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Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48: Castes and Caste-Groups

Indische Paläographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48

Language
German

Contents

Castes and Caste-Groups

A. Special groups

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origin back to the 10th century, when a considerable colony was imported by the reigning sovereign from upper India and acclimatised in the north and west of the present Province. Orissa received, or produced, its stock a little later, but there seems some reason to think that there was an earlier strain which had become extinct, or had degenerated below the standard exacted by the dynasty which had established itself on the coast. The frequent invasions of upper India from the north-west during the ten first centuries of the Christian era are credited with the dispersal of large bodies of Brāhmans from Rājputāna and the Madhyadeśa, some of whom took refuge in the seclusion of the Nepāl valley, others in the west Dekkan; others, again, fled by sea through Sindh or Kāṭhiāvāḍ to various settlements along the west coast. Amongst the latter were at least three Brāhman communities who have preserved a credible tradition of their northern origin. The Brāhman was never organised into a tribe upon a territorial basis, but was, from the beginning, parasitic upon other classes of the community. In Vedic times he was part and parcel of the fortunes of the Chief, his patron. In later times, as the tribes settled, multiplied and expanded, he attached himself to the landed classes, his principal clients, for "unde vivent oratores si defecerint aratores?" Still later, again, he was liable, according to numerous traditions current amongst the Brāhmans of to day, to be imported in large bodies to a distant Court on the invitation, not always declinable, of the pious ruler. When, moreover, there is taken into consideration the incorporation into the Brāhmanic order of local communities and of priests and exorcists of the wild tribes accepting Brāhmanism, the capricious exercise of the powers of Brāhmanification arrogated to themselves by sundry of the Chieftains, and the results of left-handed unions with the daughters of the land, the extent to which the Brāhman is scattered far and wide is no matter for surprise. The land, however, where they first became a consolidated body and established the hierarchy they have since dominated, is still that in which their numbers are both absolutely and relatively the greatest. Between the Jamnā and the Ghogrā, roughly speaking, there are about 4 800 000 Brāhmans. Of the vast population of Bengal, 2 900 000 are of that order; these two Provinces, therefore, account for more than half the total number. Brāhmans abound, too, relatively to the population, in Rājputāna, and Madras, Bombay and the Panjāb each contain between a million and a quarter. The distribution over these large areas is not, of course, even. Orissa and Bihār stand out above the rest of Bengal, except for a few places in the centre of the Province. Further up the Ganges, Oudh surpasses the sister Province of Agra in the relative number of its Brāhmans, and it is worth noting that Gonda, the traditional seat of the Gauṛ section of Brāhmans still maintains its preeminence. The prevalence of Brāhmans along the eastern bank of the Jamnā extends also for some distance to the west in both Rājputāna and the Panjāb. In the former tract there is a large settlement in the so-called desert States of the north and west, but in Sindh and towards the domain of the Balūch and Paṭhān, scarcely any are to be found. In the Panjāb, the greatest relative prevalence of the sacerdotal element is found in the outer-Himālaya, where Brāhmanism reigns in unwonted vigour. In the west of India, the Brāhman is well represented on the wealthy plains of Gujarāt, and holds a strong position throughout the Dekkan. In the Dravidian tracts, his numbers are fairly evenly distributed over the main linguistic divisions.

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§ 25. In spite of the unique and universally recognised position the Brāhmans hold in the estimation of the multitude, they have never formed themselves into a single and homogenous body. Their very dispersal over the length and breadth of the continent, in communities different in origin, speaking different languages and eating different food, makes such cohesion impracticable. It has, indeed, had the effect of making them perhaps the most heterogeneous collection of minute and independent subdivisions that ever bore a common designation. Possibly, too, the absence of territorial settlement to which reference was made above, lends greater weight and permanence to a subdivision based on considerations other than those connected with landed property, and has promoted, accordingly, the stricter observance of caste separatism. However this may be, the main lines of distribution are geographical, beginning with the ancient partition of the Brāhmanic order into the five Gauḍa, or Northern sections, and the five Drāvida, of the South. To the former belong the Gauṛ, from Gonda in Oudh, the Kanaujia, of the Central Doāb, the Sārasvata of the upper Jamnā, the Maithila, of Tirhūt, and the Utkala of Orissa. South of the Vindhya come the Mahārāṣṭra, of the Dekkan, the Karṇāṭa, of Mysore and the neighbourhood, the Āndhra of Telingāna and the Drāviḍa of the Tamil country.

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Added to these are the Gurjara of the west, who, curiously enough, though grouped amongst the southerners, are all northern in their origin. Except in the case of the three first mentioned, these divisions are of little practical significance in the everyday life of the present time, since they are severally partitioned into numerous main subdivisions, each of which is in turn, again, minutely split up into a still greater number of separate endogamous communities. The majority of the larger castes thus constituted have a territorial origin, generally well to the north of where they are now settled, except, of course, amongst those still occupying the traditional centres of Brāhmanism, such as the Gauṛ, Kanaujia and Sārasvata. Subordinate to these are the local offshoots, which are very generally attributable to schism on points of ceremonial or food, and, in the Drāviḍa country, to sectarian or doctrinal disagreement. From time to time, too, the scheme has to be expanded to admit some new recruits from outside the fold, who are usually placed low down on the scale, though not irrevocably doomed to remain there, if circumstances turn out favourable to their advancement. Throughout the local community, the rank of each subdivision relatively to the rest is fixed by a convention effectively backed by the public verdict; but this graduation is not necessarily recognised at a distance or where a different language is spoken.

