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Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s2: B. The village community

Indische Paläographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s2

Language
German

Contents

B. The village community

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§ 32. In the greater part of India, the village as a unit not only of population but of land, has assumed a form not to be found in other countries. In European Russia, it is true, the system of rural aggregation bears a considerable resemblance to that of India, but has far less weight in the social organisation, and is far less bound up with the ethnic evolution of the country. The village, then, as it falls within the scope of this review, is an agricultural community on a self-sufficing basis, congregated, for the original purpose of protection, on to a single site, surrounded by a definite area of land the prescriptive right to which is invested in it. Originally, no doubt, the occupants of the soil formed a close corporation based upon kinship or common descent, but in the course of time that exclusiveness crumbled away, and new comers were admitted to the land, though on an inferior footing, in most cases, to the rest. The village exists for the agriculturist, and the exercise of other callings therein depends upon their necessity or utility to him, and this, in turn, depends upon the relative isolation of the village from other sources of supply. The staple staff of artisans and menials is remunerated directly from the soil in recognised proportions of the harvest, so much threshed grain from each landholder. The completeness of the organisation varies considerably in different parts of the country, but where it exists, its main features are much the same. The village, in the above sense, is not found in the comparatively recent settlements east of Bihār, or on the Malabar coast; nor has it taken root amongst the more or less migratory tribes of forest tracts, where the insufficiency of arable land and the frequent flittings of the population from spirit-haunted or unlucky locations are adverse to so stationary an institution. Although, then, these tribes live mostly by rough methods of tillage, they cannot be counted amongst the landed classes, and are therefore dealt with apart from those to whom that designation is conventionally more appropriate. The latter can best be considered under two heads, first, the castes which hold their land as a military or formerly dominant body, and, then, the peasantry dwelling alongside of them without traditions of a status or calling other than that which they now enjoy.

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§ 33. **Landholders, Military or Dominant** (23,702,400): Castes of this type may be expected to be more powerful and more prominently demarcated from the rest in the track of the great racial inroads from

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the north-west. Eastwards of the settlements of the Paṭhān and Balūch tribes, which will be treated of in a later paragraph, a line drawn from the Gujarāt peninsulas, through Mālva, to the Ganges, marks off the domain of the Rājput, Jāṭ and kindred tribes, whilst the Salt range of the Panjāb, and the sub-Himālayan tracts from the Jehlam to Nepāl form their general limit on the north. East of Bihār, the Kōch, or Rājbansī, and the Āhōm may be said to occupy a somewhat similar position amongst the Mongoloidic population. In the Dekkan, the Marāṭhā may be included on historical grounds in this category, though his origin is doubtful and the limits of his caste wanting in definition. In Southern India the title of dominant is applicable to several Dravidian communities which rose into prominence with the dynasties of which they constituted the chief military forces, and on disbandment, either reverted to or assumed, the position of cultivators. There is no question here, therefore, of foreign origin. On the Malabar coast, on the other hand, the Nāyar, though now thoroughly Dravidianised, is said to have come from the north. In Orissa, again, the Khaṇḍāit makes the same claim, but is probably of much the same origin as the other Dravidian communities of this class.

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Reverting to the castes of upper India, the Rājput has been dealt with in a former paragraph sufficiently for the purposes of this review. An important point in connection with the subject immediately in hand is the close connection between the Rājput and the Jāṭ, who ranks next to him both in numbers and position throughout the Panjāb plains, Rājputāna, and the upper Ganges and Jamnā valleys. It has been conjectured by some that the difference between the two communities is social, not racial, the Rājput being a Jāṭ leader who, after being successful in the field or on his estate, bound himself and his family to the strict observance of Brāhmanic rules and thus attained the pinnacle of orthodox repute, whilst the rest of his tribe remained Jāṭ in name and in their traditions and practice. In the circumstances of the two castes in the Panjāb in the present day there is much to support this view. Others hold that the Jāṭ belongs to a later wave of immigration than the Rājput, and entered the Panjāb from the west, by way of Sindh and the Indus, whilst the Rajputs were still in Rājputāna and its eastern neighbourhood. However this may be, the northern stock has now been fused, and though the Jāṭ no longer becomes a Rājput, the same tribe is found Rājput in one village and Jāṭ in the next. In the Jamnā tracts this is not the case.

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Whether because the Jāṭ arrived there direct from Sindh and remained at a distance from the seat of the predominant body of his tribe, or whether by reason of admixture with inferior Rājput blood, his physique and social position are lower. The Jāṭ par excellence is the peasantry of the Sikh tracts, where the tradition of political supremacy is still green, and the Jāṭ has nothing to gain in public estimation from either Brāhman, Rājput or Paṭhān. Along the Jamnā, he has succumbed to the prevailing influences, and looks up to the Rājput, whilst in the west, he does the same to the leaders of Muslim society, and his name has been there bestowed upon any cultivator of that religion, whatever his caste. Like the Rājput and other great communities in the north-west, the Jāṭ places religious considerations beneath tribal in his domestic arrangements, so it appears from the Census that one third of the population bearing this name are Muslim, one fifth Sikh, and just under half, Brāhmanist. As stated above, the Jāṭ is in the first place a cultivator, and the women of his family share to the full his enthusiasm in the pursuit of the family calling. The Sikh Jāṭ is also a born soldier, not merely a combatant, but a disciplinarian, and equally efficient on the snow-clad ridges of Afghānistān and the steamy plains of Tïentsin.

