Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s2.33

c48.s2.33

§ 46. **Stone, Salt and Lime-workers** (2,043,600). These may be taken as subsidiary to the fishing castes, since in many parts of the country the latter have been compelled to take to such means of livelihood, whilst some of the castes specially devoted to these trades are also connected by descent with the fishers. The Kēvat, for instance, in its lower sections, is merged into the Bind, and the Bind, in turn, touches the Cain and the Goṅṛhī, some of whom are returned as sections of the Mallāh. The majority of all these castes, however, are field-labourers, stone-workers and lime or saltpetre makers, in addition to the fishing or boating sections. Some of the trades have become the attribute of a caste, as the Lūniyā, Rēhgār, Sōrēgār, originally functional bodies. The Lūniyā, or Nūniyā, is the nearest to a real caste, but it is not yet organised on the normal lines. It repudiates, however the Cain, though probably, their origin is identical. The latter, in the southern parts of the upper Ganges valley, has but a poor reputation, not entirely undeserved, for frequenting places of pilgrimage, with the object of cutting the knots in waistcloths which in India serve the purpose of a pocket. North of this tract, however, the Cain ranks low, though with untainted reputation. The Bind, too, stands higher in rank in the west than in Bihār, whether he fishes or labours in the fields. On the west coast there are two bodies of salt-workers now driven to other trades. The Khārvī of Gujarāt are sailors and tile-turners, originally belonging apparently to the Khārōl or Rēhgār of Rājputana, who still, like the Āgriā, are in a position to keep up their eponymous trade, both on the coast and by the Sāmbhar lake. Further south, the Patharvaṭ, now a separate caste, is an offshoot, it is thought, from the Uppāra of Kanara, and are stone-workers, the rest of the community being earth-workers and carriers by bullock; whilst the Uppiliyan and Kaḍuppaṭṭan, originally of the same trade, have added the profession of hedge-schoolkeeping to their means of subsistence. The Āgriā, a Rājputāna caste, still finds room for its traditional making of salt along the Bombay coast, and to a minor extent in south east Panjāb and in the Agra Province, which, according to some, derives its name from the saline character of the soil. Where this caste is in force it ranks with the lower grade of cultivators. In some parts the Āgriā is held to be a subdivision of the Lūniyā, but there seems reason to think that it is a distinct caste. The Cūṇarī, or lime-burner and the Ṣōrēgār saltpetre-maker, on the other hand, where they are not separate castes, belong to a branch of the salt-workers. In Bengal, however, the Baitī, which burns shells into lime, ranks among the impure, though the product of their labours does not pollute those who make use of it.