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In every linguistic group, moreover, there are certain classes which, though called Brāhmans by the public, and enlisted to perform some of the ceremonial functions of the Brāhman, are either not recognised by other Brāhmans, or are relegated by them to a degraded position, inferior, in reality, to that to which many of the non-Brāhman castes are admitted. The acme of subdivision in combination with ceremonial exclusiveness, is probably reached among the Kanaujia, of whom it is said in their native Province, “Three Kanaujia, thirteen cooking-fires”. The Gurjara Brāhmans, again, are popularly credited with 84 divisions, but this being a popular expression of multitude in general, the number actually found, viz. 79, may be taken as fairly correct, especially as all the larger items in that lengthy list have their respective sub-castes. The Brāhmans of the Dekkan are perhaps as little split up into sections as any, but on the coast-strip of the Konkan the subdivision is more minute, owing, probably, to the foreign strain introduced from time to time. The Brāhmans of Bengal and Madras, where the system is of later introduction, hide a complicated interior under a comparatively small number of main divisions, especially in the latter, where caste has been affected by the doctrinal schisms of which the clouth since the days of S'aṅkarācārya and Rāmānuja, has been prolific.

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§ 26. It was stated above that the subdivision of Brāhman communities is often traceable to differences in regard to food and ceremonial. These, in turn, depend to a great extent upon function and the means of livelihood accessible. Strictly speaking, the Brāhman, as pointed out earlier in this work, is by origin a functional order, but with the expansion of the Ārya population in post-Vedic times and the growth of the Brāhmanic community beyond the need of the layman for its specific ministrations, great latitude had to be allowed, no doubt, from a very early period. In the present day, within the fairly wide limits which he himself has set, the Brāhman is represented in a large proportion of what may be called the upper and middle class occupations of India. But whichever of these he may take up, his inherent qualities are unabated, and he is still entitled to the homage of the rest of the community, and remains the accredited intermediary between man and the supernatural. In the latter capacity his bare living is assured to him without need to work for it, because in all formal rites such as those connected with birth, marriage, death, expiation or thanksgiving, the provision of a meal for a certain number of Brāhmans is an essential and costly feature. In the more prosperous parts of the country, accordingly, there is usually a plentiful supply of Brāhmans of whom it has been said that "they exist only to be fed". On every side are to be found subdivisions which, in the eyes of their compeers, have fallen from grace by participating in the feasts of wealthy but impure clients. In another direction there are instances on record where the number of local Brāhmans available for a ceremony of this sort not being equivalent to the aspirations of the Chieftain interested in it, the quorum has been made up by him by a special creation out of such lower material as was at hand. Service at a temple, it should be noted, is not undertaken by the better class of Brāhman, as it is held to be degrading, and left, accordingly, to those low in station. In several cases the claim to be accounted a Brāhman rests entirely upon the performance of those duties. The inference drawn from this estimation of temple service is' that the divinities in question are those of the non-Ārya, incorporated from time to time into the Brāhmanic pantheon, as the community which reverenced them was brought to adopt the social system of the higher race. It is probable that the distinction drawn between the acceptance of offerings by a Brāhman in requital for specific services and those made to him on general grounds has its root in the same tradition; for whilst to the donor offerings of any kind to a Brāhman are held to be productive of spiritual merit, only one of the lower class of the order will accept gifts for exorcising evil spirits, averting the baleful influences of an eclipse or certain combinations of stars, reciting the appropriate texts for pilgrims at a bathing place, or helping at a funeral, and the like offices.

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The secular pursuits affected by the Brāhman vary considerably according to whether the caste is settled in the locality in large numbers, whether the tract is prospering, or whether the Brāhman first came into it as a pioneer and colonist or as a propagandist or an exile from another centre. Political employment has been congenial to the Brāhman from the time when the Purohita, or family sacrificer, was treated by the Rājan as his confidential adviser in the Sūkta period, and the caste has continued to throw up from time to time men who have been distinguished for their administration of Native States. The great chance of the Brāhman came, of course, under the Pēśvā rule, when the whole of the military organisation built up by the Marāṭhās fell to the disposal of the Citpāvan Brāhman of the Konkan; and for seventy years or more, the Dekkan was dominated from Poona, and the whole of the administration was conducted by the local and the coast Brāhman. Even in the present day, the Marāṭhā Brāhman has almost a monopoly of clerical employment throughout the Dekkan, Konkan and Karnatic, and with the traditions of former supremacy to encourage him, he stands quite in the van of his order in intelligence and general ability. In some other parts of the country the Brāhman is the only class besides the trader who can read and write to any practical purpose, and he thus becomes, of course, the scribe, if not the official accountant, of the village community.

