Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s3.t2.2

c48.s3.t2.2

In the Panjāb, there is one caste requiring notice, the Bharāi, which, however, is often returned simply as S'ēkh. The Bharāi is the special guardian and ministrant of the shrine of the popular Saint Sakhī Sarvar, of the Indus. Whether he is, since his canonisation, Muslim or Brāhmanist, it is difficult to judge from the crowds that throng to his tomb; but the Bharāi are of the former creed. They haunt the centre and submontane parts of the Province, and live by conducting pilgrims down to the shrine at Nigāhā, in the Dērajāt. It is said that some of the Bharāi have taken to music and call themselves Mirāsī. The only other occupation with which they are associated is circumcision, which rite they perform in supersession of the barber on the lower Indus. Along the Paṭhān frontier, there is a body, incoherent and multifarious, which locally arrogates to itself the title of Ulama, or the learned. The entrance-qualification, however, appears to be only the knowledge by rote of a sufficient number of texts of the Kurān to serve as spells or curses for the practical purposes of life. On the other hand, the term may include the highly educated Maulvī of the city mosque, and the Kāzi, who may or may not be erudite in the law he administers. It is not, however, a caste, and as a functional body, enjoys as low a reputation for piety as for erudition, and is the subject of many biting proverbs along the frontier.