nigeria
Protectorate at present, land has no exchangeable value at all; but
by the native system of taxation a portion of the produce is taken
in consideration of the right of use. [60] In ancient Arabia 'Baal'
meant the lord of some place or district, that is, a local deity,
and hence came to mean a god. Land naturally moist was considered as
irrigated by a god and the special place or habitation of the god. To
the numerous Canaanite Baalims, or local deities, the Israelites
ascribed all the natural gifts of the land, the corn, the wine, and
the oil, the wool and the flax, the vines and fig trees. Pasture land
was common property, but a man acquired rights in the soil by building
a house, or, by 'quickening' a waste place, that is, bringing it under
cultivation. [61] The Israelites thought that they derived their title
to the land of Canaan from Jehovah, having received it as a gift
from Him. The association of rights over the land with cultivation
and building, pointed out by Professor Robertson Smith, may perhaps
explain the right over the village lands which was held to appertain
to the village community. They had quickened the land and built houses
on it, establishing the local village deity on their village sites,
and it was probably thought that their life was bound up with that of
the village god, and only they had a right to cultivate his land. This
would explain the great respect shown by the Marathas for hereditary
title to land, as seen above; a feeling which must certainly have been
based on some religious belief, and not on any moral idea of equity
or justice; no such deep moral principle was possible in the Hindu
community at the period in question. The Hindu religious conception of
rights to land was thus poles apart from the secular English law of
proprietary and transferable right, and if the native feeling could
have been, understood by the early British administrators the latter
would perhaps have been introduced only in a much modified form.
24. The cultivating status that of the Vaishya.
The suggested conclusion from the above argument is that the main
body of the Aryan immigrants, that is the Vaishyas, settled down in
villages by exogamous clans or septs. The cultivators of each village
believed themselves to be kinsmen descended from a common ancestor, and
also to be akin to the god of the village lands from which they drew
their sustenance. Hence their order had an equal right to cultivate
the village land and their children to inherit it, though they did
not conceive of the idea of ownership of land in the sense in which
we understand this phrase.
The original status of the Vaishya, or a full member of the Aryan
community who could join in sacrifices and employ Brahmans to perform
them, was gradually transferred to the cultivating member of the
village communities. In process of time, as land was the chief source
of wealth, and was also regarded as sacred, the old status became
attached to castes or groups of persons who obtained or held land
irrespective of their origin, and these are what are now called the
good cultivating castes. They have now practically the same status,
though, as has been seen, they were originally of most diverse origin,
including bands of robbers and freebooters, cattle-lifters, non-Aryan
tribes, and sections of any castes which managed to get possession
of an appreciable quantity of land.
25. Higher professional and artisan castes.
The second division of the group of pure or good castes, or those from
whom a Brahman can take water, comprises the higher artisan castes:
Barhai.
Bharbhunja.
Halwai.
Kasar.
Komti.
Sansia.
Sunar.
Tamera.
Vidur.
The most important of these are the Sunar or goldsmith; the Kasar
or worker in brass and bell-metal; the Tamera or coppersmith; the
Barhai or carpenter; and the Halwai and Bharbhunja or confectioner
and grain-parcher. The Sansia or stone-mason of the Uriya country
may perhaps also be included. These industries represent a higher
degree of civilisation than the village trades, and the workers may
probably have been formed into castes at a later period, when the
practice of the handicrafts was no longer despised. The metal-working
castes are now usually urban, and on the average their members are
as well-to-do as the cultivators. The Sunars especially include a
number of wealthy men, and their importance is increased by their
association with the sacred metal, gold; in some localities they
now claim to be Brahmans and refuse to take food from Brahmans. [62]
The more ambitious members abjure all flesh-food and liquor and wear
the sacred thread. But in Bombay the Sunar was in former times one
of the village menial castes, and here, before and during the time
of the Peshwas, Sunars were not allowed to wear the sacred thread,
and they were forbidden to hold their marriages in public, as it was
considered unlucky to see a Sunar bridegroom. Sunar bridegrooms were
not allowed to see the state umbrella or to ride in a palanquin, and
had to be married at night and in secluded places, being subject to
restrictions and annoyances from which even Mahars were free. Thus
the goldsmith's status appears to vary greatly according as his
trade is a village or urban industry. Copper is also a sacred metal,
and the Tameras rank next to the Sunars among the artisan castes,
with the Kasars or brass-workers a little below them; both these
castes sometimes wearing the sacred thread. These classes of artisans
generally live in towns. The Barhai or carpenter is sometimes a village
menial, but most carpenters live in towns, the wooden implements of
agriculture being made either by the blacksmith or by the cultivators
themselves. Where the Barhai is a village menial he is practically
on an equality with the Lohar or blacksmith; but the better-class
carpenters, who generally live in towns, rank higher. The Sansia or
stone-mason of the Uriya country works, as a rule, only in stone,
and in past times therefore his principal employment must have been
to build temples. He could not thus be a village menial, and his
status would be somewhat improved by the sanctity of his calling. The
Halwai and Bharbhunja or confectioner and grain-parcher are castes of
comparatively low origin, especially the latter; but they have to be
given the status of ceremonial purity in order that all Hindus may be
able to take sweets and parched grain from their hands. Their position
resembles that of the barber and waterman, the pure village menials,
which will be discussed later. In Bengal certain castes, such as the
Tanti or weaver of fine muslin, the Teli or oil-presser, and the Kumhar
or potter, rank with the ceremonially pure castes. Their callings
have there become important urban industries. Thus the Tantis made the
world-renowned fine muslins of Dacca; and the Jagannathia Kumhars of
Orissa provide the earthen vessels used for the distribution of rice
to all pilgrims at the temple of Jagannath. These castes and certain
others have a much higher rank than that of the corresponding castes
in northern and Central India, and the special reasons indicated seem
to account for this. Generally the artisan castes ranking on the same
or a higher level than the cultivators are urban and not rural. They
were not placed in a position of inferiority to the cultivators by
accepting contributions of grain and gifts from them, and this perhaps
accounts for their higher position. One special caste may be noticed
here, the Vidurs, who are the descendants of Brahman fathers by women
of other castes. These, being of mixed origin, formerly had a very
low rank, and worked as village accountants and patwaris. Owing to
their connection with Brahmans, however, they are a well-educated
caste, and since education has become the door to all grades of
advancement in the public service, the Vidurs have taken advantage
of it, and many of them are clerks of offices or hold higher posts
under Government. Their social status has correspondingly improved;
they dress and behave like Brahmans, and in some localities it is
said that even Maratha Brahmans will take water to drink from Vidurs,
though they will not take it from the cultivating castes. There are
also several menial or serving castes from whom a Brahman can take
water, forming the third class of this group, but their real rank is
much below that of the cultivators, and they will be treated in the
next group.
26. Castes from whom a Brahman cannot take water; the village menials.
The third main division consists of those castes from whom a
Brahman cannot take water, though they are not regarded as impure
and are permitted to enter Hindu temples. The typical castes of this
group appear to be the village artisans and menials and the village
priests. The annexed list shows the principal of these.
_Village menials_.
Lohar--Blacksmith.
Barhai--Carpenter.
Kumhar--Potter.
Nai--Barber.