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Even in the tracts where a serious rival is found in a professional writing class, the Brāhman usually has a share in the State appointments to which the "literary proletariat" of India look mainly for their subsistence. Of the learned professions, Law and Instruction are the more attractive to this caste. A few take up the lower branches of Engineering, and still fewer the practice of Medicine, a following which is to a great extent barred to them by reason of caste-scruples in regard to the surgical training involved. In commerce they have not made their way beyond the universal venture in lending money to their neighbours, to which every Indian capitalist, according to his resources, is inclined. The Brāhman shares, also, the general aspiration to own land, either as an investment or as a possession honorific in the eyes of the lay world. Wherever they have settled in large masses, as in the Gangetic Doāb and Oudh, or in compact local colonies, which probably preceded their advance as a sacerdotal body, they have taken to cultivation on the same lines as the ordinary peasantry, except that they but very rarely put their hand to the plough, though they go as far as standing upon the crossbar of the harrow to lend their weight to that operation.

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Owing to this caste-imposed restriction, probably, it may be noted that wherever the Brāhman has settled otherwise than as a part of a large general community, he is the centre of a well-defined system of predial servitude, his land being cultivated for him by hereditary serfs of undoubtedly Dasyu descent. This is the case with the Māsṭhān of Orissa and Gujarāt, and with the Haiga or Havīka of Kanara, and the Nambūtiri of the Malabar coast, all of whom have settled in fertile country. Where the pressure of circumstances is very severe, as in the desert States of Rājputāna, the Brāhman cultivator not only does the whole of his own work, including ploughing, but even sells his labour to other more fortunate occupants. A military career may appear to be somewhat alien to the traditions and inclinations of a sacerdotal class, nevertheless in the vicinity of the Ganges it has proved by no means unattractive to the Brāhman peasantry. The Bhūīnhār, or Bābhan, of the south eastern parts of the upper valley, are credited by some with Brāhman ancestry, which endowed them with enough of the Kṣatriya qualities to enable them to push forward in advance of the main body of their race, and to hold against the Kōl, or other previous possessor, the land they still occupy.

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The nickname of Pandy, again, bestowed upon the rebel troops collectively by the British soldier, is no other than Pāṇḍē or Pañṟē, the title of the sub-division of the Kanaujia Brāhmans from which a high proportion of the recruits of this caste were then enlisted. Since 1857 it has been found that minute caste-scruples as to diet and contact are incompatible with the exigencies of modern field service, whilst the personal sanctity of the Brāhman private is 'apt to turn out inimical to the due observance of regimental discipline. Amongst the Muhiāl Brāhmans of the Panjāb, therefore, the pride of caste has given way before the taste for the profession of arms, and the would-be recruit of this community drops his Brāhmanhood when enlisting, and is enrolled under some other designation. In former days, when, as under the Pēśvās, Brāhmans were themselves at the head of the forces, and not in subordination to the foreigner, and when war was carried out on very different lines from those of to-day, commanders of this caste acquitted themselves worthily, and showed both resource and courage in the field.

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§ 27. **Rājputs** (10,040,800). In this case, the community is unmistakeably military in its origin, with the old baronial attributes of landed-estate and leadership of an armed force. People are returned at the Census under this designation in considerable numbers from all parts of India except the South, but nine-tenths of them hail from north of the Vindhya and west of the Kōsi. The Provinces of Agra and Oudh alone account for 3,950,000. In the Panjāb there are 1,820,000, and in Bihār, about 1,200,000. The cradle of the Rājput is the tract named after him, not, however, as it is limited in the present day, but extending from the Jamnā to the Narbadā and Satlaj, including, therefore, the whole of Mālvā, Bundelkhand, and parts of Agra and the Panjāb. From the northern parts of this tract there seems to have been an early movement of conquest up the western rivers of the Panjāb, as far as the Himālaya and Kashmir, whereby was laid the foundation of the predominance of the tribes still in possession. With this exception, the presence of Rājputs in other parts of India seems due to their expulsion from their ancient seats. The legendary occupation of Kāṭhiāvāḍ from Mathura is ascribed to an attack delivered from the south and east. Successive inroads of Scythians and Hūnas caused a movement to the south-west, into Gujarāt;

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but the principal and most definite migration followed upon the Muslim conquests of the 11th and 12th centuries, which drove large bodies of Rājputs towards the Himālaya and eastwards across the Ganges into the Doāb and Oudh. From thence, as well as from Bundelkhand, they spread into the adjacent parts of Bihār, especially those north of the Ganges. A certain number, too, are found in the north of the Central Provinces, where the boundaries between British territory and Central India are very complicated. Beyond the above limits the original stock is not found, and even within them, it has in some cases been materially watered with local blood, when the distance from the race-centre makes the operation fairly safe, and the community is sufficiently well established to maintain its marriage connection at its conventional level. The presence of so many Rājputs in other parts of India is accounted for by the fact that the title, originally, in all probability, derived from function, denotes, as has been stated, an order of hereditary nobility, access to which is still obtainable, and whose circle, accordingly, is being constantly enlarged upon much the same considerations as of yore. The essentials of the position are the chieftainship of a tribe or clan and the command of an armed force, with the possession of a substantial landed estate and a scrupulous regard for the strict letter of Brāhmanical regulations as to marriage, domestic customs and intercourse with other classes.