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Next to the Jāṭ in rank, and probably akin in origin, comes the Gūjar, a caste as to whose descent there has been much controversy between the pro-Āryan and the pro-Scythian. The caste is now generally affiliated to the Gurjara, a tribe which was settled in the neighbourhood of the Caspian, and entered India either in company with or at the same time as, the Yetha or White Huna, of whom they are said to have been a branch. They spread very widely over the west and north-west, and one body of Gurjara obtained a dominant footing in the western province which is now called after them. Their connection with it, however, after the downfall of their dynasties, was dissipated into innumerable channels of castes, where it is recognisable only in customs and in the titles of some of the sub-castes. The greater portion of the Gūjar settled in the Panjāb and along the Jamnā, with a considerable colony in Oudh. In the first named tract, again, they have left their name behind them in several places, but it is only in the submontane portion that they can now be called a dominant tribe. In the plains they follow their traditional occupation of cattle-breeding, combined, it may be, with cultivation, in which they are not so expert. Their unrestrained devotion to the horned beast is such that in some parts of India their title is derived from the Sanskritic term for Cowthief. Even though philology may not support this derivation, it has the authority of their almost universal reputation.

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They are not now found south of the Vindhya, where those returned as Gūjar are traders from Gujarāt, who, as stated above, retain traditions of a cognate origin. It is held, indeed; that a Gurjara element underlies all the chief cultivating classes of Gujarāt above those traceable to a distinctly Kōl origin. Returning to the Panjāb, the south of the Salt range tract is the present home of the Avān, who have been there for at least 600 years. They are said to have come up from Mārvāḍ or upper Sindh, and to have belonged to one of the numerous Scythic bands which gave the Jāṭ and other castes to the country further east. Though the Avān are nearly all Muslim, they retain Brāhmanic names in their genealogies, and use Brāhmans as their family priests. They have not spread beyond the north-west corner of the Panjāb, where they share with the Janjhuā Rājput and the Khōkhar the predominant position among the peasantry. The Khōkhar, however, though equally of the faith of Islām, have maintained more fully the tradition of Rājput origin, and return themselves in considerable numbers as a clan of that great caste. Others, again, claim to be Jāṭ. The Gakkhaṛ in the north of the Salt Range plateau are similarly situated to the Avān in the south.

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There seems to be little doubt but that the three tribes are all of allied Scythic origin, and became Rājput during the Brāhmanic revival, Jāṭ when the Sikhs rose to power, and claimants to Mughal blood now that the influence of Islām reigns supreme in this region. Among the tribes belonging traditionally to this part of India may be counted the Kāṭhī, though in the present day they are found under this title only in the western peninsula to which they have given their name, and even there in but small numbers. In the Panjāb they consider themselves a subclan of the Panvār Rājput, and are thus merged in the general mass of that order. In Kāṭhiāwāḍ they preserve the tradition of migration from Bīkaner and Mūltān, the latter being the very tract in which they were found by Alexander as a foreign nomadic body, successfully resisting the expeditions sent against them by neighbouring Āryan potentates. It is conjectured, therefore, that these, too, are Scythic tribes connected with the rulers of Taxila at that period, and were driven into exile through Sindh into Kach by the Muslim invasions. They are now principally cultivators, but keep green the remembrance of their original occupation of cowherds by breeding horses and cattle. They also retain their ancestral sun-worship, and a rude representation of that luminary is affixed to all their formal documents.

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It is not improbable that they are of the same stock as the Ahīr or Abhīra, the great cattle-breeders of upper India, though their position is now higher than that of the latter. In Sindh, two Rājput tribes of agriculturists, the Sūmrō and the Sammō, successively occupied the dominant position on the lower Indus from about 750 A. D. to the middle of the 16th century, and now belong to Islām. Their respective numbers are by no means accurately represented in the Census return owing to the wide-spread practice in this province of giving the general title of Sindhī as the name of the tribe or caste, thus placing nearly a quarter of a million of the inhabitants beyond the possibility of identification.