Dhimar--Waterman.
Kahar--Palanquin-bearer.
Bari--Leaf-plate maker.
Bargah--Household servant.
Dhobi--Washerman.
Darzi--Tailor.
Basor or Dhulia--Village musician.
Bhat and Mirasi--Bard and genealogist.
Halba--House-servant and farm-servant.
_Castes of village watchmen_.
Khangar.
Chadar.
Chauhan.
Dahait.
Panka.
_Village priests and mendicants_.
Joshi--Astrologer.
Garpagari--Hail-averter.
Gondhali--Musician.
Manbhao
Jangam
Basdewa Wandering priests and mendicants.
Satani
Waghya
_Others_.
Mali--Gardener and maker of garlands.
Barai--Betel-vine grower and seller.
_Other village traders and artisans_.
Kalar--Liquor-vendor.
Teli--Oil-presser.
Hatwa
Manihar Pedlar.
Banjara--Carrier.
Bahelia
Pardhi Fowlers and hunters.
Bahna--Cotton-cleaner.
Chhipa--Calico-printer and dyer.
Chitrakathi--Painter and picture-maker.
Kachera--Glass bangle-maker.
Kadera--Fireworks-maker.
Nat--Acrobat.
Gadaria
Dhangar Shepherds.
Kuramwar
Beldar
Murha Diggers, navvies, and salt-refiners.
Nunia
The essential fact which formerly governed the status of this group
of castes appears to be that they performed various services for the
cultivators according to their different vocations, and were supported
by contributions of grain made to them by the cultivators, and by
presents given to them at seed-time and harvest. They were the clients
of the cultivators and the latter were their patrons and supporters,
and hence ranked above them. This condition of things survives only
in the case of a few castes, but prior to the introduction of a metal
currency must apparently have been the method of remuneration of all
the village industries. The Lohar or blacksmith makes and mends the
iron implements of agriculture, such as the ploughshare, axe, sickle
and goad. For this he is paid in Saugor a yearly contribution of 20
lbs. of grain per plough of land held by each cultivator, together with
a handful of grain at sowing-time and a sheaf at harvest from both the
autumn and spring crops. In Wardha he gets 50 lbs. of grain per plough
of four bullocks or 40 acres. For new implements he must either be
paid separately or at least supplied with the iron and charcoal. In
Districts where the Barhai or carpenter is a village servant he is
paid the same as the Lohar and has practically an equal status. The
village barber receives in Saugor 20 lbs. of grain annually from each
adult male in the family, or 22 1/2 lbs. per plough of land besides
the seasonal presents. In return for this he shaves each cultivator
over the head and face about once a fortnight. The Dhobi or washerman
gets half the annual contribution of the blacksmith and carpenter, with
the same presents, and in return for this he washes the clothes of the
family two or three times a month. When he brings the clothes home he
also receives a meal or a wheaten cake, and well-to-do families give
him their old clothes as a present. The Dhimar or waterman brings water
to the house morning and evening, and fills the earthen water-pots
placed on a wooden stand or earthen platform outside it. When the
cultivators have marriages he performs the same duties for the whole
wedding party, and receives a present of money and clothes according to
the means of the family, and his food every day while the wedding is
in progress. He supplies water for drinking to the reapers, receiving
three sheaves a day as payment, and takes sweet potatoes and boiled
plums to the field and sells them. The Kumhar or potter is not now paid
regularly by dues from the cultivators like other village menials,
as the ordinary system of sale has been found to be more convenient
in his case. But he sometimes takes for use the soiled grass from
the stalls of the cattle and gives pots free to the cultivator in
exchange. On Akti day, at the beginning of the agricultural year,
the village Kumhar in Saugor presents five pots with covers on them
to each cultivator and is given 2 1/2 lbs. of grain. He presents the
bride with seven new pots at a wedding, and these are filled with
water and used in the ceremony, being considered to represent the
seven seas. At a funeral he must supply thirteen vessels which are
known as _ghats_, and must replace the household earthen vessels,
which are rendered impure on the occurrence of a death in the house,
and are all broken and thrown away. In the Punjab and Maratha country
the Kumhar was formerly an ordinary village menial.
27. The village watchmen.
The office of village watchman is an important one, and is usually
held by a member of the indigenous tribes. These formerly were the
chief criminals, and the village watchman, in return for his pay,
was expected to detect the crimes of his tribesmen and to make good
any losses of property caused by them. The sections of the tribes who
held this office have developed into special castes, as the Khangars,
Chadars and Chauhans of Chhattisgarh. These last are probably of
mixed descent from Rajputs and the higher castes of cultivators with
the indigenous tribes. The Dahaits were a caste of gatekeepers and
orderlies of native rulers who have now become village watchmen. The
Pankas are a section of the impure Ganda caste who have embraced the
doctrines of the Kabirpanthi sect and formed a separate caste. They
are now usually employed as village watchmen and are not regarded as
impure. Similarly those members of the Mahar servile caste who are
village watchmen tend to marry among themselves and form a superior
group to the others. The village watchman now receives a remuneration
fixed by Government and is practically a rural policeman, but in former
times he was a village menial and was maintained by the cultivators
in the same manner as the others.
28. The village priests. The gardening castes.
The village priests are another class of this group. The regular
village priest and astrologer, the Joshi or Parsai, is a Brahman, but
the occupation has developed a separate caste. The Joshi officiates
at weddings in the village, selects auspicious names for children
according to the constellations under which they were born, and points
out the auspicious moment or _mahurat_ for weddings, name-giving
and other ceremonies, and for the commencement of such agricultural
operations as sowing, reaping, and threshing. He is also sometimes
in charge of the village temple. He is supported by contributions of
grain from the villagers and often has a plot of land rent-free from
the proprietor. The social position of the Joshis is not very good,
and, though Brahmans, they are considered to rank somewhat below the
cultivating castes. The Gurao is another village priest, whose fortune
has been quite different. The caste acted as priests of the temples
of Siva and were also musicians and supplied leaf-plates. They were
village menials of the Maratha villages. But owing to the sanctity
of their calling, and the fact that they have become literate
and taken service under Government, the Guraos now rank above the
cultivators and are called Shaiva Brahmans. The Gondhalis are the
village priests of Devi, the earth-goddess, who is also frequently
the tutelary goddess of the village. They play the kettle-drum and
perform dances in her honour, and were formerly classed as one of
the village menials of Maratha villages, though they now work for
hire. The Garpagari, or hail-averter, is a regular village menial, his
duty being to avert hail-storms from the crops, like the qalazof'ulax
in ancient Greece. The Garpagaris will accept cooked food from Kunbis
and celebrate their weddings with those of the Kunbis. The Jogis,
Manbhaos, Satanis, and others, are wandering religious mendicants, who
act as priests and spiritual preceptors to the lower classes of Hindus.