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It was on this basis that in the Panjāb the Jāṭ was differentiated from the Rājput, and certain castes in Oudh and its neighbourhood rose above their fellows. In other cases, the above requisites being established, the elaboration of the claim to affiliation to one of the recognised Rājput clans is left to the ingenuity of a competent Brāhman with the aid of an experienced bard or genealogist. For example, on the adoption of Brāhmanism by a large portion of the Mongoloid population of Manipur, the chief and his military retainers passed into the rank of Kṣatriya, and to the number of about 180 000, appear under that title in the last Census returns. The leading families of various Kōl tribes of Chuṭiā Nāgpur, again, are constantly, in Col. Dalton's phrase, "being refined into Rājputs" and sometimes do not wait for 'times' effacing fingers" to conceal the change, and too often ignore the essentially Rājput system of clan-exogamy in favour of their pristine tribal arrangements. There is, in fact, no section of the Brāhmanic hierarchy into which recruitment from the outside has been more extensive or to which the claims to membership have been so numerous. The latter is especially the case in the tracts where the caste system has been imposed as an exotic in comparatively modern times.

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In Lower Bengal, for instance, such claims are remarkably frequent, and this is attributed to the adoption of the ready-made caste-system by a number of different racial stocks without its graduation being authoritatively regulated by a powerful Chief under the guidance of a council of influential Brāhmans. In Madras, again, caste was engrafted upon an already well-established civilisation to which it had to accommodate itself according to circumstances. In the former, therefore, the Rājput, except as before stated in Bihār, is redolent of the local soil, and takes rank therefore below certain other castes which have come to the front under the peaceful conditions of a Province where arms have long succumbed to the tongue and pen. These classes, therefore, do not lay claim to the title of Rājput, but to that of Kṣatriya, implying a position less definite and less likely to be disputed by existing communities. Similarly in the South, whither the Rājput never penetrated, unless it might be in the form of representatives of more or less evanescent dynasties, the rank of Kṣatriya is claimed almost exclusively by members of the labouring and toddy-drawing castes, who justify their pretensions by the undisputed fact that their ancestry furnished the rank and file of the archers and other infantry of the local potentate.

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Instances will be found in latter parts of this Chapter in which the status of Kṣatriya is claimed by many castes of far higher position in the present day than those just quoted. Various legends are current proving that whilst the Purānic assertion of the total extirpation of the Kṣatriya is true, the ancestry of the claimants in question had somehow or other escaped the general destruction, and are the lineal inheritors of the hypothetical Vedic rank, although the majority of them obtrusively avoid any occupation savouring of war. This much appears to be true, that there was a long breach between the heyday of the post-Vedic ruling classes and the genesis of the Rājput. The former were apparently staunch supporters of Buddhism, in its inception a movement in their favour, whilst the latter arose with the forces which deposed that religion in India, and established their position upon the ruins of the States which had professed it. The ground for the evolution of a new military nobility seems to have been prepared by the establishment in Upper India of successive sovereignties of S'aka race. These professed Buddhism, and were thus antagonistic to the orthodox Brāhmanism. But after they had carried their arms far into the country, and the Panjāb and its neighbourhood became their principal seat of government, they seem to have become affected by the prevailing social atmosphere, with which, as has been stated, the tenets of Buddhism were by no means out of harmony.

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One of their monarchs, indeed, is claimed as their founder by more than one of the chief clans of the present-day Rājputs. In the continual disturbances which occurred between the first century before Christ and the downfall of the principal Scythian dynasties in the 7th century A D, the Brāhmanic powers were wont to invoke the aid of any arm, Indian or foreign, which might promote the defeat of their rivals. The incorporation of such leaders into their ranks could be effected without much difficulty, firstly, through the prestige of a victory in the good cause, and, again, through the fiction, dating from a far earlier period in Indian history, that the foreign tribes which pressed upon the frontiers of Brāhmanism were themselves Brāhmanical backsliders of the warrior order, who had lost their position by reason of their neglect of the orthodox rites. Upon the hypothesis that the suppression of Buddhism was an act of faith entitling the protagonists to be received back into the fold, it became possible to combine gratitude with policy, and, by the substitution of a new designation, Rājput, for the old one of Kṣatriya, to effectively demarcate from the former state of things, the new order established under the uncontested supremacy of sacerdotalism.

