A History of the Mahrattas v1.c7: Preliminary Observations Respecting the Geography, Chief Features, Climate, People, Religion, Learning, Early History, and Institutions of the Mahratta Country
A History of the Mahrattas v1.c7
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- v1.c7.156 — 5 parts
Preliminary Observations Respecting the Geography, Chief Features, Climate, People, Religion, Learning, Early History, and Institutions of the Mahratta Country
v1.c7.1
According to Hindoo geographers, the Deccan, or country south of the Nerbuddah, and Mahanuddee rivers, consists of a considerable number of parts; but there are five principal divisions, named Drawed,¹ Carnatic,² Andur,³ or Telingana, Gondwaneh,¹ and Maharashtra. All well-informed Hindoos talk familiarly of these divisions, but they disagree materially as to their extent. Colonel Wilks, in the absence of more direct evidence, has adopted the best practical rule of ascertaining their boundaries, by tracing them according to the space over which each particular language is now spoken.
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¹ [Dravida (Drawed) was the ancient name of the extreme southern portion of the Indian peninsula, in which the Tamil language was spoken. Excluding the modern Mysore State and the Malabar coast, it comprised the present Madras Presidency, including Travancore, from Cape Comorin in the south to the Krishna (Kistna) river in the north. Kumarila Bhatta (A.D. 700) called the language of Southern India Andhra-dravida-bhāsha, i.e. the Telugu-Tamil language (see O.H.I., p. 13).]
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² [The Karnatak (Carnatic) is from Sansk. Karnātaka; Tamil, kar, ‘black,’ nādu, ‘country.’ The various uses of the word, and of Kanara, are discussed in Yule’s Hobson-Jobson, ed. 1903, pp. 152, 164. Throughout early Hindu literature Mysore is called Karnāta, or Karnātaka. ‘But the Muhammadans included in the name their conquests below the Ghāts as well: and the English, going a step further, erroneously restricted it to the low country. Hence Carnatic and Canara now designate, in European works of geography, regions which never bore these names; while Mysore, the proper Karnātaka or Carnatic, is not so called’ (Rice, Mysore, vol. i, p. 1 n.). In the map accompanying the first edition of Grant Duff’s work the Carnatic is shown as including all the country on the western side of the peninsula from a point north of Dhārwār to Seringapatam in the south. See I.G. Bom., 1909, i, 194-6.]
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³ [The Āndhra (Andur) country, so named from the ancient Āndhra (Sātavāhana) dynasty which ruled over it, was situated in the deltas of the Krishna and Godāvarī rivers and extended eastwards from the boundary of Mahārāshtra to the Bay of Bengal. The Āndhras were a Telugu-speaking people, whence the country was known in later years as Telingana, or Telugu-land (O.H.I., p. 119). D. R. Bhandarkar points out that the ancient capital of the Āndhra kingdom was situated on the Telavaha river, which he identifies with the modern
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¹ The mountainous tract called Gondwaneh is inhabited by a savage race of people, who, as they are not Hindoos, are supposed never to have been conquered. [Gondwana (Gondwaneh) of historical times was roughly equivalent to the northern portion of the modern Central Provinces, including the Sātpurā plateau and a section of the Nāgpur plain and Narbadā valley to the south and west ; and was so called from the fact that Gond dynasties possessed the land between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries. (See note on Gonds, vol. ii, p. 68 post.) The name is also applied by geologists to the old continent which is supposed to have formerly connected India with Africa and which broke up about the time when the chalk was forming in Europe. Peninsular India, or the Deccan, in its widest signification, represents the remains of that assumed vanished continent, and is geologically quite distinct from the Indo-Gangetic plain and the Himalayan region. The rocks of which the Deccan is formed are among the oldest in the world, and show no trace of ever having been submerged, after a very early geological period. (See I.G., 1907, vol. i, p. 197.)]
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The portion termed Drawed extends from Cape Comorin to the north of Madras : in this tract the Tamul ² is the vernacular tongue. The ancient Carnatic is comprehended in the great table land between Malabar and the coast now known by the name of Coromandel : the Ghauts, or chain of hills on both sides, form its boundary to the east and west ; but it extends in an angle between Telingana and Maharashtra, as far north as the Manjera river ; from which point it forms the western boundary
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² Malabar, Toolava, and Gohurasht, three divisions of the Malabar coast, though not expressly comprised in the limits of Drawed and Carnatic, are, from the similarity of their languages, considered as attached to these divisions respectively ; viz. Malabar or Kerala to Drawed, and Toolava and Gohurasht to Carnatic. [Gohurasht is properly Govarāshtra, an old name of the S. Konkan, from which Goa derives its name. Tulava (Toolava) is the tract on the western coast in which Tulu is spoken. The Tamil land of early ages was much more extensive than the area in which Tamil is now spoken It included the Kanarese, Malayālam, and Tulu-speaking countries.]
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Tel, or Telingiri. Both these rivers are near one another and flow near the boundaries of the modern Madras Presidency, and the Central Provinces. The original Āndhra or Telingana country probably comprised portions of both these modern provinces (Ind. Ant., vol. xlvii, March 1918, p. 71).]
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of the former, and the south-eastern boundary of the latter. Telingana, commencing southwards about Pulicat, or the northern extremity of Drawed, extends to Sicacole¹ in Orissa; which last, together with Gondwaneh, occupies the space between Telingana and the Mahanuddee. The fifth division, which forms the western boundary of Gondwaneh and Telingana, it will be necessary to define with more precision.
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¹ [Sicacole is usually spelt Chicacole.]