With the village priests may be mentioned the Mali or gardener. The
Malis now grow vegetables with irrigation or ordinary crops, but
this was not apparently their original vocation. The name is derived
from _mala_, a garland, and it would appear that the Mali was first
employed to grow flowers for the garlands with which the gods and
also their worshippers were adorned at religious ceremonies. Flowers
were held sacred and were an essential adjunct to worship in India
as in Greece and Rome. The sacred flowers of India are the lotus,
the marigold and the _champak_ [63] and from their use in religious
worship is derived the custom of adorning the guests with garlands at
all social functions, just as in Rome and Greece they wore crowns on
their heads. It seems not unlikely that this was the purpose for which
cultivated flowers were first grown, at any rate in India. The Mali
was thus a kind of assistant in the religious life of the village,
and he is still sometimes placed in charge of the village shrines and
is employed as temple-servant in Jain temples. He would therefore
have been supported by contributions from the cultivators like the
other village menials and have ranked below them, though on account
of the purity and sanctity of his occupation Brahmans would take
water from him. The Mali has now become an ordinary cultivator, but
his status is still noticeably below that of the good cultivating
castes and this seems to be the explanation. With the Mali may be
classed the Barai, the grower and seller of the _pan_ or betel-vine
leaf. This leaf, growing on a kind of creeper, like the vine, in
irrigated gardens roofed with thatch for protection from the sun,
is very highly prized by the Hindus. It is offered with areca-nut,
cloves, cardamom and lime rolled up in a quid to the guests at all
social functions. It is endowed by them with great virtues, being
supposed to prevent heartburn, indigestion, and other stomachic and
intestinal disorders, and to preserve the teeth, while taken with
musk, saffron and almonds, the betel-leaf is held to be a strong
aphrodisiac. The juice of the leaf stains the teeth and mouth red,
and the effect, though repulsive to Europeans, is an indispensable
adjunct to a woman's beauty in Hindu eyes. This staining of the mouth
red with betel-leaf is also said to distinguish a man from a dog. The
idea that betel preserves the teeth seems to be unfounded. The teeth of
Hindus appear to be far less liable to decay than those of Europeans,
but this is thought to be because they generally restrict themselves
to a vegetable diet and always rinse out their mouths with water after
taking food. The betel-leaf is considered sacred; a silver ornament
is made in its shape and it is often invoked in spells and magic. The
original vine is held to have grown from a finger-joint of Basuki,
the Queen of the Serpents, and the cobra is worshipped as the tutelary
deity of the _pan_-garden, which this snake is accustomed to frequent,
attracted by the moist coolness and darkness. The position of the
Barai is the same as that of the Mali; his is really a low caste,
sometimes coupled with the contemned Telis or oil-pressers, but he
is considered ceremonially pure because the betel-leaf, offered to
gods and eaten by Brahmans and all Hindus, is taken from him. The
Barai or Tamboli was formerly a village menial in the Maratha villages.
29. Other village traders and menials.
The castes following other village trades mainly fall into this
group, though they may not now be village menials. Such are the
Kalar or liquor-vendor and Teli or oil-presser, who sell their
goods for cash, and having learnt to reckon and keep accounts, have
prospered in their dealings with the cultivators ignorant of this
accomplishment. Formerly it is probable that the village Teli had the
right of pressing all the oil grown in the village, and retaining a
certain share for his remuneration. The liquor-vendor can scarcely
have been a village menial, but since Manu's time his trade has
been regarded as a very impure one, and has ranked with that of the
Teli. Both these castes have now become prosperous, and include a
number of landowners, and their status is gradually improving. The
Darzi or tailor is not usually attached to the village community; sewn
clothes have hitherto scarcely been worn among the rural population,
and the weaver provides the cloths which they drape on the body and
round the head. [64] The contempt with which the tailor is visited in
English proverbial lore for working at a woman's occupation attaches
in a precisely similar manner in India to the weaver. [65] But in
Gujarat the Darzi is found living in villages and here he is also a
village menial. The Kachera or maker of the glass bangles which every
Hindu married woman wears as a sign of her estate, ranks with the
village artisans; his is probably an urban trade, but he has never
become prosperous or important. The Banjaras or grain-carriers were
originally Rajputs, but owing to the mixed character of the caste
and the fact that they obtained their support from the cultivators,
they have come to rank below these latter. The Wanjari cultivators
of Berar have now discarded their Banjara ancestry and claim to be
Kunbis. The Nat or rope-dancer and acrobat may formerly have had
functions in the village in connection with the crops. In Kumaon
[66] a Nat still slides down a long rope from the summit of a cliff
to the base as a rite for ensuring the success of the crops on the
occasion of a festival of Siva. Formerly if the Nat or Badi fell to
the ground in his course, he was immediately despatched with a sword
by the surrounding spectators, but this is now prohibited. The rope
on which he slid down the cliff is cut up and distributed among
the inhabitants of the village, who hang the pieces as charms on
the eaves of their houses. The hair of the Nat is also taken and
preserved as possessing similar virtues. Each District in Kumaon has
its hereditary Nat or Badi, who is supported by annual contributions
of grain from the inhabitants. Similarly in the Central Provinces it
is not uncommon to find a deified Nat, called Nat Baba or Father Nat,
as a village god. A Natni, or Nat woman, is sometimes worshipped; and
when two sharp peaks of hills are situated close to each other, it is
related that there was once a Natni, very skilful on the tight-rope,
who performed before the king; and he promised her that if she would
stretch a rope from the peak of one hill to that of the other, and
walk across it, he would marry her and make her wealthy. Accordingly
the rope was stretched, but the queen from jealousy went and cut
it nearly through in the night, and when the Natni started to walk,
the rope broke, and she fell down and was killed. Having regard to
the Kumaon rite, it may be surmised that these legends commemorate
the death of a Natni or acrobat during the performance of some feat of
dancing or sliding on a rope for the magical benefit of the crops. And
it seems possible that acrobatic performances may have had their
origin in this manner. The point bearing on the present argument is,
however, that the Nat performed special functions for the success of
the village crops, and on this account was supported by contributions
from the villagers, and ranked with the village menials.
30. Household servants.
Some of the castes already mentioned, and one or two others having
the same status, work as household servants as well as village
menials. The Dhimar is most commonly employed as an indoor servant
in Hindu households, and is permitted to knead flour in water and
make it into a cake, which the Brahman then takes and puts on the
girdle with his own hands. He can boil water and pour pulse into the
cooking-pot from above, so long as he does not touch the vessel after
the food has been placed in it. He will take any remains of food
left in the cooking-pot, as this is not considered to be polluted,
food only becoming polluted when the hand touches it on the dish after
having touched the mouth. When this happens, all the food on the dish
becomes _jutha_ or leavings of food, and as a general rule no caste
except the sweepers will eat these leavings of food of another caste
or of another person of their own. Only a wife, whose meal follows
her husband's, will eat his leavings. As a servant, the Dhimar is
very familiar with his master; he may enter any part of the house,
including the cooking-place and the women's rooms, and he addresses
his mistress as 'Mother.' When he lights his master's pipe he takes
the first pull himself, to show that it has not been tampered with,
and then presents it to him with his left hand placed under his
right elbow in token of respect. Maid-servants frequently belong
also to the Dhimar caste, and it often happens that the master of
the household has illicit intercourse with them. Hence there is a
proverb: 'The king's son draws water and the water-bearer's son sits
on the throne,'--similar intrigues on the part of high-born women
with their servants being not unknown. The Kahar or palanquin-bearer
was probably the same caste as the Dhimar. Landowners would maintain
a gang of Kahars to carry them on journeys, allotting to such men
plots of land rent-free. Our use of the word 'bearer' in the sense
of a body-servant has developed from the palanquin-bearer who became
a personal attendant on his master. Well-to-do families often have a
Nai or barber as a hereditary family servant, the office descending
in the barber's family. Such a man arranges the marriages of the
children and takes a considerable part in conducting them, and acts
as escort to the women of the family when they go on a journey. Among
his daily duties are to rub his master's body with oil, massage his
limbs, prepare his bed, tell him stories to send him to sleep, and so
on. The barber's wife attends on women in childbirth after the days
of pollution are over, and rubs oil on the bodies of her clients,
pares their nails and paints their feet with red dye at marriages
and on other festival occasions. The Bari or maker of leaf-plates
is another household servant. Plates made of large leaves fastened
together with little wooden pins and strips of fibre are commonly used
by the Hindus for eating food, as are little leaf-cups for drinking;
glazed earthenware has hitherto not been commonly manufactured, and
that with a rougher surface becomes ceremonially impure by contact
with any strange person or thing. Metal vessels and plates are the
only alternative to those made of leaves, and there are frequently
not enough of them to go round for a party. The Baris also work as
personal servants, hand round water, and light and carry torches at
entertainments and on journeys. Their women are maids to high-caste
Hindu ladies, and as they are always about the zenana are liable to
lose their virtue.