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East of the Panjāb, the only caste, beside those already mentioned, which can be described as dominant, is the Tāgā, a community of the upper Jamnā. Its origin is doubtful; though it seems to be generally agreed that it has Brāhman blood; but the prominence of snake-worship amongst Tāgā, together with the division of the caste into the "Score" and Half-Score" sections, indicates considerable admixture of local races. Their degradation from Brāhmanical rank is attributed to their addiction to agriculture, as in the case of the Bābhan of the south-east. More than a third of them are now Muslim. In Bihār, the only dominant caste beyond the Rājput is the Bābhan or Bhūinhār, already mentioned in connection with Brāhmans, which forms but a small proportion of the population. Lower Bengal as above stated, was never colonised by military occupation, and the only caste which may be called dominant is the Kōch of the northern territory bordering upon the Brahmaputra. Their claim to this position rests upon the long existence of the Kōch kingdom of Kāmarūpa, in the Assam valley, and its extension, for a time, into Bengal. The latter portion was separated from the rest towards the end of the 16th century, and succumbed to the Muslim, as did the other shortly afterwards to the Āhōm. There are two distinct sections of the population owning to the name of Kōch. West and south of the Brahmaputra it is said to be of Kōl-Khervārī origin, and has long been Brāhmanised under the designation of Rājbansi, which satisfies the aspiration of the local peasantry, as that of Rājput crowns the ambition of the Chieftain or large landowner in other parts of India. In Assam, on the contrary, where the lineage of the local leading families is known, the Kōch is Mongoloidic, or Bōdo in origin, and its rank and file are recruited from all the Bōdo and Mikir tribes of the valley, who drop their own title on adopting Brāhmanism. Some go further, and pass at once into Rājbansī, or embrace Islām if their claim be not allowed. The respective numbers of the two are, 2,115,700 Rājbansī, chiefly in Bengal, and 292,100 Kōch, of the Assam branch. The Āhōm of the more eastern portion of the Assam valley, are also a once dominant tribe of agriculturists of Indo-Chinese descent, who will be referred to under the head of Assam Hill tribes. There is one more caste belonging to Bengal which may be here mentioned, to wit the Khaṇḍait of Orissa.

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They seem to have been originally a body of local militia enlisted from the Bhūiyā, a Kōl tribe, and commanded, probably, by officers imported from upper India. Some of the customs of the latter commended themselves to their subordinates, on the strength of which form of flattery, a claim to the caste of Rājput was subsequently advanced. The Khaṇḍāit is divided into two sub-castes, one comprising the landholders, probably endowed with estates for military services; the other the peasantry and village watchmen. The former hold a good position and rank next to and but little below the Rājputs, who, as elsewhere in Bengal, have not taken firm root in the soil. A community which once carried its arms not only into Orissa but up to the very walls of Calcutta, without leaving any enduring trace of its passage, is the Marāṭhā, the principal landed class in the Dekkan, and the dominant power in Baroda, Gwalior, and practically in Indore and several other states. The origin of the Marāṭhā is obscure. Elsewhere in this work it has been stated that recent anthropometrical observations have given rise to the conjecture that there is a Scythic element in the population of the Dekkan beyond that which can be attributed to the dynastic influence of the various Kṣatrapa Chieftains who maintained their power there long after the dissolution of the Hūṇa sovereignty in Central India. The Brāhmans of upper India, too, have the belief that the Marāṭhā are of Persian descent, and that the Citpāvan Brāhmans of the Konkan were their sun-priests, introduced in the 7th century and formally adopted into the local hierarchy. However this may be, there was not improbably some distinction between the masses and the dominant classes based upon race, as in Rājputāna; but it did not obtain prominence until the leading families were welded into a military body by the Bhonslā. S'ivajī donned the sacred cord and took the title of Kṣatriya upon his enthronement, and within a generation, his successors made a claim to definite Rājput descent, and were apparently not rebuffed even by the highest of the Rājput Chieftains. The kinship, however, has not been practically acknowledged, possibly because the political atmosphere has changed since the beginning of the 18th century. In the present day there is no definite line drawn between the Marāṭhā and the Kunbī, or cultivating peasantry, though the leading clans of the former still enjoy special consideration. Recruitment admittedly takes place from below, and any Kunbī who prospers above his neighbours, renounces widow-marriage, secludes the women of his family, marries his daughters at an early age and within a narrow circle, and puts on the sacred thread for special occasions, becomes in due course a Marāṭhā in title, with hypergamous tendencies not always ignored by the older families. Both Marāṭhā and Kunbī are distinguished by the totemistic, not Brāhmanic, character of their exogamous subdivisions, and by their worship of the same local deities, so that, like the Jāṭ, the upper classes may have assumed a distinct position without imposing the impassable barrier which exists in the north between the Rājput and the rest. Amongst the Marāṭhās as a whole the only barrier of that nature is geographical, a Dekkanī not intermarrying with a family in the Konkan, in spite of the identity of language. The climate, which entails a difference of cultivation and consequently of diet, has affected the physique, and the broad-acred grower of millet disowns the tiller of the petty rice-patch.

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§ 34. The Dravidian country remains to be considered. In the greater part of this tract the military and dominant element in the landed classes

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is insignificant. In the Karnatic, indeed, it is scarcely to be found, and in Telingāna, too, the position of a special subdivision is often found to rest upon the military recruitment of a former dynasty. The Rāzu, who were settled in the extreme south of the Telugu country by the Vijayanagar Chiefs, for whom they fought, seem to have the best claim to the distinction in question. They are undoubtedly superior to their neighbours in physique, and are more scrupulous as to ceremonial. They wear the sacred thread, seclude their women and employ Brāhmans as their family priests. It is not improbable, therefore, that they are the remnants of a body of mercenaries from further north, and really differ in race from the Dravidians with whom they are now permanently associated. The Velama of the north Coromandel coast are an offshoot of the great Kāpu or Reḍḍi caste and closely connected with other agricultural bodies of the neighbourhood. They have amongst them, however, several wealthy and influential Zamīndārs, or landed proprietors, and having adopted Brāhmanical regulations more strictly than the rest, are generally considered to hold a somewhat higher position.