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Maharashtra is the native country of the people whose history it is now proposed to trace. Different limits are assigned to this great portion of the Deccan. According to the *Tutwa*, one of the books of the *Jotush Shaster*, or Hindoo Astronomy, Maharashtra extends no farther than the Chandore range of hills, where Kolwun, Buglana, and Candeish are represented as its northern boundary, and all beyond those countries is indiscriminately termed *Vendhiadree*.²
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² [i.e. Vindhyādri, *Vindhya*—*ādri* (mountain).]
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The tract between Chandore and Eroor Manjera, on the Kistna, is certainly the most decidedly Mahratta, and in it there is the least variation in the language; but following the rule adverted to, in its more extended sense, Maharashtra is that space which is bounded on the north by the Sautpoora mountains³; and extends from Naundode on the west, along those mountains, to the Wyne Gunga,⁴ east of Nagpoor. The western bank of that river forms a part of the eastern boundary until it falls into the Wurda. From the junction of these rivers, it may be traced up the east bank of the Wurda to Manikdroog, and thence westward to Mahoor. From this last place a waving line may be extended to Goa, whilst on the west it is bounded by the ocean.⁵
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³ The Sautpoora is properly, I am informed by Major Tod, the range adjoining the Vendhia mountains to the south, but the Mahrattas term the whole Sautpoora. [The name Sātpurā (Sautpoora), originally applied only to the hills dividing the valleys of the Narbadā and Tapti in Nimār (Central Provinces), now signifies the whole range which, commencing at Amarkantak in Rewah, Central India (22° 41′ N. and 81° 48′ E.), runs south of the Narbadā river nearly down to the western coast. The length of the Sātpurās from east to west is about 600 miles. These hills are said to have been styled *sāt putra*, or ‘seven sons’ of the Vindhya mountains, while an alternative derivation is from *sātpura*, ‘sevenfolds,’ in allusion to the numerous parallel ridges of the range. (I.G. Bom., 1909, i. 155.)]
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⁴ [Wainganga.]
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⁵ [Compare Elphinstone’s definition of Mahārāshtra as ‘lying between the range of mountains which stretches along the south of
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The Mahratta language ¹ prevails throughout this great tract of country; but in a space so extensive, there are, of course, various dialects of it, with a mixture of other tongues towards the verge of the boundaries; and there is a small space about Surat, Baroach, and Rajpeeplee,² where the Guzerattee ³ is spoken, but which may be excluded, by an imaginary line drawn from Damaun to the middle of the Naundode ⁴ district, or western point of the Sautpoora range, whence this definition of Maharashtra commences. The whole tract comprehends a surface of upwards of 102,000 square miles, and its present population, estimated principally from the returns of the collectors in the territory, lately conquered by the British government, is about six millions, or at the average rate of fifty-nine souls to the square mile.
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¹ [Marāthi, in its various dialects, extends to-day nearly across the peninsula of India. In the Bombay Presidency it covers the north of the Deccan plateau and a strip of country between the Ghāts and the Arabian Sea, extending to about a hundred miles south of Goa. It is also the language of Berār and of a good portion of the north-west of the Nizam's dominions. It stretches across the Central Provinces (except in a few localities in the extreme south, where Telugu is the language) and occupies also a great portion of Bastār. (Census of India, 1901, vol. i, p. 314.) The Marāthi-speaking population, according to the Census of 1911, numbers more than 19 millions, of whom 9 millions belong to the Bombay Presidency, 4½ millions to the Central Provinces and Berār, and 3½ millions to the Nizam's dominions.]
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² [Rājpipla.]
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³ [Gujarāthi.]
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⁴ [Nāndod.]
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Maharashtra, from its still retaining a distinct language, from its giving name to a class of Bramins, and the general appellation of Mahrattas to its inhabitants, was, perhaps, at some very distant period, under one Raja or Hindoo prince.⁵ There is, however, the Narbadā (scil. the Sātpurā), parallel to the Vindhya chain, and a line drawn from Goa, on the sea-coast, through Bidar to Chanda on the Warda. That river is its boundary on the east, as the sea is on the west.']
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⁵ [Since Grant Duff's time archaeological and historical researches have proved that Western India formed part of the empire of the Mauryan Asoka (273-32 B.C.). About 230 B.C. arose the Āndhra (Sātavāhana) dynasty, whose most powerful representative, Gautamīputra Yajna Srī, conquered Nahapāna, a western Satrap (Kshaharāta) ruling in the western Ghāts. Western India was ruled by two distinct dynasties of foreign Saka (Scythian) princes, using the title of Great Satrap, the most successful of the later dynasty being Rudradāman, who recovered Nahapāna's provinces in c. A.D. 128 and became master of the country, with his capital at Ujjain. In A.D. 395 Chandragupta II conquered western India. After him came the Chālukyas (550-753) of whom Pulakesin (608-42) was the greatest; the Rāshtrakūtas
v1.c7.24
no direct evidence to support this conjecture; nor is there any ancient history in the country, excepting the fabulous legends called Poorans, which relate to the actions of Gods and men, and which, though probably founded on historical truth, are yet so involved in mythological obscurity, that no research is ever likely to reconcile them with real events.¹
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¹ One of these Poorans, which recounts the exploits of Pureshram in his war with the Kshittrees [i.e. Kshatriyas], mentions, that at the close of it, having extirpated the Kshittrees and oppressive Rajas, and conferred the conquered territory on the Bramins, they did not choose that he should reside amongst them, which induced Pureshram to repair to the western coast of the Deccan, and to petition the se for a place of residence. This request, however, was not willingly acceded to; but Pureshram bent his bow, and let fly an arrow from the top of the great western mountains, at which the ocean was intimidated, and receding before it to the point at which it fell, left dry the extensive tract of country now known by the name of the Concan and Malabar coast. In this space different languages are spoken, and Hindoo geographers divide it into seven parts, viz. 1. Kerala, 2. Toolava, 3. Gohurasht, 4. Concan, or Kumpun, 5. Kurar, 6. Wurar, and 7. Burbur; these are supposed to extend from the Paniany river, to Mount Dilly, Dureea Bhadurghur, Sewdasheogurh, or Cape Ramas, Deogurh, Bencoote, Bassein, and the Taptee river respectively. The three first, as mentioned in a preceding note, are attached to Drawed and Carnatic; the four last are now, by the natives, indiscriminately included in the lower Concan, or Concan below the Ghauts. When the Concan simply is mentioned in this work, it is to be understood, as it is generally considered by Europeans, to extend from the sea to the line at which the Ghauts run into the lower country. When Concan-Ghaut-Mahta is specified, it is applicable to a particular tract of mountainous country hereafter described.