31. Status of the village menials.
The castes of village and household menials form a large group between
the cultivators on the one hand and the impure and servile labourers
on the other. Their status is not exactly the same. On the one hand,
the Nai or barber, the Kahar and Dhimar or watermen, the household
servants, the Bari, Ahir, and others, some of the village priests and
the gardening castes, are considered ceremonially pure and Brahmans
will take water from them. But this is a matter of convenience, as,
if they were not so held pure, they would be quite useless in the
household. Several of these castes, as the Dhimars, Baris and others,
are derived from the primitive tribes. Sir H. Risley considered the
Baris of Bengal as probably an offshoot from the Bhuiya or Musahar
tribe: "He still associates with the Bhuiyas at times, and if the
demand for leaf-plates and cups is greater than he can cope with
himself, he gets them secretly made up by his ruder kinsfolk and
passes them off as his own production. Instances of this sort, in
which a non-Aryan or mixed group is promoted on grounds of necessity
or convenience to a higher status than their antecedents would
entitle them to claim, are not unknown in other castes, and must
have occurred frequently in outlying parts of the country, where
the Aryan settlements were scanty and imperfectly supplied with the
social apparatus demanded by the theory of ceremonial purity. Thus
the undoubtedly non-Aryan Bhuiyas have in parts of Chota Nagpur been
recognised as Jal-Acharani (able to give water to the higher castes)
and it may be conjectured that the Kahars themselves only attained this
privilege in virtue of their employment as palanquin-bearers." [67]
The fact that Brahmans will take water from these castes does not in
any way place them on a level with the cultivators; they remain menial
servants, ranking, if anything, below such castes as Lohar, Teli and
Kalar, from whom Brahmans will not take water; but these latter are,
as corporate bodies, more important and prosperous than the household
menial castes, because their occupation confers a greater dignity
and independence.
On the other hand, one or two of the village menials, such as the
Dhobi or washerman, are considered to some extent impure. This is
due to specially degrading incidents attaching to their occupation,
as in the case of the Dhobi, the washing of the clothes of women in
childbirth. [68] And the Sungaria subcaste of Kumhars, who keep pigs,
are not touched, because the impurity of the animal is necessarily
communicated to its owner's house and person. Still, in the village
society there is little real difference between the position of these
castes and those of the other village menials.
32. Origin of their status
The status of the village menial castes appears to be fixed by their
dependent position on the cultivators. The latter are their patrons and
superiors, to whom they look for a livelihood. Before the introduction
of a currency in the rural tracts (an event of the last fifty to a
hundred years) the village artisans and menials were supported by
contributions of grain from the cultivators. They still all receive
presents, consisting of a sowing-basketful of grain at seed-time and
one or two sheaves at harvest. The former is known as _Bij phutni_, or
'The breaking of the seed,' and the latter as _Khanvar,_ or 'That which
is left' Sometimes, after threshing, the menials are each given as much
grain as will fill a winnowing-fan. When the peasant has harvested his
grain, all come and beg from him. The Dhimar brings some water-nut,
the Kachhi or market-gardener some chillies, the Barai betel-leaf,
the Teli oil and tobacco, the Kalar liquor (if he drinks it), the
Bania some sugar, and all receive grain in excess of the value of
their gifts. The Joshi or village priest, the Nat or acrobat, the
Gosain or religious mendicant and the Fakir or Muhammadan beggar
solicit alms. On that day the cultivator is said to be like a little
king in his fields, and the village menials constitute his court. In
purely agricultural communities grain is the principal source of
wealth, and though the average Hindu villager may appear to us to
be typical of poverty rather than wealth, such standards are purely
relative. The cultivator was thus the patron and supporter of the
village artisans and menials, and his social position was naturally
superior to theirs. Among the Hindus it is considered derogatory to
accept a gift from another person, the recipient being thereby placed
in a position of inferiority to the donor. Some exception to this
rule is made in the case of Brahmans, though even with them it partly
applies. Generally the acceptance of a gift of any value among Hindus
is looked upon in the same manner as the taking of money in England,
being held to indicate that the recipient is in an inferior social
position to the giver. And the existence of this feeling seems to
afford strong support to the reason suggested here for the relative
status of the cultivating and village menial castes.
The group of village menial and artisan castes comes between the good
cultivating castes who hold the status of the Vaishyas or body of
the Aryans, and the impure castes, the subjected aborigines. The most
reasonable theory of their status seems to be that it originated in
mixed descent. As has already been seen, it was the common practice of
members of the higher classes to take lower-caste women either as wives
or concubines, and a large mixed class would naturally result. Such
children, born and brought up in the households of their fathers,
would not be full members of the family, but would not be regarded as
impure. They would naturally be put to the performance of the menial
household duties, for which the servile castes were rendered unsuitable
through their impure status. This would correspond with the tradition
of the large number of castes originating in mixed descent, which is
given in the Hindu sacred books. It has been seen that where menial
castes are employed in the household, classes of mixed descent do as a
matter of fact arise. And there are traces of a relationship between
the cultivators and the menial castes, which would be best explained
by such an origin. At a betrothal in the great Kunbi cultivating
caste of the Marathas, the services of the barber and washerman must
be requisitioned. The barber washes the feet of the boy and girl and
places vermilion on the foreheads of the guests; the washerman spreads
a sheet on the ground on which the boy and girl sit. At the end of
the ceremony the barber and washerman take the bride and bridegroom
on their shoulders and dance to music in the marriage-shed, for which
they receive small presents. After a death has occurred at a Kunbi's
house, the impurity is not removed until the barber and washerman have
eaten in it. At a Kunbi's wedding the Gurao or village priest brings
the leafy branches of five trees and deposits them at Maroti's [69]
temple, whence they are removed by the parents of the bride. Before
a wedding, again, a Kunbi bride must go to the potter's house and be
seated on his wheel, while it is turned round seven times for good
luck. Similarly at a wedding among the Hindustani cultivating castes
the bride visits the potter's house and is seated on his wheel; and
the washerman's wife applies vermilion to her forehead. The barber's
wife puts red paint on her feet, the gardener's wife presents her with
a garland of flowers and the carpenter's wife gives her a new wooden
doll. At the wedding feast the barber, the washerman and the Bari or
personal servant also eat with the guests, though sitting apart from
them. Sometimes members of the menial and serving castes are invited
to the funeral feast as if they belonged to the dead man's caste. In
Madras the barber and his wife, and the washerman and his wife, are
known as the son and daughter of the village. And among the families
of ruling Rajput chiefs, when a daughter of the house is married,
it was customary to send with her a number of handmaidens taken from
the menial and serving castes. These became the concubines of the
bridegroom and it seems clear that their progeny would be employed
in similar capacities about the household and would follow the castes
of their mothers. The Tamera caste of coppersmiths trace their origin
from the girls so sent with the bride of Dharam-Pal, the Haihaya Rajput
Raja of Ratanpur, through the progeny of these girls by the Raja.
