Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s2.20.5

c48.s2.20.5

In consequence of the use of the general title Kammāḷan instead of the sub-division, it is impossible to give the numbers of the Pāñckalsī exercising the respective trades included under it, except for the comparatively limited population of the Malabar coast, and this, irrespective of the peculiar constitution of the community, is a reason for dealing with the latter apart from the corresponding castes of the rest of India. There is, however, in Bengal, a somewhat similar grouping in the case of the Kāmār or metal-working castes. This body apparently started with a variety of functional groups of different origins, and is now welded into a sort of caste, subdivided according to the metal used, and bearing the general title usually given elsewhere to the worker in iron. The legend in which the Kāmār trace their descent from Viśvakarman, indeed, is very much the same as that by which the iron-smelting Āsūra of the Kōl race justify their origin from the same ancestor, thus confirming the general view as to the non-Āryan foundation of the caste. The social graduation of the subdivisions is curious, in that the worker in iron stands first, and intermarries only with the worker in brass, and the bell-metal craftsman stands above the goldsmith.