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The Concan is that part of Maharashtra which lies between the Ghauts ² and the sea, and extends along the coast, from (753–978); and a second Chālukya dynasty of Kalyāni, which yielded place at the close of the thirteenth century to the Yādavas of Devgiri (Daulatābād) and the Hoysalas of Dora Samudra (Halebīd). In the Konkan various dynasties of more or less independent chiefs held sway, e.g. the Mauryas of Puri, the Silāhāras of Thāna, and the Kadambas of Banavāsi. (V. A. Smith, E.H.I. and O.H.I., gives references and authorities.) See note on page 24 post for Prof. D. R. Bhandarkar's account of the Sātavāhana dynasty.]
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² Ghaut literally means a break, but in the common acceptation, it signifies a pass over any range of hills, and is thus applied to designate the hills themselves. When Ghauts are mentioned in this or any Indian history, the reader must bear in mind what Ghauts, or rather what particular range of hills are alluded to; the Ghauts, however, especially on the Bombay side, are the distinguishing appellation of that immense chain of hills, which extends along the whole western coast of India, and is now more correctly termed the Syhadree (corruptly Shyadree) mountains. Ghaut also is sometimes applied to a
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Sewdasheogurh to the Taptee. Although so far below the great chain of mountains stretching along parallel with the western coast of India, it must not be considered a flat country; on the contrary, the Concan is in most parts remarkably rugged and broken, interspersed with huge mountains and thick jungles, intersected by rivers and numberless rivulets; rocky and clear, until they descend on the level, where they are affected by the tide, when they are very deep and muddy. The roads are generally stony footpaths, and become more inaccessible as they approach the Syhadree mountains, which, except in places rendered more practicable by the British government, can only be ascended by narrow paths and defiles, sometimes so precipitous that a led horse can with difficulty keep its footing. When ascending, and on gaining the summit of any of these passes, especially to the southward of Poona, the scenery which every where presents itself is of the grandest kind. Some idea of it may be formed by imagining mountains succeeding mountains, three or four thousand feet high, covered with trees, except in places where the huge, black, barren rocks are so solid as to prevent the hardiest shrub from finding root in their clefts. The verdure about the Ghauts to the southward of Poona is perpetual, but during the rainy season, especially towards the latter part of it, when the torrents are pouring from the side of the mountains, the effect is greatly heightened by the extreme luxuriance of vegetation; whilst gleams of sunshine, reflected from the breaking masses of clouds, give a thousand evanescent tints to every hill they light upon. Tempests and thunder storms, both at the commencement and close of the south-west monsoon, are very frequent, and in that region, these awful phenomena of nature are, in a tenfold degree, tremendous and sublime.
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Notwithstanding the roughness of feature which characterizes the Concan, it is in many parts remarkably fertile. Its breadth, from the sea to the summit of the Syhadree range, is of unequal extent, varying from twenty-five to fifty miles. The top, or tableland, which is, in many places, very extensive, forms part of what the natives call Concan-Ghaut-Mahta,¹ or Concan on the top, to distinguish it from Thul-Concan, or Concan below
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¹ [Ghāt-Māta, or ‘spurs of the Ghāts.’]
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ford, or the landing-place on the bank of a river, a sense in which we shall never have occasion to use it.
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the Ghauts. The highest part of the ridge is that which immediately faces the Concan, and the summit is generally from one to two thousand feet above the tableland. The breadth of the Concan-Ghaut-Mahta is about twenty or twenty-five miles, and comprehends all the mountainous tract on the upper or eastern side, including the valleys that lie between the smaller branches of hills. The Mahrattas, in short, reckon the Concan-Ghaut-Mahta, from the point at which these branches terminate in the plain on the eastern side, to the summit of the ridge facing the Concan.
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The Concan-Ghaut-Mahta, from Joonere to Kolapoor, is divided into the Mawuls, the Khoras, and the Mooras : these are names used by natives, both for parts of the tableland and the valleys. The whole tract is populous, and the valleys are now well cultivated. The inhabitants are remarkable for their simple, inoffensive demeanour, but they are hardy and patient, and, as the well known Mawulees¹ of Sivajee, we shall find them led on to active and daring enterprise. North of Joonere these valleys are not so well cultivated, and the inhabitants are for the most part Bheels² and Koolees,³ predatory tribes, who, in their wildest state, subsist by hunting and plundering. The Mawuls, Khoras, and indeed the whole of the Ghaut-Mahta, is infested by wild beasts, particularly the royal tiger, which is here found very fierce and destructive.
