A History of the Mahrattas v1.c17.180

v1.c17.180

some hundred years; many of them speak Hindoostanee, and call themselves Rajpoots. [The name Pindārī or Pindāra (Pindharee) appears to be Marāthi and to mean ‘consumers of pinda (a fermented drink).’ It is also spelt Pendhārī and, derived from pendhā, ‘a bundle of straw,’ would signify ‘stealers of pendhās’—a suitable title for bodies of crop-stealers. A third and unlikely derivation is from Pandhār, near Burhānpur, on the Narbadā. The Pindārīs are found to-day in Nāsik, Khāndesh, and the Southern Marāthā Districts of Bombay, and are descended from the free-booters who followed the Marāthā armies, and were recruited originally from numerous sources, including Marāthā, Pathān, and Jāt. Hence Pindārīs are both Musalmān and Hindu. (B.E.S., Monograph 101.) See also, for full discussion of the etymology of the name, Yule, Hobson-Jobson, ed. Crooke (1903), s.v. Pindarry.]