33. Other castes who rank with the village menials.
Many other castes belong to the group of those from whom a Brahman
cannot take water, but who are not impure. Among these are several
of the lower cultivating castes, some of them growers of special
products, as the Kachhis and Mowars or market-gardeners, the
Dangris or melon-growers, and the Kohlis and Bhoyars who plant
sugarcane. These subsidiary kinds of agriculture were looked down
upon by the cultivators proper; they were probably carried out on the
beds and banks of streams and other areas not included in the regular
holdings of the village, and were taken up by labourers and other
landless persons. The callings of these are allied to, or developed
from, that of the Mali or gardener, and they rank on a level with
him, or perhaps a little below, as no element of sanctity attaches
to their products. Certain castes which were formerly labourers,
but have now sometimes obtained possession of the land, are also in
this group, such as the Rajbhars, Kirs, Manas, and various Madras
castes of cultivators. Probably these were once not allowed to hold
land, but were afterwards admitted to do so. The distinction between
their position and that of the hereditary cultivators of the village
community was perhaps the original basis of the different kinds of
tenant-right recognised by our revenue law, though these now, of
course, depend solely on length of tenure and other incidents, and
make no distinction of castes. The shepherd castes who tend sheep
and goats (the Gadarias, Dhangars and Kuramwars) also fall into
this group. Little sanctity attached to these animals as compared
with the cow, and the business of rearing them would be left to
the labouring castes and non-Aryan tribes. The names of all three
castes denote their functional origin, Gadaria being from _gadar_,
a sheep, Dhangar from _dhan_ or small-stock, the word signifying a
flock of sheep or goats and also wealth; and Kuramwar from _kurri_,
the Telugu word for sheep. Others belonging to this group are the
digging and earth-working castes, the Beldars, Murhas, Nunias and so
on, practically all derived from the indigenous tribes, who wander
about seeking employment from the cultivators in the construction
and repair of field embankments and excavation of wells and tanks;
and various fishing and boating castes, as the Injhwars, Naodas,
Murhas and Kewats, who rank as equal to the Dhimars, though they may
not be employed in household or village service. Such castes, almost
entirely derived from the non-Aryan tribes, may have come gradually
into existence as the wants of society developed and new functions
were specialised; they would naturally be given the social status
already attaching to the village menial castes.
34. The non-Aryan tribes.
The fourth group in the scheme of precedence comprises the non-Aryan
or indigenous tribes, who are really outside the caste system when
this is considered as the social organisation of the Hindus, so
long at least as they continue to worship their own tribal deities,
and show no respect for Brahmans nor for the cow. These tribes have,
however, entered the Hindu polity in various positions. The leaders
of some of them who were dominant in the early period were admitted
to the Kshatriya or Rajput caste, and the origin of a few of the
Rajput clans can be traced to the old Bhar and other tribes. Again,
the aristocratic or landholding sections of several existing tribes
are at present, as has been seen, permitted to rank with the good
Hindu cultivating castes. In a few cases, as the Andhs, Halbas and
Manas, the tribe as a whole has become a Hindu caste, when it retained
possession of the land in the centre of a Hindu population. These have
now the same or a slightly higher position than the village menial
castes. On the other hand, those tribes which were subjugated and
permitted to live with a servile status in the Hindu villages have
developed into the existing impure castes of labourers, weavers,
tanners and others, who form the lowest social group. The tribes
which still retain their distinctive existence were not enslaved
in this manner, but lived apart in their own villages in the forest
tracts and kept possession of the land. This seems to be the reason
why they rank somewhat higher than the impure castes, even though
they may utterly defile themselves according to Hindu ideas by eating
cow's flesh. Some tribes, such as the Gonds, Binjhwars and Kawars,
counted amongst them the owners of large estates or even kingdoms,
and consequently had many Hindu cultivators for their subjects. And,
as the Hindus themselves say, they could not regard the Gonds as
impure when they had a Gond king. Nevertheless, the Gond labourers
in Hindu villages in the plains are more despised than the Gonds who
live in their own villages in the hill country. And the conversion
of the tribes as a whole to Hinduism goes steadily forward. At each
census the question arises which of them should be classed as Hindus,
and which as Animists or worshippers of their own tribal gods, and
though the classification is necessarily very arbitrary, the process
can be clearly observed. Thus the Andhs, Kolis, Rautias and Halbas
are now all Hindus, and the same remark applies to the Kols, Bhils
and Korkus in several Districts. By strict abstention from beef,
the adoption of Hindu rites, and to some extent of child-marriage,
they get admission to the third group of castes from whom a Brahman
cannot take water. It will be desirable here to digress from the
main argument by noticing briefly the origin and affinities of the
principal forest tribes of the Central Provinces.
35. The Kolarians and Dravidians.
These tribes are divided into two families, the Munda or Kolarian,
named after the Kol tribe, and the Dravidian, of which the former are
generally held to be the older and more primitive. The word Kol is
probably the Santali _har_, a man. "This word is used under various
forms, such as _har, hara, ho_ and _koro_ by most Munda tribes in
order to denote themselves. The change of _r_ to _l_ is familiar and
presents no difficulty." [70] The word is also found in the alternative
name Ho for the Kol tribe, and in the names of the cognate Korwa and
Korku tribes. The word Munda is a Sanskrit derivative meaning a head,
and, as stated by Sir H. Risley, is the common term employed by the
Kols for the headman of a village, whence it has been adopted as an
honorific title for the tribe. In Chota Nagpur those Kols who have
partly adopted Hinduism and become to some degree civilised are called
Munda, while the name Ho or Larka (fighting) Kol is reserved for the
wilder section of the tribe.
36. Kolarian tribes.
The principal tribes of the Munda or Kolarian family in the Central
Provinces are shown below:
Kol, Munda, Ho.
Bhumij.
Santal.
Kharia.
Korwa.
Korku.
Nahal
Savar or Saonr.
Mal, Male.
Gadba.
Khairwar.
Baiga.
Bhuiya.
Bhaina.
Bhunjia.
Binjhwar.
_Probable_: Bhar, Koli, Bhil, Chero.