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¹ [The Māvalīs, or Māvalās (Mawulees) are the inhabitants of the hilly portion of the modern Sātāra and Poona Districts. They are usually dark-skinned, small and active, and able to endure much fatigue. During the last sixty years they have become orderly and have adopted agricultural pursuits. Many of them will be found in the Bombay labour-market. It is probable that the Kolīs, as distinct from the Kunbīs, formed the bulk of Sivājī’s fighting Māvalīs (I.G. Bom., 1909, i. 538).]
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² [The Bhīls (Bheels) are a hill-tribe of immemorial antiquity, inhabiting the hilly country between Abu and Asīrgarh, parts of Gujarāt, and the northern Deccan. They are supposed to be the ‘Pygmies’ of Ktesias (400 B.C.) and the Poulindai and Phyllitae of Ptolemy (A.D. 150). They are hunters and woodmen, but nowadays grow a little rice or maize to eke out their diet of game, roots, and fruit. Their religion consists in the worship of ghosts and of Vāghdev the ‘tiger-god,’ and every Bhīl settlement has a dēvasthān (‘god-yard’) with wooden benches for the ghosts and spirits to perch upon. The typical Bhīl is small, dark, broad-nosed, and ugly, but active and well built. The formation of Bhīl Agencies in Khāndesh District in 1825 was the first step towards their reclamation. The Mewār Bhīl Corps was one of the few native regiments in Rājputāna which stood staunchly by its British officers during the Mutiny. (I.G. Bom., 1909, i. 148-52).]
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³ [Kolī (Koolee) is the name of various tribes, differing in character and origin, which inhabit Gujarāt, the northern parts of the Deccan,
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In the Ghauts, and along the hills alluded to, both above and below the reat range, the summits are frequently crowned, or girded towards the top, by large massy basaltic rocks. These, with little aid from art, are capable of being formed into fortresses, which, independent of the extreme difficulty of approach, often seem in themselves impregnable. In many of them there are springs of the finest water, and in all a supply can be secured in tanks, or reservoirs, during the periodical rains from May to October. Throughout that period of the year it is scarcely possible for troops to act in the Ghaut-Mahta; as, superadded to the steep, rugged, rocky hills, and the deep, winding dells, covered like the mountains by high trees, or tangled with low impervious brush-wood, there is almost perpetual rain; most of the rivulets are then frequently swollen into impassable torrents, and there is a chilling damp in the forests, exceedingly insalubrious to persons not inured to its influence; in short, in a military point of view, there is probably no stronger country in the world.
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The Ghaut-Mahta is succeeded by the open country, or Desh, which generally becomes more and more level to the eastward; but there are four great ranges of hills, running west and east, extending far beyond the ordinary branches of the Syhadree mountains. In succession to the Sautpoora or northern boundary of Maharashtra, there are, the great chain, commonly called the Chandore range, extending from Rhoura¹ to the heart of Berar; the Ahmednugur hills from Joonere to Bheer; the range immediately and Konkan, and parts of Rājputāna and Central India. The derivation of the name is uncertain. The Marāthī-speaking Kolīs of the Konkan and Deccan are divided into four endogamous classes : (i) Son Kolīs of the Bombay coast, who are fishermen; (ii) Malhārī Kolīs of Thāna District, who are agriculturists and resemble Marāthā Kunbīs; (iii) Rāj, Dongri, or Mahādev Kolīs, who formerly regarded Junnar in Poona District as their headquarters and were notoriously turbulent; they are now agriculturists; and (iv) Dhor Kolīs, who are a lower type and are despised by the other three sections. Grant Duff is probably referring to the Mahādev Kolīs, whose leading representative to-day is the Rājā of Jawhār, Thāna District. (I.G. Bom., 1909, i. 152-4; G.B., ix, pt. i, 237 f.)]
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¹ [Rahudi.]
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to the southward of Poona ; and the Mahdeo hills to the north of Satara.¹
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¹ I have had no opportunity of ascertaining, but the Chandore hills are probably the highest above the level of the sea : there is a very perceptible fall in the country from Chandore to the Taptee, and from the Mahdeo hills to the Warna and Kistna. [The fort of Chāndor is 3,994 feet high. The Mahādeo hills start from Mahābaleshwar in Sātāra District, which is 4,717 feet above sea-level, and run first in an easterly and then in a south-easterly direction, till they sink into the plain on the boundary of the district. The highest peak in the Ahmadnagar District is Kalsūbāi, 5,247 feet above sea-level. (I.G. Bom., 1909, i. 411, 474.)]
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The general aspect of Maharashtra is hilly, the valleys are well watered, and the climate is perhaps the most salubrious in India ; but in regard to cultivation, soil, and products, it is inferior to most other parts of that fertile region.
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The principal rivers are the Nerbuddah, the Taptee, the Godavery, the Beema, and the Kistna. For some distance along the banks of these rivers the soil is in general excellent, and the crops raised cannot be exceeded in plenty and luxuriance. The banks of the Godavery, or Gunga as it is termed by the Mahrattas, the Beema and its tributary streams, the Neera and the Maun, are all celebrated for their breed of horses,² particularly the two last, which, though small, are accounted the best and the hardiest that are reared in the Deccan.