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None of the Rājputs prove their pedigree further back than the 5th century of the Christian era, and four of the leading tribes of the present day, known as the Agnikula, or Fire-clans, derive their origin from a specific act of creation under Brāhmanic auspices, whereby the sun and fire-worshipping Hūna or Gurjara was converted into the blue blood of Rājputāna, and became the forefathers of the Sisōdiā, Cauhān, Parmār, Parihār, and Sōlaṅki or Cālukya, and perhaps of the Kachvāhā lines. Other cases of similar elevation are to be found, and, considering the dominant position held by Scythian communities in the north and west of India for many centuries, together with the affinity between their worship and that of a popular branch of that of the Brāhmans, and the common northern origin of the two races, it is not improbable that the upper classes, at all events, of the new comers should have identified themselves with the corresponding classes of those amongst whom their lot had been permanently cast. There are, moreover, special features of the structure and customs of Rājput and invader of a few centuries later had the effect of consolidating the Rājput devotion to the scrupulous observance of Brāhmanic injunctions as to marriage and intercourse with other castes which specially distinguished them from their foreign oppressors; and to the present day, they stand out from the rest of the community in the high value they attach to these matters.

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Like the Brāhmans, they are greatly subdivided, but with this important difference, that whereas the Brāhmans may only marry within the subdivision, the Rājput may only marry without it, though within the Rājput pale. The larger subdivision is, in fact, taking the place of the smaller as the circle of prohibited affinity. Conjecturally, this difference in practice may be due to the fact that the Rājput clan is definitely traceable in its origin to a historic leader or family, involving, therefore, a tradition of blood-kinship the more vivid from its being associated with territorial ownership. The tribe or order, again, being spread continuously and in considerable numbers over a large area, with uniform conceptions as to rank and function, the marriage field is a wide one, and the graduation of each unit in its social position has been arranged on considerations which override the normal limitations of caste. The regulations as to intermarriage, therefore, though exceedingly strict, have a wider scope than among most of the other Brāhmanical bodies and are in some cases arbitrarily imposed upon itself by the clan on considerations of rank alone. So strict indeed, are they in regard to what has been called hypergamy, that amongst the upper grades of Rājput society, the girl is held to be a burden upon the resources of the family to an extent that leads to reprehensible means of preventing her from reaching a nubile age.

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The scarcity of brides thus produced, combined with the expenses of the marriage, tend to the formation of left-handed unions with lower castes, the offspring whereof ranks with the mother, or, where numerous and recognised, constitutes a new caste by itself. The latter is the case in the west of India, where the bastards become court dependants. In Orissa, they all rank as Rājputs. In Nepāl there is the curious instance of the children of a Hill woman by a Brāhman becoming Rājput, and forming the kernel of the large military population of the State. In the Kāngra Himālaya, where the continuity of tradition and lineage has been less interrupted than anywhere else, the Chief is a law not only unto himself but unto his subjects in regard to social position and caste, so that the rank of Rājput depends very much upon the royal favour. Considering the part played by Islām in the dispersal of the Rājput ruling families, it is worth noting that in the Panjāb, not only have three fourths of this caste embraced that religion, in both the west and east of the Province, but that conversion has had no effect upon the social position of the Rājput. In the east, where Brāhmanic influence is supreme, change of religion is said to have no result upon caste regulations.

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In the west, where the Pathān atmosphere predominates, the scheme of social restrictions and prescriptions is Brāhmanic, but, as in the east, the sanction by which it is maintained is that of the tribe, not of the caste, and intermarriage and so on is governed by the position of the body in the present day, rather than by considerations of origin, such as are involved in caste.

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From what has been said above it may be inferred that the functional scope of the Rājput is but narrow. Traditionally, he rules, fights, owns land and indulges in field-sports. In practice, he carries out this scheme of life as far as circumstances allow, but the rank and file of his order are cultivators, and not among the most efficient of their class. The Rājput has the same objection as the Brāhman to handling the plough, and the strict seclusion in which the women of the caste are kept deprives him of an aid in the minor agricultural operations which in the lower castes is often most valuable. In the Gangetic regions the Rājput still enlists in considerable numbers in the "Hindustānī" regiments of the British army. He often, too, dons the official belt as a constable or messenger, in upper India and Gujarāt. On the whole, however, the general disinclination of the caste to avail itself of the facilities for instruction now within its reach is placing it at a disadvantage as compared with the middle classes, in the modern conditions of Indian life. Only the subordinate grades of official and professional employment are open to them, and in the army, also, promotion beyond a certain rank depends now-a days upon education, and the Rājput is losing by the competition of Sikh, Paṭhān and Gurkhā in the profession of his choice, and is far outdistanced in civil avocations by those whom his caste prevents him from acknowledging to be even rivals.

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§ 28. **Trading Castes** (10,680,800): This is the first of the distinctively functional groups to be brought under review. It is not, however, merely a collection of communities each with its separate designation, like those which have preceded it, but contains some general titles denoting the occupation of trading, but which do not include all the castes following that calling in the locality where it prevails. The leading example of these is the Banyā or Vāniā, of upper and western India, under which name are included nearly all the trading classes, but not important castes like the Khatrī and Arōṛā in the Panjāb, or the Bhāṭiā and Lohānā of Sindh. There are grounds for thinking that the exclusion is due to differences of race. The Khatrī and Arōṛā, like the Banyā, derive their origin from Rājputāna, in the larger sense in which that term was used in the preceding paragraph, but the latter affiliate themselves directly to certain clans of Rājputs, whilst the former refer themselves back to the Kṣatriya, and give the western region of Mūltān and upper Sindh as the cradle of their caste. It has been conjectured from the customs and internal structure of the Khatrī and Arōṛā, which differ in some respects from those of the ordinary Brāhmanic castes, that these communities are descended from one of the S'aka colonies which long held the tracts above mentioned.