One large group includes the Kol, Munda or Ho tribe itself and the
Bhumij and Santals, who appear to be local branches of the Kols
called by separate names by the Hindus. The Kharias seem to be the
earliest Kol settlers in Chota Nagpur, who were subjugated by the
later comers. The name Kol, as already seen, is probably a form of
the Santali _har_, a man. Similarly the name of the Korku tribe
is simply a corruption of _Koraku_, young men, and that of the
Korwa tribe is from the same root. The dialects of the Korku and
Korwa tribes closely approximate to Mundari. Hence it would seem
that they were originally one tribe with the Kols, but have been
separated for so long a period that their direct connection can no
longer be proved. The disintegrating causes which have split up what
was originally one into a number of distinct tribes, are probably no
more than distance and settlement in different parts of the country,
leading to cessation of intermarriage and social intercourse. The
tribes have then obtained some variation in the original names or been
given separate territorial or occupational designations by the Hindus,
and their former identity has gradually been forgotten. Both the Korwas
of the Chota Nagpur plateau and the Korkus of the Satpura hills were
known as Muasi, a term having the meaning of robber or raider. The
Korwas have also a subtribe called Koraku, and Mr. Crooke thinks that
they were originally the same tribe. Sir G. Grierson states that the
Korwa dialect is closely allied to Kharia. Similarly the resemblance
of the name raises a presumption that the great Koli tribe of Gujarat
and western India may be a branch of the Kols who penetrated to the
western coast along the Satpulra and Central India hill ranges. The
Kolis and Bhils are tribes of the same country and are commonly spoken
of together. Both have entirely lost their own language and cannot
therefore be classified definitely either as Kolarian or Dravidian,
but there is a probability that they are of the Kolarian family. The
Nahals, another tribe of the western Satpura range, are an offshoot
of the Korkus. They are coupled with the Bhils and Kolis in old
Hindu accounts.
The Savars, Sawaras or Saonrs are also a widely distributed tribe,
being found as far west as Bundelkhand and east in Orissa and
Ganjam. In the Central Provinces they have lost their own language and
speak Hindi or Uriya, but in Madras they still retain their original
speech, which is classified by Sir G. Grierson with Gadba as a Munda
or Kolarian dialect. The name occurs in Vedic literature, and the
tribe is probably of great antiquity. In the classical stories of
their origin the first ancestor of the Savars is sometimes described
as a Bhil. The wide extension of the Savar tribe east and west is
favourable to the hypothesis of the identity of the Kols and Kolis,
who have a somewhat similar distribution. The Gadbas of Ganjam, and
the Mal or Male Paharia tribe of Chota Nagpur seem to be offshoots
of the Savars. The Khairwars or Kharwars are an important tribe of
Mirzapur and Chota Nagpur. There is some reason for supposing that
they are an occupational offshoot of the Kols and Cheros, who have
become a distinct group through taking to the manufacture of edible
catechu from the wood of the _khair_ tree. [71]
Another great branch of the Kolarian family is that represented by the
Bhuiya and Baiga tribes and their offshoots, the Bhunjias, Bhainas and
Binjhwars. The Kolarian origin of the Bhuiyas has been discussed in the
article on that tribe, and it has also been suggested that the Baiga
tribe of the Central Provinces are an offshoot of the Bhuiyas. These
tribes have all abandoned their own languages and adopted the local
Aryan vernaculars. The name Bhuiya is a Sanskrit derivative from _bhu_,
earth, and signifies 'belonging to the soil.' Bhumij, applied to a
branch of the Kol tribe, has the same origin. Baiga is used in the
sense of a village priest or a sorcerer in Chota Nagpur, and the office
is commonly held by members of the Bhuiya tribe in that locality,
as being the oldest residents. Thus the section of the tribe in the
Central Provinces appears to have adopted, or been given, the name of
the office. The Bharias or Bharia-Bhumias of Jubbulpore seem to belong
to the great Bhar tribe, once dominant over large areas of the United
Provinces. They also hold the office of village priest, which is there
known as Bhumia, and in some tracts are scarcely distinguished from
the Baigas. Again, in Sambalpur the Bhuiyas are known as Bhumia Kol,
and are commonly regarded as a branch of the Kol tribe. Thus it would
seem that two separate settlements of the Kolarian races may have
occurred; the earlier one would be represented by the Bhars, Bhuiyas,
Baigas and kindred tribes who have entirely lost their own languages
and identity, and have names given to them by the Hindus; and a later
one of the Kols or Mundas and their related tribes, whose languages
and tribal religion and organisation, though in a decaying state, can
be fully recognised and recorded. And the Dravidian immigration would
be subsequent to both of them. To judge from the cases in which the
fissure or subdivision of single tribes into two or more distinct ones
can still be observed, it seems quite a plausible hypothesis that the
original immigrants may have consisted only of a single tribe on each
occasion, and that the formation of new ones may have occurred after
settlement. But the evidence does not warrant any definite assertion.
37. Dravidian tribes.
The principal Dravidian tribes are the Gonds, Khonds and Oraons. The
Gonds were once dominant over the greater part of the Central
Provinces, which was called Gondwana after them. The above three
names have in each case been given to the tribes by the Hindus. The
following tribes are found in the Province:
Gond, Oraon or Kurukh, Khond, Kolam, Parja, Kamar. _Tribal Castes_:
Bhatra, Halba, Dhoba. _Doubtful_: Kawar, Dhanwar.
The Gonds and Khonds call themselves Koi or Koitur, a word which
seems to mean man or hillman. The Oraon tribe call themselves Kurukh,
which has also been supposed to be connected with the Kolarian _horo_,
man. The name Oraon, given to them by the Hindus, may mean farmservant,
while Dhangar, an alternative name for the tribe, has certainly this
signification.
There seems good reason to suppose that the Gonds and Khonds were
originally one tribe divided through migration. [72] The Kolams are
a small tribe of the Wardha Valley, whose dialect resembles those of
the Gonds and Khonds. They may have split off from the parent tribe
in southern India and come northwards separately. The Parjas appear to
represent the earliest Gond settlers in Bastar, who were subjugated by
later Gond and Raj-Gond immigrants. The Halbas and Bhatras are mixed
tribes or tribal castes, descended from the unions of Gonds and Hindus.
38. Origin of the Kolarian tribes
The Munda languages have been shown by Sir G. Grierson to have
originated from the same source as those spoken in the Indo-Pacific
islands and the Malay Peninsula. "The Mundas, the Mon-Khmer,
the wild tribes of the Malay Peninsula and the Nicobarese all use
forms of speech which can be traced back to a common source though
they mutually differ widely from each other." [73] It would appear,
therefore, that the Mundas, the oldest known inhabitants of India,
perhaps came originally from the south-east, the islands of the Indian
Archipelago and the Malay Peninsula, unless India was their original
home and these countries were colonised from it.