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In the Tamil country, especially in the south, the line of demarcation between the military castes and the others is more easily traced than amongst the Telugu masses, but there seems to be this noteworthy difference between the two regions, that the immigrant peasantry of the south rank higher in the present day than the castes once dominant, so that, setting aside the Chieftains and Zamīndārs, there is the tendency for a landowner of the latter, as he advances in prosperity, to get merged in the ranks of the former. The popular version of this inclination runs: "The Kaḷḷan became a Maṟavan; the Maṟavan became an Agamuḍaiyān, and the Agamuḍaiyān is now a Veḷḷāḷan". The explanation seems to be that the formerly dominant classes obtained their position by predatory, rather than military, prowess under the weak governments of the past, and retained with their independence their original religion and customs. In the piping times of the pax Britannica, however, Brāhmanic influence is permeating the masses, and as its ceremonial is the touchstone of respectability, the more aspiring remnants of the earlier civilisation affiliate themselves to a body already in full touch with the refinement aimed at, in preference to taking up the invidious position of innovator in the community of their birth. The principal tribe coming under this head is the Kaḷḷan, which happens to be the Tamil for thief.

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It is probable that the original meaning was different, but no alternative has been found, and the interpretation is unfortunately justified by the history and habits of the caste. It is conjectured that the Kaḷḷan are an offshoot of the great Kuṟumban, or cowherd race of the south, which spread downwards from the uplands of Mysore, and were ousted from the plains successively by the Cēra and the Cōḷa dynasties. Some of the tribe expelled in their turn, the peasantry introduced by the latter, and settled on their lands. The reputation thus acquired helped to keep the Kaḷḷan in independence, and enabled them to maintain to this day their old customs untainted by Brāhmanism in their essential features. The acknowledged head of their tribe is the Rāja of Pūdūkottai, called by them the Toṇḍamān, in memory of their former colonisation of Toṇḍamaṇḍalam or the Pallava country. The bulk of them are cultivators and labourers; but they still furnish a strong contingent of watchmen, a duty which serves them as the pretext for the levy of a prophylactic subsidy from the householders thus subjected to their protection. Their neighbours to the south, the Maṟavan, are amongst the earliest inhabitants of this tract, and at one time got possession of the whole of the Pāṇḍya or Madura domain. They furnished a strong body of militia, and for many generations lorded it over the rest of the population. There is some connection, at present unascertained, between them and the Kaḷḷan.

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Like the latter they worship their own gods and demons, and employ for the purpose priests drawn from the lower castes, but for ceremonial other than that of the temple, they call in Brāhmans. Their head is the Zamīndār of Rāmnād, to whom the Toṇḍamān and other local magnates do obeisance when they meet. The Agamuḍaiyān again, are closely connected with the Maṟavan, with whom they intermarry under rules which in the Brāhmanic system would imply hypergamy in favour of the latter. Nevertheless, the Agamuḍaiyān is the only caste of the three which has been substantially Brāhmanised, and in many ways it comes near the Veḷḷāḷan in practices and beliefs.

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Crossing the Peninsula, a distinctly dominant class is found in the Nāyar of the Malabar coast, a community of northern race, with uncertain traditions as to its original home or the route by which it reached its present secluded domicile. It has its own peculiar customs and institutions, which, as in the case of the Rājputs, have been assimilated by indigenous castes of lower rank, who thereby justify the arrogation to themselves of the title of their superiors. The community, therefore, no longer consists of military landowners, as formerly, but includes, under subdivisional names, not only artisans and traders, but even menial castes such as the barber and washerman, who have found it worth while to devote their services exclusively to the Nāyar. It is probable, then, that not more than three fourths of those returned under the latter title are true Nāyar, and that these belong to at most three subdivisions of the tribe. The customs of the Nāyar are, as observed above, peculiar, and of high ethnological interest, but it is not within the scope of this review to enter into them. It may be remarked in passing, however, that in many of them may be found traces of polyandry. Inheritance is through the female. The exogamous unit is based on descent from a common female ancestor in that line. The endogamous limit is hypergamous for the female, and either within or below the subcaste for the male. The Nāyar of the north and those of the south form separate communities, the division being evidently based upon the notion that pollution lies in the south, perhaps because that region is further from the caste-cradle. The distinction between the two is so strictly enforced that though Nāyar males may circulate freely over the whole country, no female of the northern section may cross the river which divides Kanara from Malabar, nor, again, that which intersects the latter district. This group is completed by the addition of the Koḍagu, or dominant tribe of the little district of Coorg, not by reason of its numbers, but, like the Kāṭhi, because it has had a history, and has managed to maintain its position and language in its native uplands against all comers. Since the tract has been opened up by European enterprise, for the growth of special products, there has been a considerable influx of labour from Mysore and the coast, and the Koḍagu now constitutes but a fourth of the population; but that fraction is at the top.

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§ 35. **Peasants** (36,251,100): In nearly every part of India this group is the largest, and, together with those of the landless labourer and the village menials, includes the bulk of the rural population. The exceptional tracts are Rājputāna and the Panjāb, in which, as pointed out in the

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preceding paragraph, the military tribes have retained their grip on the land. In accordance with the general scheme of exposition, it is proposed to subdivide this group here into the cultivating castes, *in the wider sense of the term*, and those who devote their efforts to the growth of special products, such as the bitel-vine, or to roots and vegetables and other market-garden produce. Of the latter some are conventionally impure, such as onions, turmeric and turnips, or necessitate the destruction of life or extensive and intimate dealings with manure, both repugnant to Brāhmanical tradition, in consideration of which the castes thus engaged have been relegated to a lower social position than the field operator.