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² These are distinguished by the name of the place where they have been reared; Gung-thuree, Bheem-thuree, Neer-thuree, and Maun Desh. *Thuree* means the dale or strath in the neighbourhood of a river, and the appellations here mentioned are used by the Mahrattas in speaking of these countries, in preference to any other name by which subdivisions of the country were marked by Mahomedans. Berar is likewise celebrated for the hardiness, but not for the beauty of its horses. [The Deccan pony from Bhīmthadi (Bheem-thuree) is very nearly extinct; but small, hardy ponies, capable of doing much work on little food, are occasionally seen in the outlying parts of the Poona District. For riding purposes they are trained to a peculiar amble, which is much in favour with Hindus of the old school. Crooke states that ‘the success of the Mahrattas as light cavalrymen was mainly the result of local conditions in the Deccan, where the indigenous pony, an admirable beast, had been improved by the introduction of Arab blood from the Persian Gulf. This trade flourished in the days of Marco Polo, and probably dates from a very early period.’ (Rājputs and Mahrattas, J.R. Anth. I., xl. 1910.)]
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The mass of the population, in the country thus briefly described, are Hindoos, who, by the ordinances of their sacred writings, are divided into the four well known casts of Bramin, Kshittree, Weysh, and Shooder ¹; but all these classes, though nominally preserved, are degenerated, extinct, or greatly subdivided.
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¹ [i.e. Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaish or Vaishya, and Sūdra.]
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The Bramins ² are the priesthood, whose lives ought to be spent in worshipping and contemplating the Divinity, and teaching, by precept and example, what is proper to be observed by the rest of mankind, to enable them to gain the favour of the gods, and to attain a more exalted state in their transmigration. They ought to have no interference in worldly concerns; but they have long been the principal officers, civil and military, in all Hindoo states. Those Bramins who strictly follow the tenets of their faith, and devote their lives to the study of what Hindoos conceive the divine ordinances, are held in great esteem; but otherwise, in the Mahratta country, there is no veneration for the Bramin character.
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² There are in India two general divisions of Bramins, termed the Punch Gour [Panch Gāud], and the Punch Drawed [Panch Drāvida]; these two are subdivided into five each; the Punch Gour belong to what has been termed by Rennell, Hindoostan Proper, or the country north of the Nerbuddah, and the other five to Guzerat, and the country south of that river, and the Vendhia or (as they have been already noticed by the more familiar Mahratta name of) the Sautpoora mountains. Those south of the Nerbuddah are the Mahrasht, the Andur [Āndhra], or Teling, the Drawed, and the Carnatic. The Goojur [Gūjar] are of Guzerat. Besides the great divisions of Mahdeo Bhugt [Bhakt], and Vishnoo Bhugt [i.e. Mahādev Bhakt and Vishnu Bhakt, or in ordinary parlance Shaiva and Vaishnava], or the respective followers of Mahdeo and Vishnoo, there are a great number of subdivisions in all these five classes of Bramins, whose appellations correspond with four of the great divisions of the ancient definition of the Deccan already given; they also derive distinctions from any of the four Vedas in which they may be primarily instructed.
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Independent of the two Mahratta divisions of Concanist,³ or those who belong to the country below the Ghauts, and Deshist, or those of the territory above, there are in the Mahratta country eight classes ¹ of Bramins, who differ from each other in some of their usages, and present, to those accustomed to observe them, perceptible differences both of character and appearance.
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³ The Peishwas, who attained sovereign authority in the Mahratta nation, were of this class. Concanists, from this circumstance, and the power which it naturally threw into their hands, pretend to some superiority in cast; but these pretensions are not well founded. They are termed Chitpawun, which, amongst other significations, means ‘a dead body raised.’ Their origin, according to what is mentioned in a Sanscrit work, entitled The Syhadree Kind [Sahyādrī Khand], was fourteen dead bodies of different casts that had been drowned in the sea; whence they were transported by Vishnoo in his outar of Pureshram, after he had forced the sea to give up the Concan, or Pureshram Ksheter [Parasurām Kshetra], and re-animated to people his new country. From these fourteen families sprang the Concanee
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The second of the four grand classes of Hindoos is termed Kshittree,² or the military body. The pure Kshittrees are considered extinct; but the Rajpoots,³ who assume their appellation
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² [Kshatriya.]
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³ Rajapootras, or literally the Children of Rajas. They are the offspring of Kshittree Rajas with women of other casts, and are said to have existed since about the year 2000 of the Kalhee Yoog [Kālī
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Bramins, who are now distinguished by sixty surnames. The Deshist Bramins, although they have surnames, prefer the distinction of their father’s name, or the place of their residence, to their surname, which they will seldom mention.
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The Concanist Bramins, before the elevation of Ballajee Wishwanath, commonly called the first, though in fact the fifth Peishwa, were not employed as clerks and men of business, but as hurkarus and spies. They carefully suppress or destroy all copies of the Syhadree Kind, where their origin is mentioned, and a respectable Bramin of Waee was, a few years ago, disgraced by Bajee Rao for having a copy of it. The Concanists say, that the word chitpawun was originally chitpohle, literally signifying ‘searing the heart,’ made use of in their addresses to their patron Pureshram for not attending to their petitions; this expression, however, being considered undutiful, or improper, was changed to chitpawun, ‘pure-hearted,’ which they interpret ‘a sinner pardoned.’
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Of all the Bramins with whom I am acquainted, the Concanists are the most sensible and intelligent.
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¹ Their names, arranged according to their degree, are: 1. Kurara, 2. Yajurwedee, or Mahadinjen, 3. Kannoo, 4. Deorookay, 5. Kirwunt, 6. Shenwee, 7. Tirgool, and 8. Suwassay.