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The Banyā, with the exception of the Agarvāl, who come from Agar near Ujjain, give the now ruined city of Bhinmāl, or S'rīmāl, in Mārwāḍ as their original home, and claim descent from the Sōlaṅki clan of the Agnikula or Hūna Rājputs, so that, like the Khatrī, they are of foreign race. Whether owing to this origin or to the refining influence of generations of sedentary pursuits in prosperous circumstances, the personal appearance of the Banyā is decidedly above the average. The western subdivisions, such as the S'rīmālī, Porvāl and Osvāl, which are all closely connected with each other, are largely, and in many tracts, mostly, of the Jain religion, a creed which seems to have commended itself to the mercantile community at a comparatively early period; and they allege the acceptance of the peaceful tenets of this faith to have been one of the main reasons for their separation from the bellicose Rājput. In the present day, except in Delhi, where a special casus belli arose some years ago, the Mahēśrī, or Brāhmanic section of the caste intermarries with the S'rāvak, or Jain, and the latter, in turn, employ for their caste and domestic ministrations, the Bhōjak, or Sēvak, a subdivision of Brāhmans not in high repute among the priestly orders, representing, as they are said to do, the Māga sun-priests introduced from Īrān by the Hūna and other invaders.

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In addition to the main divisions of the Banyā, almost every body is subdivided into "full-scores" (vīsa) and "half-scores" (dasa), denoting the relative admixture of lower blood. In many castes the partition has to be carried still further, and the "quarter-score" (pañca) represents the minimum of pure descent. None of the subdivisions intermarry, though in the west there is occasional connubium found between the "vīsa", or highest sections of the respective castes. The Banyā engage in most mercantile pursuits, from high finance and extensive foreign trade down to the retail of the most common articles of everyday use, so long as these are not conventionally polluting. They are not as wedded to their native place as most of the Indian communities, and settle, sometimes permanently, in villages where they are strangers both in caste and language. Others, principally from the desert States, habitually leave home for the more favoured parts of the country, and return only after their fortune is made there. The upper classes of the Banyā are well educated and often keen sectarians in regard to religion. In some tracts they are entering the law and the State offices, though not in large numbers. The Khatrī of the Panjāb, on the other hand, in addition to the trade of all but the south-west of his province, has almost the monopoly of official and professional employment, and has passed even beyond the Panjāb into parts of the neighbouring province in similar callings.

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This caste has what the Banyā lacks, the tradition of administrative and political success, in which it resembles the Marāṭhā Brāhman mentioned above. Tōdar Mal, the celebrated financier under Akbar, was a Khatrī, and has had more than one successor, though not of the same calibre. Then, too, though the bulk of the Khatrī are not of the Sikh faith, they have always been connected with it, and both Nānak and Govind belonged to their ranks. In the present day, such priests as are required by the Sikhs are usually Khatrī. In trade, though sharp and industrious, the Khatrī does not take so high a position as the Banyā, but confines his operations generally to small local transactions, and does not, as a rule, set up branch establishments outside his native province. There are, however, a few colonies in Bengal, but they are detached, and their position is considerably below that occupied by the caste in its northern home. In some other parts of India there are Khatrī returned who trace their origin back to the Panjāb or north Rājputāna, and were probably driven southwards by one of the Scythic cataclysms, and like others similarly circumstanced, found themselves obliged to take to new means of livelihood, generally silk-weaving.

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Closely allied to the Khatrī, but occupying a decidedly inferior social position, are the Arōṛā of the south-western Panjāb, who, starting from nearly the same region as the others, do not appear to have pushed their way into the fertile tracts of the north, but to have remained on the less remunerative plains along the Indus. In the same direction are the Bhāṭiā and Lohānā of Sindh. The former have preserved in their title the memory of their origin in the Bhaṭṭī districts of north Rājputāna, and claim descent from the predominant Rājput stock of that locality, just as the Banyā of Bhīnmāl does in the west. There is this further similarity, that the Yādava race of the Bhaṭṭī looks back to a S'aka founder, in the grandson of Kaniṣka. There are still a good many Bhāṭiā in the Panjāb, where their Rājput blood seems unquestioned, but, unlike the Khatrī, their position seems to improve the further they get from their native country, and it is along the coast that they are most flourishing, and in upper Sindh most depressed. They have so arranged their caste-rules that they are able to cross the ocean without subsequent trouble, and are among the most travelled and enterprising merchants of Kach, Bombay, Zanzibar and even China. The Lohānā, again, are of Mārwāḍ origin, but moved into Sindh very early in their history, and have there remained. From a centre at Shikārpur, they travel far into Central Asia and even to the banks of the Volga.

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One of their subdivisions (the Āmil) has followed the example of the Khatrī, and taken to clerical professions. Like its prototype, also, it has succeeded in monopolising the pick of official employment in its native province.