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In the Panjāb castes of this class are numerous, and in the plains of that Province there are but two others, outside the ranks of the dominant, which call for mention here. The Kambō, one of the most skilful cultivators of the province, is found along the Satlaj and in the east, where he has crossed over the Jamnā into Rohilkhand. The caste is of local or Kashmīrī origin, though the Muslim minority in it claim to be Mughal. It is probably connected with the great gardening caste of the Arāin, but its position is higher. One of its sections has taken to trade and the clerical professions, in which, however, they are said to be more skilful than honest. The Mēō, or Mēvātī, is the dominant caste of a portion of eastern Rājputāna and a small tract in the south Panjāb. It is no doubt a branch of the forest tribe of the Mīnā, but having become Muslim and acquired land, it has set up for itself. Formerly it gave much trouble from its unruly habits, but since its larger settlements were broken up into detached villages it has sobered down. Islām sits very lightly upon the Mēō, and he observes the Brāhmanic festivals impartially with those of his own northern immigration, possibly Āryan, but not of the Vedic branch, which has received an infusion of other northern blood since its settlement in the Himālaya. They are now the tenants and labourers of the Rājput landowners. Further to the east, however, their relatives, the Khāsiyā of Kumāun and Garhvāl, escaped Rājput overlordship, and themselves subdued a lower and more primitive tribe, probably the Dōm. Owing to the fact that their territory contains the two celebrated shrines of Kedārnāth and Badarināth, at the reputed sources of the Ganges, the Khāsiyā have long been thoroughly Brāhmanised, though the transition from a lower to a higher grade is more easily achieved than in the plains, and is here the result of the acquisition of wealth, not, as in the Panjāb Hills, of royal favour. The Khāsiyā do not figure separately in the returns, as they are all included under the general head of Rājput, but their number is not far short of half a million. The community which goes by a somewhat similar name in Nepāl is distinct, and of admittedly mixed origin, Brāhmanic and Mongoloidic Himālayan.

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In the Gangetic Doāb, Oudh and Bihār, the great peasant castes are more or less connected with each other by origin, but in so fertile a tract, well provided with large towns, the occupation of market gardening has diverted an unusually large number of subdivisions from field work. Of those who have clung to the elder branch of the profession, the Kurmī is the most widely spread, especially along the Ganges and to the south thereof. The title corresponds to that of Kunbī, used in the Dekkan and western India. The derivation is uncertain, and though the word is found in the form of Kuṭumbika in some early inscriptions, this is probably only the Sanskritised version of some older name, such as that of Kūl, a Dravidian name for a cultivating landholder, in which sense it is still used, and not only in the Dravidian country. The Kurmī is by no means a homogeneous body, and is not only much subdivided in the tracts where it is apparently of one race, but is used on the borders of the Central Belt as a sort of occupational title for those of the Kōl tribes who have been long settled as cultivators and have thereby thriven beyond their ancestors. Closely allied with the Kurmī by origin, though now entirely distinct, are the Kōërī. They rank below the former, who will drink, but not eat or intermarry with them, possibly because the Kōërī have succumbed to the lucrative attractions of special cultivation, such as that of tobacco, the poppy and even vegetables.

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The Kisān, again, belong to the same stock, but like the Kōërī, have long been formed into a separate caste, and are even more exclusive in their intercourse with outsiders. There is another community of the same name, though sometimes called Nagēsia, who have been combined with these in the Census return. They inhabit parts of Chuṭiā Nāgpur and the Central Provinces, and are of the Kōl race. The Lōdhā is a caste of inferior position and probably of earlier settlement than the Kurmī, from whom it differs in both physique and habits. The Lōdhā are specially addicted to the cultivation of rice, and are found nearly all over the Upper Provinces and a little way into Bihār. But the section which inhabits Bundēlkhand and its neighbourhood is probably nearer the original stock, assuming the latter to belong to the Central Belt, and takes a lower place in society accordingly. The cultivating classes of the Central Provinces are those of the Dekkan in the west, and of the south Ganges-valley in the north, with a large substratum of the more civilised forest tribes in most parts. In the Chattīsgarh districts, the Kavar is probably an offshoot of the last named group, though the fertility of the country has enabled it materially to improve its position. This caste, as well as the Kirār, claims Rājput origin, and there abandoned fishing, in favour of agriculture.

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The more prosperous Sadgōp are said to be dropping the plough and employing labour on their land, thus paving the way for a higher endogamous subdivision. The caste stands higher in rank than the Kaibartta, owing probably to the superior purity of their traditional occupation. Like other Bengal agriculturists, they are sometimes called Cāsa, a general term, like that of Kurmī or Kunbī. There is, however, a caste in Orissa to which the name of Cāsa is specially applied. It is of Kōl or Dravidian origin, and whilst admitting members of other castes to its lower ranks, passes in the upper into that of Karan or Mahant, mentioned above as the local writer caste, on the way to establishing touch with the Kāyasth. The Gāṅgauta is a small but respectable caste of north Bihār, much the same in position as the Kurmī, but ranking below them, and more lax in their diet. Round Calcutta is found the fishing and cultivating caste of the Pōd, lower than those above mentioned. Like the rest, however, it has its lower and upper endogamous subdivisions, the latter of which put in their claim to Kṣatriya lineage. Most of the caste are cultivators, but some have acquired considerable estates, whilst others have taken to trade and handicrafts. It appears to be considered to be of Deltaic origin, like the Caṇḍāl, as the Brāhmans who minister to it are avoided by their fellows, but those who only act as teachers remain unpolluted.