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[These names, according to modern spelling, are: 1. Karhāda, 2. Yajūrvēdī or Mādhyāndin, 3. Kanva or Kannava, 4. Devrūkhe, 5. Kirvant or Krāmavant, 6. Shēnvī or Gāud Sarasvat, 7. Tirgul (regarded as degraded Deshasths and Shēnvīs, and now occupied as betel-vine growers in Ahmadnagar and Poona Districts and Kolhāpur State) and 8. Savvashe or Savasha (also said to have been degraded owing to intermarriage with low-caste women). For details of these sections of Brahmans see Wilson, Indian Caste, 1877, vol. ii, pp. 21ff. The Karhādas are so called from the town of Karād (old name, Karahātaka) in Sātāra District. They are stated to have been addicted to human sacrifice in the eighteenth century (see also Forrest’s Selections (Maratha Series) I, Appendix D, footnote 2; and Enthoven, Folk-Lore Notes, vol. ii, pp. 80, 81. Besides these sections mentioned by the author, Wilson includes among Marāthī-speaking Brahmans the Pādhyes and Pālshes of the North Konkan, the Jāvales of the South Konkan, and several unrecognized sections.]
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and their privileges, are the least degenerate of their descendants.
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The third grand class is the Weysh,¹ or the mercantile community.
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The last of the four grand classes is the Shooder ² : they are properly the cultivators, and as such, are known in the Mahratta country by the name of Koonbee.³
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² [Sudra.]
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³ [The Kunbīs (Koonbees) are the great agricultural caste of the Deccan and Konkan and the Central Provinces. The name has various forms, being Kunbī or Kulambī in the Deccan, Kulwadī in the South Konkan, Kanbī in Gujarat, and Kulbī in Belgaum (Southern
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Yūg]. [V. A. Smith (O.H.I., pp. 172-3) writes: ‘The term Rājput, as applied to a social group, has no concern with race, meaning descent or relationship by blood. It merely denotes a tribe, clan, sept or caste of warlike habits, the members of which claimed aristocratic rank, and were treated by the Brahmans as representing the Kshatriyas (Kshittree) of the old books. The huge group of Rājput clan-castes includes people of the most diverse descent. Many of the clans are descended from the foreigners who entered India during the fifth and sixth centuries, while many others are descended from indigenous tribes now represented, so far as the majority of their members is concerned, either by semi-Hinduized peoples or by inferior castes.’ He then gives examples of the clan-castes of foreign and indigenous descent. This view is also held by W. Crooke in his paper on Rājputs and Mahrattas, printed in J.R. Anth. I., vol. xl, 1910.]
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¹ The real Weysh [Vaish] is also said to be extinct; the Wanees, or Banians, occupy their place; but of a long list of the classes of Banians, there is not one of the subdivisions that is real Weysh. The class termed Komtee which is most common in Telingana, is the least degenerate. The other Banians in the Mahratta country are the Lingait, Goojur, and Jain. The Lingait, although their Banians reckon themselves Weysh, are, like the Jain, a distinct sect; they are divided into three classes, termed Silwunt, Punchum, and Tirulee; their Gooroos, or priests, are termed Jungum; they derive their appellation from wearing the Ling, an obscene symbol of both Mahdeo and Vishnoo. They will not eat what has been cooked by a Bramin, and they differ in their religious tenets, denying the doctrine of metempsychosis; they are also deficient in some domestic observances rigidly practised by other Hindoos. The Goojur get their name rather from their country than their cast, being originally from Guzerat. There are also Bramins who are Goojurs. The Jains are not so common in Maharashtra as in the country south of the Kistna. A good account of this remarkable sect has been given by Colonel Mackenzie, in the Asiatic Researches, vol. ix. [The lingam (phallus) is the distinctive emblem of Mahādev (Siva), not of Vishnu, whose peculiar emblem is the sālagrāma, a petrified ammonite. The lingam is nearly always combined with the yoni representing Dēvī, the passive principle in Nature. (See Barth, Religions of India, pp. 208, 209, 262.)]
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But besides these four grand divisions, there are a vast number of Hindoos, the intermixed progeny of the four classes and of each other. They are not, however, what the European reader might fancy as outcasts: they have a community of their own, and ranks, professions, and employments peculiar to themselves, of which there are an infinite number. All trades and artisans are of this irregular offspring, and classed, in Maharashtra, under the general appellation of Shunkerjatee.¹
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¹ Independent of other Hindoo observances, all classes of the Shunkerjatee have a sort of moral and religious government amongst themselves; they have heads or chiefs, now termed Muqudum, Chowdree, &c. &c., whose power seems to be the result of supposed suffrage, rather than of any regular election. There is no one Muqudum who has any very general authority in the Mahratta country; but all classes are subject to the same sort of rules: they are frequently strict in enforcing both spiritual and temporal observances. An infringement of what is customary is liable to a general inquiry in the community, every member of which may be readily roused to a jealous defence of what is considered either privilege or propriety. The lower casts of the Shunkerjatee are not less particular than the others; and hence it is, that in native regiments, the European officers often complain of having no trouble with affairs of cast except among low-cast men. For the origin of the Shunkerjatee, to those who may be desirous of acquiring minute information, reference may be made to Mr. Colebrook’s writings on the subject, in the Asiatic Researches, vol. v. The most remarkable thing in the classification of the Shunkerjatee is, that the offspring of the Shooder, with a woman of the Bramin class, is the lowest of all. The term Shunkerjatee in the Mahratta country, is applied to the mixed classes, which, in many other parts of India, and in Sanskrit manuscripts, are styled Wurn Shunkur [Varna Shankar]: this term is in use in Maharashtra, but is applied to any sort of employment in which a person may be engaged unbecoming his cast. A Bramin’s child by a slave girl is termed Sindey [Sinde]. [By the rules of hypergamy the Brahman could marry a woman of any of the four orders, Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaish, and Sūdra; the Kshatriya could marry a female of three orders, including his own, but could not marry a Brahman woman; the Vaish could marry a woman of his own order or a Sūdra woman; while a Sūdra could only marry within his own order. The offspring of illegal connections between the men of any one of these orders
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Maratha Country). In Sanskrit inscriptions it appears as Kutumbika (householder) and in the Rāsmāla (Forbes) as Kutumbiks and Koutombiks. The name is variously derived from Kutumba, a family, or from a Dravidian root kul, a husbandman or labourer. Fryer (1675) spoke of the caste as ‘Columbeens who manure the soil.’ The caste shows traces of an ancient totemistic organization, and in the Central Provinces, if not elsewhere, has in the past been largely recruited from other castes, who have adopted the hereditary Kunbī calling of agriculture. (B.G., vol. xxiv, p. 70; x. 121; xviii. 1, 285, 307; Russell, T. and C.C.P., vol. iv, pp. 16 ff.)]