Sir Edward Gait states: "Geologists tell us that the Indian Peninsula
was formerly cut off from the north of Asia by sea, while a land
connection existed on the one side with Madagascar and on the other
with the Malay Archipelago; and though there is nothing to show that
India was then inhabited, we know that it was so in palaeolithic times,
when communication was probably still easier with the countries to the
north-east and south-west than with those beyond the Himalayas." [74]
In the south of India, however, no traces of Munda languages remain at
present, and it seems therefore necessary to conclude that the Mundas
of the Central Provinces and Chota Nagpur have been separated from the
tribes of Malaysia who speak cognate languages for an indefinitely
long period; or else that they did not come through southern India
to these countries but by way of Assam and Bengal or by sea through
Orissa. There is good reason to believe from the names of places and
from local tradition that the Munda tribes were once spread over Bihar
and parts of the Ganges Valley; and if the Kolis are an offshoot of the
Kols, as is supposed, they also penetrated across Central India to the
sea in Gujarat and the hills of the western Ghats. The presumption is
that the advance of the Aryans or Hindus drove the Mundas from the
open country to the seclusion of the hills and forests. The Munda
and Dravidian languages are shown by Sir G. Grierson to be distinct
groups without any real connection.
Though the physical characteristics of the two sets of tribes display
no marked points of difference, the opinion has been generally held
by ethnologists who know them that they represent two distinct waves
of immigration, and the absence of connection between their languages
bears out this view. It has always been supposed that the Mundas were
in the country of Chota Nagpur and the Central Provinces first, and
that the Dravidians, the Gonds, Khonds and Oraons came afterwards. The
grounds for this view are the more advanced culture of the Dravidians;
the fact that where the two sets of tribes are in contact those of the
Munda group have been ousted from the more open and fertile country,
of which, according to tradition, they were formerly in possession;
and the practice of the Gonds and other Dravidian tribes of employing
the Baigas, Bhuiyas and other Munda tribes for their village priests,
which is an acknowledgment that the latter as the earlier residents
have a more familiar acquaintance with the local deities, and can
solicit their favour and protection with more prospect of success. Such
a belief is the more easily understood when it is remembered that
these deities are not infrequently either the human ancestors of the
earliest residents or the local animals and plants from which they
supposed themselves to be descended.
39. Of the Dravidian tribes.
The Dravidian languages, Gondi, Kurukh and Khond, are of one family
with Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Canarese, and their home is the
south of India. The word Dravida comes from an older form Damila
or Dramila, and was used in ancient Pali and Jain literature as a
name for the people of the Tamil country. [75] Afterwards it came to
signify generally the people of southern India as opposed to Gaur or
northern India.
As stated by Sir Edward Gait there is at present no evidence to
show that the Dravidians came to southern India from any other
part of the world, and for anything that is known to the contrary
the languages may have originated there. The existence of the small
Brahui tribe in Baluchistan who speak a Dravidian language but have no
physical resemblance to other Dravidian races cannot be satisfactorily
explained, but, as he points out, this is no reason for holding that
the whole body of speakers of Dravidian languages entered India from
the north-west, and, with the exception of this small group of Brahuis,
penetrated to the south and settled there without leaving any traces
of their passage.
The Dravidian languages occupy a large area in Madras, Mysore and
Hyderabad, and they extend north into the Central Provinces and Chota
Nagpur where they die out, practically not being found west and north
of this tract. As the languages are more highly developed and the
culture of their speakers is far more advanced in the south, it is
justifiable to suppose, pending evidence to the contrary, that the
south is their home and that they have spread thence as far north as
the Central Provinces. The Gonds and Oraons, too, have stories to the
effect that they came from the south. The belief has hitherto been,
at least in the Central Provinces, that both the Gonds and Baigas have
been settled in this territory for an indefinite period, that is, from
prior to any Aryan or Hindu immigration. Mr. H.A. Crump, C.S., has
however pointed out that if this was the case the Munda or Kolarian
tribes, which have lost their own languages, should have adopted
Dravidian and not Hindu forms of speech. As already seen, numerous
Kolarian tribes, as the Binjhwar, Bhaina, Bhuiya, Baiga, Bhumij,
Chero, Khairwar and the Kols themselves in the Central Provinces have
entirely lost their own languages, as well as the Bhils and Kolis,
if these are held to be Kolarian tribes. None of them have adopted a
Dravidian language, but all speak corrupt forms of the ancient Aryan
vernaculars derived from Sanskrit. The fact seems to indicate that
at the time when they abandoned their own languages these tribes were
in contact with Hindus, and were not surrounded by Gonds, as several
of them are at present. The history of the Central Provinces affords
considerable support to the view that the Gond immigration occurred at
a comparatively late period, perhaps in the ninth or tenth century,
or even later, after a considerable part of the Province had been
governed for some centuries by Rajput dynasties. [76] The Gonds
and Oraons still have well-defined legends about their immigration,
which would scarcely be the case if it had occurred twenty centuries
or more ago.
Any further evidence or argument as to the date of the Dravidian
immigration would be of considerable interest.
40. Origin of the impure castes.
The fifth or lowest group in the scheme of precedence is that of the
impure castes who cannot be touched. If a high-caste Hindu touches one
of them he should bathe and have his clothes washed. These castes are
not usually allowed to live inside a Hindu village, but have a hamlet
to themselves adjoining it. The village barber will not shave them,
nor the washerman wash their clothes. They usually have a separate
well assigned to them from which to draw water, and if the village
has only one well, one side of it is allotted to them and the Hindus
take water from the other side. Formerly they were subjected to more
humiliating restrictions. In Bombay a Mahar might not spit on the
ground lest a Hindu should be polluted by touching it with his foot,
but had to hang an earthen pot round his neck to hold his spittle. He
was made to drag a thorny branch with him to brush out his footsteps,
and when a Brahman came by had to lie at a distance on his face lest
his shadow might fall on the Brahman. [77] Even if the shadow of a
Mahar or Mang fell on a Brahman he was polluted and dare not taste
food and water until he had bathed and washed the impurity away. In
Madras a Paraiyan or Pariah pollutes a high-caste Hindu by approaching
within a distance of 64 feet of him. [78] The debased and servile
position of the impure castes corresponds to that which, as already
seen, attached to the Sudras of the classical period. The castes
usually regarded as impure are the tanners, bamboo-workers, sweepers,
hunters and fowlers, gipsies and vagrants, village musicians and
village weavers. These castes, the Chamars, Basors, Mahars, Koris,
Gandas and others are usually also employed as agricultural and
casual labourers. Formerly, as already seen, they were not allowed to
hold land. There is no reason to doubt that the status of impurity,
like that of the Sudra, was originally the mark of a subjugated and
inferior race, and was practically equivalent to slavery. This was the
position of the indigenous Indians who were subjugated by the Aryan
invaders and remained in the country occupied by them. Though they
were of different races, and the distinction was marked and brought
home to themselves by the contrast in the colour of their skins,
it seems probable that the real basis for their antagonism was not
social so much as religious. The Indians were hated and despised by
the immigrants as the worshippers of a hostile god. They could not join
in the sacrifices by which the Aryans held communion with their gods,
and the sacrifice itself could not even be held, in theory at least,
except in those parts of India which were thoroughly subdued and
held to have become the dwelling-place of the Aryan gods. The proper
course prescribed by religion towards the indigenous residents was
to exterminate them, as the Israelites should have exterminated the
inhabitants of Canaan. But as this could not be done, because their
numbers were too great or the conquerors not sufficiently ruthless,
they were reduced to the servile condition of impurity and made
the serfs of their masters like the Amalekites and the plebeians
and helots.