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The figures given against the several subdivisions of the general heading of Banyā are much below the reality, owing to the omission in many, if not most, cases to enter the subcaste, and to the substitution of some such indefinite designation as Mārwāḍī, S'rāvak, Vais', and so on. This is markedly the case in Bengal, where, with the exception of the subdivisions dealing with specific products, which find place in a later paragraph, nearly the whole trading community appears as a single item. The Subarṇabaṇik, it is true, has distinguished itself from its neighbours, probably because it claims a rank above that accorded it by public opinion. It is an immigrant body from upper India, and as a considerable number of its members are still engaged as assayers and money changers and it employs Brāhmans recruited from its own ranks, it seems possible that it is an offshoot of the Sōnār caste which elsewhere in India makes similar claims and is not unfrequently returned as a Daivajña or Vis'vakarman Brāhman, an assumption not yet accepted beyond its own members. Other artisan castes in the South make the same claim, but as the Subarṇabaṇik is prosperous and fairly well educated, it will not improbably end, if not where it desires, at all events considerably above its present rank. In the Dravidian country, the trading castes differ from those above described in being almost entirely indigenous to the locality they serve.

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The movements which are reported to have taken place have been to comparatively short distances, such as those from the uplands of the Telugu country to the rich and thickly-peopled tracts of the south-east. There is this further difference between these castes and the traders of the north, that in most cases the former are intimately connected with, and probably sprang from, one or other of the great agricultural communities amongst whom they live, and from whom they are still distinguished by little else than function. One result of this relationship, and not an unhealthy one, has been observed viz, that where the business of lending money is carried on by people of the same class as the borrower, the dealings are on a less formal and more elastic footing than where, as in other parts of the country, the usurer has simply come to the village from a strange country to make his fortune out of the necessities of the natives. Considering that what with weddings and other ceremonies, every peasant is at some time or other a borrower, the above feature is not unimportant from a political as well as from an economical point of view. There is the usual tendency among those who prosper to adopt the ceremonial and customs of the local Brāhmans or to grow more scrupulous in their observance, and, amongst the Telugu traders, to assert in due course a Vais'ya origin, a pretension which their form of caste-subdivision and their more intimate domestic practices flagrantly contradict.

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The Kōmaṭi, for instance, wear the sacred thread and are divided into three territorial endogamous subdivisions, following the modern Brāhmanic, not the Vedic, ritual. Their exogamous groups, however, of which there are a great number, are not Brāhmanic but totemistic, derived from trees, plants or articles of food, the use of which is prohibited respectively to the group to which it belongs. Their marriage rules are those peculiar to the South and the ceremony is incomplete without the formal presentation of the friendly and symbolic betel-nut and leaf to a member of the impure leather-working caste, with whom the traders share a common tutelary deity. It is a good example of the growing refinement of modern times, that in order to mitigate the crudity of the above-mentioned act of social intimacy without breaking away from a possibly prophylactic tradition, it is now the habit for the bride's father to send a pair of shoes to be mended a few days before the wedding, and on the day of the ceremony to pay the cobbler with a betel-nut thrown in to the amount of the bill. The largest trading community of the Telugu country is the Balija, which is widely spread over the Tamil districts also, and there called Vaḍugan, or Northerners, or Kavarai, from the caste goddess. They have a great number of subdivisions, which are not, however, endogamous, as a rule, possibly owing to the practice of receiving into the caste refugees from outside who are in disgrace with their own kinsfolk.

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One division of the Balija, however, keeps itself apart, being descended from the Nāyak Chiefs of Madura. Though it wears no sacred thread, it claims to be Kṣatriya. As a whole, the Balija are probably an outgrowth of the great agricultural body of the Kāpu or Reḍḍi. Like the Kōmaṭi, they are in curiously close relations with the impure leather-workers and village menials of the locality. It might be inferred from this fact that the latter belong to a race preceding the present occupants of the soil, and like the Dasyu of the north, dispossessed of their heritage, but acknowledged to be influential with the gods of the village. The Banjiga is the Karnatic trader, and has no connection with his namesake the Baniyā. Generally speaking, the Banjiga, though much subdivided, is of the same stock as the Kanarese peasantry, whose proclivities towards the Lingāyat faith it largely shares. In the Tamil country the trader is usually a Ceṭṭi a title which is nearly as comprehensive as that of Baniyā. It covers several large and a vast number of small subdivisions. In most cases the marriage rules resemble in important particulars those of the surrounding peasantry of the better class. They worship the local goddesses and call in a carpenter by caste to bestow his blessing upon the bride and bridegroom, thus generally testifying to their local origin.

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Their main subdivision, the Nāṭṭukōṭṭai, shares the reputation of the Bhāṭiā for unwonted enterprise and success in foreign trade and travel.

