Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s4.6

c48.s4.6

§ 64. **Artisans.** a) **Tailors** (867,800). Throughout upper India the tailor’s craft is exercised by a composite body, nearly half of which is Muslim, recruited, judging from the titles of the subdivisions, from many sources, not all of the lowest. In the Panjāb the Darjī is merely a functional name, and in each large city the tailoring body is governed by a craft-guild. If any caste can be said to produce the tailor more than another it is the Dhōbī or washerman. In the Gangetic region the Darjī regulates his life on the model of the upper Brāhmanic castes, and one of the principal sub-castes bears the name of Kāyasth. But the caste is not popular, any more than it used to be in Europe, and is the subject of similar depreciatory proverbs. Its work is badly paid, but the Darjī rarely looks out for more lucrative employment. The general style of dress amongst the peasantry in the greater part of India renders the craft unnecessary, so the caste is mostly congregated in the cities. It is subdivided according to the general nature of the work undertaken, and is then split up into more minute sections. The repairer and darner is at the bottom, and amongst the Muslim, tent-making stands high, as being the occupation of Ibrahim (Abraham), the patron of the craft. Turban-making, too, is honourable. In the west, indeed, where the latter article of attire is more elaborate than in the north, and each caste has its own distinctive form of head-gear, the turban-folder is a separate community, and ranks high amongst the Darjī. In the Dekkan the S'impī is often a travelling piece-goods dealer, going from village to village with his pack upon his pony. He also traffics in small pecuniary advances, and this is perhaps the reason for his figuring in bad company in the village rhymes. One of the popular religious teachers of India, Nāmdēv, belonged to this caste, and several of the sections of the Darjī and similar castes are named after him. It seems as if the Dekkan tailor were more allied to the lower trading classes than to the rest of his craftsmen, and certainly he follows the traditional employment less than any of them. The Gujarāt Darjī, too, seems to have sprung from one of the lower classes of traders of west Rājputāna, to which locality he claims to belong. Like the S'impī, he lives after the manner of the upper middle classes, and is strict in his religious observances, though alleged to be addicted, like the goldsmith, to helping himself too freely to some of the material entrusted to him to make up. In the Dravidian districts there is no special caste of this sort, the tailors in the cities being all Muslim. The introduction of sewing-machines, and the growth of the fashion of wearing cut-out garments have tended to the advantage of the town Darjī, and even in villages the machine is often to be seen enstalled amid surroundings of apparently the most incongruous simplicity.