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The Caṇḍāl or Nāmaśūdra, is the largest caste in eastern Bengal, and, as its name suggests, stands very low in the social scale. It is much subdivided, and eight of its main subdivisions are functional, and never eat and seldom intermarry with each other. The agricultural section stands out from the rest in rank, and next to it comes the boating division. Fishing, however, except for the domestic larder, is strictly prohibited. The Nāmas'ūdra employ a special class of degraded Brāhman of its own, and its barbers and washermen are also members of the caste. The Census was made the occasion of an attempted severance of the caste into S'ūdra, the superior body, and Nāma, the Bengali for "low", to include the rest. It failed.

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§ 36. In the Dekkan and adjoining tracts, the one great cultivating caste is the Kunbī, which has been already treated of in connection with the Mārāṭhā. Like every caste spread over a wide area it is much subdivided, but its position and general constitution are fairly uniform. The corresponding caste in Gujarāt, which has been included under the general title, calls itself Kaṇbī, and is distinct from the Dekkanī in origin, and custom as in language. Along with the tradition of early immigration from the north, it has many points of resemblance with the Gūjar of the Panjāb. The Kaṇbī is almost entirely agricultural, and is in occupation of the most fertile tracts of Gujarāt, with the reputation of making the most of them. The only alternative occupation generally recognised is silk-weaving, to which one of the subdivisions is devoted. A branch of the Kaṇbī is settled in the north Dekkan, an ancient domain of the Ahīr, or cattle-breeders. Here the caste is known by its old name of Gūjar, but its subdivisions are those of the modern caste of the coast. The Khaḍvā Kaṇbī, one of the main subdivisions, has the custom locally peculiar to itself and the Bharvāḍ shepherd, of celebrating its marriages only once every ten or eleven years, according to the vaticinations of their chief sacerdotal advisers. Naturally, so rare an opportunity has to be seized irrespective of the ages of the children, so that not only are infants in arms duly betrothed, but women in the family way join in perambulating the nuptial altar, on the understanding that their future offspring, if sex permit, are thereby made man and wife. As to the relative number of the Marāṭhi and the Gujarāti sections of this caste, there are probably about 2,700,000 of the former, and 1,350,000 of the latter. The Kōlī in its various subdivisions is probably an early dark race extruded from the plains by the Kaṇbī, so far as it is found in the west. Under the same name, it is found from the Panjāb Himālaya to the Sahyādri Ghāṭs, not to mention the Kōl of the Central Belt. In the first named tract Kōlī is a general term for the menial classes, amongst whom most of the artisans are included. In Gujarāt there is a coast Kōlī, generally a boatman or fisher, and a large landed class, chiefly in the north of the province, called either Talabdā, the Locals, or Dhāralā, the arm-bearers. Some of its clans intermarry with the lower Rājputs, whose rules of exogamy they have adopted. In or near the hill country the Kōlī approximates to the Bhīl, though perhaps more settled in habit. On the Sahyādri, however, their reputation is lower, and the Malhārī branch are apparently the descendants of a wild tribe of the south western Belt, driven westwards by the advancing Muslim or by colonists from Teliṅgāna.

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In the Dravidian country, the castes are remarkably well demarcated by the linguistic divisions, and whilst there are considerable colonies of the northerners in the Tamil country, the reverse movement appears to have been very trifling. In the Karnatic tableland, the cultivating castes are found under a few general headings, such as Vakkaliga and Liṅgāyat, the former in Mysore, the others further north and east. Under the Liṅgāyat or Liṅgvant, system, caste is supposed to be merged in the general title, and though this rule was followed to a great extent at the Census, in practice, caste is recognised almost as fully as amongst the orthodox Brāhmanists. The community, as a whole, falls under three heads; the original converts of Basava, with a few later additions; the functional group, and, lastly, the impure castes of village menials. Each section has an amazing number of subdivisions, since nearly every one of the local Brāhmanic castes has its Liṅgvant subdivision, endogamous and distinct. The general tendency in the present day is to assimilate the Brāhmanic organisation under the Jaṅgam, though occasionally the upper classes introduce Brāhmans as priests. There has been a movement, indeed, to get the whole community recorded as Vīrs'aiv, subdivided into the mythical four Varṇa of the Puruṣa-Sūkta. Irrespective of the latter refinement, the first suggestion refers to a time anterior to the founder of the sect, and in supersession of the usage of centuries. There are a few Liṅgāyats in the Telugu districts, but the movement on the whole is almost exclusively Kanarese in its extent. The Vakkaliga of Mysore correspond to the Kaṇbī of Gujarāt in being subdivided under a general name meaning simply cultivators. Each of the subdivisions is really a separate endogamous caste. The principal ones are the Gaṅgaḍikāra, the Noṇaba and the Sāda, the second of which is mostly Liṅgāyat, and the third, Jain. There are other sections either functional, like Hālu, the cowherds, or geographical, denoting immigration. Most of them have totemistic exogamous subsections. The Pañcama and Caturtha Jains and the Liṅgāyats mostly employ their own priests, but the rest are orthodox in their relations with the Brāhman. On the coast of Kanara the land is held to a great extent by Havīka or Haiga Brāhmans, who cultivate the bitel-palm largely through predial low castes. There are also many cultivators belonging to the fishing and toddy-drawing classes. The chief caste that can be termed specially agricultural, is the Baṇṭa, or warrior, formerly the rank and file of the militia of the Tulu Chiefs. They have a Jain subdivision which keeps to itself. The rest observe some of the Nāyar or Malabar customs as to inheritance, and have marriage rules of their own, which have the effect, it is said, of making the tie "as loose as it can be". Their neighbours, the Gauḍa, are probably settlers from above the Ghāṭs, where that term is honorifically used of the headmen of a village. Further east, in south Orissa, the caste bearing the same name 'derives it, apparently correctly, from the Sanskrit for cow, as they are of a pastoral character, with traditions of immigration from the north.