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From all casts and classes there are devotees, who, renouncing the world, assume a religious character, which is generally put on in order to attain a larger share of what they pretend to give up; but some have been exemplary in their conduct, and, by the tenor of their lives, as well as their penance and observances, are supposed to have been animated by hopes paramount to all bodily suffering, and to have looked for no earthly reward; that in them even vanity was subdued, and that they were superior to that greatest of all seductions, the praise of their fellow-men. A person of such a character is termed a Sadhoo: he may be of any cast, or persuasion; for a Hindoo admits that there may be pure devotion in any religion, sex, or cast. Of the Sadhoos, or saints that have been famous in Maharashtra, Kubheer¹ was a Mahomedan, Tookaram,² a Banian, Kanhoo
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¹ Kubheer lived a Mahomedan; but when dead, the Hindoos claimed him as a Sadhoo. [Kabīr (Kubheer) was a Jolaha or Muhammadan weaver, born early in the fifteenth century, and a follower of Rāmānand, who lived in the previous century. He spent part of his life at Benares and died about 1518 in the Gorakhpur district. His teaching condemned the worship of idols and the institution of caste. His followers are known as Kabīrpanthis and are found chiefly in the Bulandshahr, Ghāzīpur and Aligarh districts of Northern India. (See Macnicol, Indian Theism, ix; V. A. Smith, O.H.I., pp. 260-1; Barth, Religions of India, pp. 238-40. See also The Bijak of Kabir, translated into English by the Rev. Ahmad Shah, Hamīrpur, 1917, the first chapter of which gives the legendary life of the poet.)]
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² [Tukārām, perhaps the most popular poet among all classes in Mahārāshtra, was born in 1608 in Dehu village about thirty miles from Poona, and is popularly believed to have been translated to Vaikunth (heaven) in 1649. By means of his ābhanga, or metrical hymns, he endeavoured to preach the superiority of Bhakti (devotion to God) over Karma (ritual), and spared neither Brahman nor Gosāin in his efforts to inculcate more rational motives on the subject of religion and morality. His metrical compositions invariably end with the Marāthi words ‘Tuka mhane,’ i.e. ‘Tuka said,’ which has been compared with the αὐτὸς ἔφα of the Pythagoreans. The principal documentary account of his life is the Bhakti Līlāmrita, written in A.D. 1774, which embodies the legends and miracles associated with his name. Some of the latter appeared to Dr. Murray Mitchell to show traces of the influence of Christian beliefs. Tukārām and his family were devotees of the god Vithobā of Pandharpur, by whose personal intervention Sivājī is supposed to have escaped from the Muhammadans on the occasion of his visit to Tukārām in Poona. (J.B.B.R.A.S., vol. i (July) 1841, and vol. iii (January) 1849; Macnicol, Indian Theism, pp. 122-6). For Tukārām and Nāmadēva
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and the women of any other order were called Sankar-jāti, or of mixed caste. (Wilson, Indian Caste, vol. i, p. 63.)]
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Patra, a woman born of the dancing tribe, and Choka Mela was a Mhar or Dher.
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Bramin devotees are of three sorts, Brimhacharee,¹ Wan Prist, and Sunneashee.
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¹ Though this be a name for those devotees who are rigid students for twelve years, all Bramin boys are termed Brimhacharee [Brahmāchārī] from the time of their admission into their cast, that is, from the period at which the ceremony of the Moonj is performed until the consummation of their marriage, when they become Grehusth, or householders. The ceremony of the Moonj is performed in all Hindoo families of the higher casts, of which the males may be entitled to use the Janwa, or distinguishing thread worn next the skin. This takes place when the boy is five or six years old, and the occasion is celebrated with more or less pomp, according to the wealth or poverty of the parents. The ceremony is performed by the household priest, who is called Gooroo, or Oopadheea, and, in itself, is merely fastening a piece of cloth about the child’s middle, and tying the Janwa diagonally across the body, over the right shoulder; whilst the Gayetri, a mystical Sanskrit verse, is pronounced by the child’s father, which all Bramins know, but none ought to disclose. Previous to this, the child is not a Bramin, or accountable for omissions or infringements in eating, bathing, &c. &c. [Wan Prist, i.e. Vānaprastha signifies ‘forest-dweller.’ Vānaprastha is a Brahman who has passed through the stages of student (Brahmāchārī) and householder (Grihasta) and has left his house and family for the woods. Sunneashee, i.e. Sanyāsī, signifies one who has adopted sanyās, i.e. resignation or relinquishment of all worldly possessions and earthly affections; in brief, a professional ascetic. I once had a Brahman head-clerk who, on earning his pension after thirty years’ service, became a Sanyāsī. Dr. V. A. Smith mentions the case of a man who was Postmaster-General of the North-West Provinces some years ago and became a wandering friar. (Sleeman’s Rambles (1915), p. 591 n.)]