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§ 29. The last group to be mentioned under this head is that of the Muslim traders. These belong to the west coast, with the exception of the Labbai, who, though settled along the south-east, are nevertheless connected with those of Malabar by origin. The rest consist mainly of converts of long-standing from the Lohānā and other traders of Sindh and Kach. Unfortunately, the full strength of these bodies is not ascertainable from the Census returns owing to the appropriation of the same title by different communities. The Khōjah, for instance, of the coast, are

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a wealthy body of enterprising traders converted to the Shiah form of Islām about the 13th century. They moved southwards from Sindh into Gujarāt and Bombay, and there, starting from petty shopkeeping, they have attained a very high position in foreign trade, and are noted for the number of the branches they have set up abroad. The Khōjah of the Panjāb are quite distinct from these, though they too are converts from the Brāhmanic mercantile classes and mostly profess the Shiah tenets. They also, like the others, recognise as their religious head H. H. Āghā Khān, whose family migrated to Bombay from Persia about sixty years ago. The Mēmān, again, are of Sindh origin, descended from a body of Lōhānā who were converted in the 15th century, and, like the rest, moved into Kach and Kāthiāvāḍ. In common with the western Khōjah, they have preserved a good deal of their Brāhmanic custom and tradition. In commerce they have risen to a good position, though not, perhaps, to the rank of the Khōjah. Their counterpart is found in the Mōmin or Mōmnā, a body of Gujarāt peasants converted about the same time as the Mēmān, and who are now chiefly weavers and cotton-goods dealers, with a few still on the land. About half of those returned as Mēmān at the Census probably belong to the latter community, and about two thirds of the Khōjah are of the Panjāb section. The last of the Muslim trading classes of the Bombay coast to be here mentioned is the Bohrā, in its various subdivisions.

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These, like the rest, are converts to the Shiah faith from the commercial classes of the chief towns in Gujarāt, about the 11th century, and combine the strict observance of Muslim worship with a due regard for the Brāhmanic or pre-Brāhmanic methods of dealing with the personal or domestic supernatural. The upper classes engage in foreign trade, but the rank and file are content with a successful career in the retail shop, and are somewhat remarkable for their neglect of English in an otherwise efficient and well-diffused scheme of instruction. The Census shows under the same title the cultivating Vōhorā of Gujarāt, Sunni by sect, and retaining in most cases a fairly clear recollection of the Brāhmanic caste from which they were converted, and adjusting their marriage arrangements in accordance therewith. About half the number of Bohrās given in the return belong to this class. On the Malabar coast are the Māppila and Jōnakkan, and on the south Coromandel coast, the Labbai. The last named are descended from an Arab colony, driven from its native country in the 8th century; or, according to another account, from Arab traders who married Tamil wives at a later date. Their connection with Arabia is indicated, in either case, by the name of S'ōnagan (Arabia) which they used to bear, and their present name of Labbai is said to be no more than a local rendering of labbaik, the Arabic for the familiar phrase "here I am".

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In practice they are orthodox Muslim, though like the Muslim of the eastern Panjāb, they marry by Brāhmanic rites with a text or two of the Kurān recited to complete the ceremony. There is a small community living side by side with them, known as the Marakkāyar, who claim similar origin, but do not intermarry, and are apparently of more recent arrival. Both speak Tamil with a few Arabic words interspersed. Those who are not traders are engaged in betel cultivation and pearl-diving. The Māppila have been referred to in other parts of this survey as the chief Arabian colony on the western coast. They are placed in this group because it was as traders that they first visited Malabar, but in the present day this pursuit is practised only along the coast, and the bulk of the Māppila inland are landholders and cultivators. In both capacities they have shown themselves thrifty and energetic. Their name is either an honorific soubriquet, shared by some other classes in the neighbourhood, or, as some think, the Tamil word for bridegroom, applied to the Arabs who married native women. In language and in many of the local customs of marriage and inheritance, they have identified themselves with the native population. The Jōnakkan are no other than Māppila returned under a title given along the coast, especially in Travancore, to converts to Islām, and is possibly the Malayālam rendering of Yavana, the old Brahmanic designation for all foreigners hailing from the west.

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The community is recruited from some of the castes along the coast, especially the fishermen, of whom the Mukkuvan have in some families the curious rule that one of their children should embrace Islām. In remarkable contrast to the experience in the Panjāb in regard to such conversion, it is alleged that the Malayālam is improved by the change in faith. Probably the original status of the convert was lower than in the north.

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§ 30. **Writer castes** (2,750,300): The profession of scribe or clerk was in all probability unusually late in establishing itself in India owing to the jealousy with which all instruction was monopolised by the Brāhmans, as well as to the extraordinary development of memory and oral tradition fostered by them. Setting aside the art of inscribing rock and copper, writing as a profession appears in inscriptions of the 8th century A. D., and a few generations later, the caste of the Writer is referred to under the same name as it bears in the present day. It may be gathered from the data available that the calling was in anything but good odour amongst the Brāhmans and that the castes exercising it occupied but a low position. Their chance came when the Muslim conquerors, having established themselves permanently in the country, felt the need of clerical ability to help them through the labours of administration, and were unwilling, on sectarian grounds, to have recourse to the Brāhman. In the writing castes the very material they wanted was at hand. The Khatrī, as mentioned in a former paragraph, furnished several most efficient ministers to the Moghal régime; the principal supply, however, was, as it still is, from the Kāyasth caste, which, from the upper Ganges, was introduced into Gujarāt by the Muslim Viceroys and naturalised there.

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