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The principal agricultural castes of Teliṅgāna are the Kāpu, the Kamma and the Telaga, all of which much resemble each other and come probably from the same stock. The Kāpu or Reḍḍi, are widely spread, though less so than formerly. They are reputed to have more than 800 subdivions, which eat together but do not intermarry. Each subdivision is in turn split into endogamous sections. Some of the caste own large estates, earned by military service under the Muslim conquerors of the 14th century, and all are connected in some way or other with the land. The Kamma, like the Kāpu, are often found in colonies in the south far beyond the Telugu country. The Telaga were once a military caste, and were till recently recruited for the native regiments of the British army, but now they are cultivators of a moderately high position, and only differ from their neighbours in being somewhat more fully Brāhmanised. The actual numbers are less than the figure returned owing to the use of their title by other and probably lower castes out of their native district. The Kāliṅgi are both cultivators and temple-ministrants on the Telugu seaboard, with the tradition that they were imported from the north for the latter purpose before Brāhmans had reached Andhra territory. They wear, consequently, the sacred thread, but are not recognised by Brāhmans as of that order. The rest of the Kāliṅgi employ their own priests. They are divided, like the Nāyar, into two geographical sections with quite different customs. A third has had to be formed for the reception of the people expelled from the two others. Their practice is Brāhmanic but their exogamous divisions totemistic. The Toṭṭiyan are the descendants of a military body like the Telaga. They were introduced into the Tamil country, where they are now settled, by the Vijayanagara Chiefs. As their second title is Kambalattan, probably referring to woollen blankets, and their subdivisional titles being also those of a pastoral character, it may be inferred that their original occupation was that of shepherds. Locally they are much dreaded for their magical powers, but in compensation, their cures and charms for snake-bite bear a high reputation. The name Veḷḷāḷan, in the Tamil country, corresponds in its generality with that Kunbī or Cāsa in other parts of India, and merely implies a cultivator. The wide diffusion of the community so called prevents it from being a caste, in the sense of a homogeneous body, as irrespective of the four great geographical sections, over 900 subdivisions were recorded at the census. By careful filtration, the number was substantially diminished; nevertheless, the residue is very large, and owing to the accretions from lower castes as they rise in the world, it is constantly increasing. It is unnecessary to point out that in such circumstances the endogamous sections are many and minute. Of the main divisions, that called the Toṇḍamaṇḍalam, of the old Pallava kingdom, round Arcot, stands highest. It settled in its present location in the 8th century A.D., and is strictly Brāhmanistic in customs and religion. The Koṅgu, on the other hand, who are found in and about Coimbatore, are so far below the rest that none of the other subdivisions will eat with them, and they are sometimes considered a separate caste, under the name of Kavaṇḍan. Apparently, too, their marriage regulations have not passed away from the old Dravidian type, and Brāhmans are not employed, as they are amongst all the other Veḷḷāḷan bodies. In the Malayālam tract, below the Nāyar, Māppila and Nambūtiri Brahman, the cultivating castes belong to bodies having other traditional callings, or are field labourers who have occasionally got hold of a small estate. They will be found, therefore, under their respective headings in later paragraphs.

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§ 37. **Specialised cultivators** (5,968,700). The majority of the castes coming into this category are branches of the great agricultural bodies, separated from them, as stated above, in view of the inferiority in rural esteem of the produce they cultivate as compared with cereals and other crops grown on a large scale. Thus, the Arāīn are of the same stock as the Kambō; the Mālī, Kāchī and Murāō, are all derived from the Kurmī, and the Saiṇī belongs to the Mālī. In contradistinction to the growth of roots and vegetables, the care of the bitel-vine has no disgrace attached to it. This may be partly due to the use of vegetable manure only, and partly, no doubt, to the consideration that the presentation of a little packet of the leaf with areca nut is an important formality in social intercourse. In the greater part of India the bitel-vine is grown by a special caste called Barāī, Bāruī or Bārī. The last title, however, is only used south of the Vindhya, and in the north is applied to a lower caste of different occupation. Apart from linguistic distinctions, the Barāī is much subdivided into endogamous sections, and most of them hold a good position in society. In the Dekkan and Karnatic there is a small caste of Brāhmans, the Tirgūḷ, who have taken to growing the bitel-vine, and the Bārī are said to be immigrant from Central India.