If the whole of India had been thoroughly subjugated and settled like
the Punjab and Hindustan, it may be supposed that the same status
of impurity would have been imposed upon all the indigenous races;
but this was very far from being the case. In central and southern
India the Aryans or subsequent immigrants from Central Asia came at
first at any rate only in small parties, and though they may have
established territorial states, did not regularly occupy the land nor
reduce the indigenous population to a condition of servitude. Thus
large bodies of these must have retained a free position, and on
their acceptance of the new religion and the development of the caste
system, became enrolled in it with a caste status on the basis of
their occupation. Their leaders were sometimes admitted to rank as
Kshatriyas or Rajputs, as has been stated.
Subsequently, as the racial distinction disappeared, the impure
status came to attach to certain despised occupations and to customs
abhorrent to Hinduism, such as that of eating beef. But, as already
seen, the tribes which have continued to live apart from the Hindus
are not usually regarded as impure, though they may eat beef and even
skin animals. The Dhimars, who keep pigs, still have a higher status
than the impure castes because they are employed as water-bearers and
household servants. It is at least doubtful whether at the time when
the stigma of impurity was first attached to the Sudras the Hindus
themselves did not sacrifice cows and eat beef. [79] The castes noted
below are usually regarded as impure in the Central Provinces.
The Dhobi (washerman) and Kumhar (potter) are sometimes included among
the impure castes, but, as already noted, their status is higher than
that of the castes in this list.
Audhelia: Labouring caste of mixed descent who keep pigs.
Balahi: Weavers and village messengers and watchmen.
Basor: Bamboo basket-makers and village musicians.
Chamar: Tanners and labourers.
Ganda: Weavers and village musicians.
Ghasia: Grass-cutters, labourers and sweepers.
Kaikari: Vagrant basket-makers.
Kanjar, Beria, Sansia: Gipsies and thieves.
Katia: Cotton-spinners.
Kori: Weavers and labourers.
Madgi: Telugu tanners and hide-curriers.
Mahar: Weavers and labourers.
Mala: Telugu weavers and labourers.
Mang: Broom- and mat-makers and village musicians. They also castrate
cattle.
Mehtar: Sweepers and scavengers.
Certain occupations, those of skinning cattle and curing hides, weaving
the coarse country cloth worn by the villagers, making baskets from
the rind of the bamboo, playing on drums and tom-toms, and scavenging
generally are relegated to the lowest and impure castes. The hides of
domestic animals are exceedingly impure; a Hindu is defiled even by
touching their dead bodies and far more so by removing the skins. Drums
and tom-toms made from the hides of animals are also impure. But in
the case of weaving and basket-making the calling itself entails no
defilement, and it would appear simply that they were despised by the
cultivators, and as a considerable number of workers were required to
satisfy the demand for baskets and cloth, were adopted by the servile
and labouring castes. Basket- and mat-making are callings naturally
suited to the primitive tribes who would obtain the bamboos from the
forests, but weaving would not be associated with them unless cloth
was first woven of tree-cotton. The weavers of the finer cotton and
silk cloths, who live in towns, rank much higher than the village
weavers, as in the case of the Koshtis and Tantis, the latter of whom
made the famous fine cotton cloth, known as _abrawan_, or 'running
water,' which was supplied to the imperial Zenana at Delhi. On one
occasion a daughter of Aurangzeb was reproached on entering the room
for her immodest attire and excused herself by the plea that she had on
seven folds of cloth over her body. [80] In Bengal Brahmans will take
water from Tantis, and it seems clear that their higher status is a
consequence of the lucrative and important nature of their occupation.
The Katias are a caste of cotton-spinners, the name being derived
from _katna_, to cut or spin. But hand-spinning is now practically
an extinct industry and the Katias have taken to weaving or ordinary
manual labour for a subsistence. The Kanjars and Berias are the gipsy
castes of India. They are accustomed to wander about carrying their
grass-matting huts with them. Many of them live by petty thieving and
cheating. Their women practise palmistry and retail charms for the cure
of sickness and for exorcising evil spirits, and love-philtres. They
do cupping and tattooing and also make reed mats, cane baskets,
palm-leaf mats and fans, ropes from grass- and tree-fibre, brushes
for the cotton-loom, string-net purses and balls, and so on; and the
women commonly dance and act as prostitutes. There is good reason for
thinking that the Kanjars are the parents of the European gipsies,
while the Thugs who formerly infested the high-roads of India,
murdering solitary travellers and small parties by strangulation,
may also have been largely derived from this caste. [81]
41. Derivation of the impure castes from the indigenous tribes.
It can only be definitely shown in a few instances that the existing
impure occupational castes were directly derived from the indigenous
tribes. The Chamar and Kori, and the Chuhra and Bhangi, or sweepers
and scavengers of the Punjab and United Provinces, are now purely
occupational castes and their original tribal affinities have entirely
disappeared. The Chamars and Mehtars or sweepers are in some places
of a superior physical type, of comparatively good stature and light
complexion; [82] this may perhaps be due to a large admixture of
Hindu blood through their women, during a social contact with the
Hindus extending over many centuries, and also to the fact that they
eat flesh when they can obtain it, including carrion. Such types are,
however, exceptional among the impure castes, and there is no reason
to doubt their general origin from the non-Aryan tribes, which in
a few instances can be directly traced. Thus it seems likely that
the Kanjars, Berias, Sansias and other gipsy groups, as well as the
Mirasis, the vagrant bards and genealogists of the lower classes of
Hindus, are derived from the Dom caste or tribe of Bengal, who are
largely employed as sweepers and scavengers as well as on ordinary
labour. The evidence for the origin of the above groups from the
Doms is given in the article on Kanjar. Sir H.M. Elliot considered
the Doms to be one of the original tribes of India. Again, there is
no doubt that the impure Ganda caste, who are weavers, labourers and
village musicians in the Uriya country and Chhattisgarh Districts
of the Central Provinces, are derived from the Pan tribe of Chota
Nagpur. The Pans or Pabs are a regular forest tribe, and are sometimes
called Ganda, while the Gandas may be alternatively known as Pan. But
the section of the tribe who live among the Hindus and are regarded
as impure have now become a distinct caste with a separate name. The
Bhuiya tribe were once the rulers of Chota Nagpur; they still install
the Raja of Keonjhar, and have a traditional relation to other ruling
families. But in parts of Chota Nagpur and southern Bihar the Bhuiyas
living in Hindu villages have become a separate impure caste with
the opprobrious designation of Musahar or rat-eater. The great Mahar
caste of the Maratha country or Bombay are weavers and labourers,
and formerly cured hides, like the Chamars and Koris of northern
India. They are regarded as impure and were the serfs or villeins
of the Kunbis, attached to the land. An alternative name for them is
Dher, and this is supposed to be a corruption of Dharada a hillman,
a name applied in Manu to all the indigenous races of India. Though
the connection cannot be traced in all cases, there is thus no reason
to doubt that the existing impure castes represent the subjected or
enslaved section of the primitive non-Aryan tribes.
42. Occupation the basis of the caste system.
It has been seen that the old Aryan polity comprised four classes:
the Brahmans and Kshatriyas or priestly and military aristocracy;
the Vaishyas or body of the Aryans, who
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