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In the Tamil country, the Sēṉaikkūḍaiyāṉ do what most of the Barāī avoid, that is, sell the leaves themselves, instead of making them over to another caste for the market. This caste has the further peculiarity of belonging to the Left-hand in the local distribution, thereby grouping itself with the artisans, a position which does not, however, militate against its respectability, or prevent the Brāhman from sharing with Veḷḷāḷan the priestly ministrations required in the caste. The Koḍikkāl, another bitel-vine growing caste is only a subdivision of the Veḷḷāḷan, based, apparently, upon its occupation. As the areca-palm only flourishes in certain localities, its cultivation is undertaken by the ordinary agricultural classes. Reverting to the market gardener, the Arāīn of the Panjāb is a true caste in the north and east of the Province, but in the west the title is purely occupational, like Jāṭ in the same tract. The community seems to have come up the Indus from Mūltān or north-west Rājputāna, and settled along the Ghaggar river, then probably of an irrigational capacity it has long since lost. Thence they spread across the Jamnā into Rohilkhand, and northwards into Jalandhar, which is still one of their principal seats. Here they are not only gardeners but general cultivators of considerable reputation for skill and industry. They are, as stated above, akin to the higher caste of the Kambō, but with a far greater inclination to accept Islām.

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The Māliār of the north-west, who are entirely Muslim, are lower in position than the Arāīn, though they appear from the names of their subdivisions to be a branch of that caste. The Mālī get their name from the garlands it was their mission to prepare for the decoration of the temple deities and to throw round the necks of honoured guests at social ceremonies. They have long branched out into all kinds of garden cultivation, and their numerous subdivisions are frequently based upon the produce to which they are respectively devoted. Those who grow flowers, for instance, do not intermarry with the vegetable-growers, and the latter draw a distinction between themselves and the branch which grows onions, turnips or turmeric. The Kāchī has taken in upper India to the poppy and leguminous edibles, leaving roots to his poorer relative the Murāō, who is said to take his name from the radishes he grows. Some sections of the Kāchī, again, abstain from cultivating the sugarcane or chillies. The Saiṇī, another branch of the Mālī, are found in the east Panjāb and in Rohilkhand, where they are as much general cultivators as gardeners. In the former tract a good many of them are Sikhs, but the more prosperous claim Rājput blood. They stand high in their calling and seem to be living down the taint of the garden.

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In the Peninsula, south of the sphere of the Mālī, the only specialised cultivator in addition to those already mentioned, is the Tigaḷa, now located in Mysore and the south Dekkan. This seems to be one of the few castes which have moved northwards from the Tamil country, but they have retained neither the customs nor language of their origin.

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§ 38. **Cattle-breeders** (11,965,500). These are taken next to the agriculturists because they occupy a very similar social position, and also because, with the expansion of tillage, the grazing area is getting restricted and a good many of the formerly roving castes have settled down to cultivation. The prominent place assigned to cattle in the Sūktas and the universal veneration of the Brāhmanic community for the cow bear testimony to the antiquity as to the honourable character of the calling, and in upper India the cattle-breeder ranks almost as high as the cultivator. This is not invariably the case, however. The wandering life arouses suspicions of unorthodox feeding and intercourse generally. Then, too, the use of the ox in agriculture now vies in importance with that of the cow in domestic life; but the supply of the indispensable bullock cannot be kept up without surgical operations repugnant to the conventional notions of purity and respect for animal life. Furthermore, the supply of milk for the home is, by all Vedic tradition, commendable, but the sale of dairy produce as a trade entails relegation to a lower position. In old times, however, the Abhīra, or cowherding tribes, were powerful in the Sātpura, the south Ganges valley and even the lower portions of Nepāl, and founded dynasties which were overthrown by the Gōṇḍ in the first-named tract and by the Kirāta in the last.

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The leading tribes seem to have been of western origin, and are supposed to have entered India long after the Vedic Ārya. In upper India they go by the name of Ahīr, derived from the Abhīra just mentioned, a term which was applied by some Sanskrit authors to all tribes of the lower classes throughout the north-west. Under this name they are spread in considerable numbers all over Rājputāna, Mālvā, the south-eastern Panjāb, the upper Gangetic valley and Bihār. To the east, the lack of wide stretches of open pasture has prevented the formation and maintenance of a strong and well-organised pastoral community, so a number of distinct and generally not very large subdivisions are grouped under the general title of Gōālā, recruited from many local castes of lower origin than the pastoral bodies of the north. Many of them, too, are as much agriculturists as cattle-breeders. The same may be said, also, of the Ahīr themselves, in the Panjāb, where they are amongst the most successful and enterprising cultivators of the Province. They have never, it is true, achieved a dominant position anywhere in modern times, but the Jāṭ and Gūjar treat them as equals, except, of course, in regard to intermarriage. According to the Census, about half the total number of Ahīr are found in Agra, Oudh and Bihār. They are said to have migrated to these regions from the plains of Kach, west Rājputāna and Kāṭhiāvāḍ.

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