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Banians, though there are many devotees from this class of people, are not so apt to become so, as the other casts.
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The Rajpoots, however, and all classes of Shooders² may become Gosaeens and Byragees.³ When a Bramin assumes either of these characters, he forfeits all claim to cast as a Bramin. Yet Gosaeen is a familiar name for the followers and disciples
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² The Gaolees, or milkmen, hold the highest rank amongst the Shooders; some say by descent, others by their being born in employment about that most sacred animal the cow. Nawees [Nhāvī], or barbers, from being frequently in contact with Bramins, likewise acquire a reflected superiority, but they are properly of the Shunkerjatee.
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³ Hindoo devotees, who subsist on charity, are often indiscriminately termed Fuqeers [Fakīr] by Europeans; though the term is applicable to Mahomedan beggars only.
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see Sir R. G. Bhandārkar’s Vaisnavism, Saivism, &c. (1913), 87 ff. See also article on ‘Bhakti-Mārga’ by Grierson in Hastings’ Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (1909), pp. 2539 ff.]
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of the famous Mahapoorush,¹ and Brimhacharee, Ramdass Swamy, the spiritual director of Sivajee ; and it is likewise an appellation of those Bramins who are professional story-tellers, or reciters of Kuthas, generally known as Hurdass ² Gosaeen ; but in these cases it is a mere nominal distinction.
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¹ An explanation of this word will appear hereafter.
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² Dass means servant ; Huree [Harī] is a name of Vishnoo. Hurdass, the servant of Vishnoo.
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The Gosaeens,³ properly so called, are followers of Mahdeo. The Byragees ⁴ generally maintain the supremacy of Vishnoo.
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³ Their founder was Shunkeracharya : there are ten divisions of them, with some shades of difference in their observances ; the ten are 1. Guree [Garī], 2. Pooree [Purī], 3. Bhartee [Bhārtī], 4. Bun [Vana], 5. Arun [Aranya], 6. Surusuttee [Sarasvatī], 7. Teert [Tīrth], 8. Ashrim [Ashrama], 9. Sagur [Sāgar], and 10. Purwutt [Parvata].
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⁴ [The word Gosāin (Gosaeen) is a corruption of Goswāmī (Sanskrit), ‘master or possessor of cows,’ and denotes generally one who professes a religious life. It is applied in a special sense to the members of certain brotherhoods, both Shaiva and Vaishnava. The principal Vaishnava Gosāins reside at Gokul in the Mathurā District. Bairāgī (Byragee) or Vairāgī signifies ‘free from passion’ (Barth, Religions of India, pp. 213, 232). Russell gives an alternative translation of go-swami as ‘master of the senses’ (T. and C.C.P., iii, 150). See footnote on page 169, vol. i, and page 189, vol. ii, post.]
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The Gosaeens are a much more numerous body in the Mahratta country than the Byragees : their dress, when they wear clothes, is invariably dyed orange ; a colour emblematical of Mahdeo. The Gosaeens, for the most part, have deviated from the rules
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To become a Gosaeen, such casts as wear the Kurgoota, or string round the loins, destroy it, and substitute a piece of cloth, if any covering be deemed necessary ; and the person generally attaches himself to some one of the fraternity, as desirous of becoming a chela, or disciple. The novice may proceed thus far, and still retract : the irretrievable step by which he becomes a Gosaeen for ever, is in the ceremony called Home [Hom], which, in this case, must be gone through in the most solemn manner. It is performed by taking an earthen vessel, one cubit square, termed stundeel ; this is to be filled with pure unmixed mould, over which powders of various colours are to be strewed ; upon this a fire is kindled, and over the whole Ghee, or milk, is poured for a certain number of times, during which, munturs, or mystical verses, are repeated, and vows solemnly made, of poverty, celibacy, and perpetual pilgrimage to the different holy places throughout India. Ghee is butter clarified by boiling. Milk is always used by a Bramin in performing the Home, on this, as well as on other more common occasions of daily occurrence. The disciples of a Gosaeen are obtained in three ways : voluntary followers, slaves purchased, and children obtained from parents who had vowed to make them Gosaeens previous to their birth.
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of their order in a manner universally stigmatized by Hindoos. They engage in trade; they enlist as soldiers; some of them marry, and many of them have concubines. Gosaeens, who go without clothing, acquire superior character; but those of greatest sanctity are the Gosaeens, who never shave, or cut their hair or nails, or who have vowed to keep their heads or limbs in a particular position. The penances by extremes of heat and cold, and the voluntary tortures which some of them undergo, are often greater than one might suppose the human frame could endure.
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Men who survive such exposure, and voluntarily submit to such bodily suffering, are, it may easily be conceived, very formidable when they take up arms. Gosaeens and Byragees have frequently waged a religious war; and some of the divisions of Gosaeens have had desperate battles with each other. Under a weak or unsettled government, the Gosaeens and Byragees have both been guilty of dreadful outrages on the persons and properties of the inoffensive part of the community; but the former are more notorious in this respect than the latter. They used to travel in armed parties, and under pretence of seeking charity, levied contributions on the country. Where unsuccessfully resisted, they frequently plundered, murdered, and committed the most brutal enormities.
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The reader will now understand, from what has been said of the most conspicuous classes of the inhabitants in Maharashtra, that the name Mahratta is applicable in some degree to all of them, when spoken of in contradistinction to men of other countries; but amongst themselves a Mahratta Bramin will carefully distinguish himself from a Mahratta. That term, though extended to the Koonbees, or cultivators, is, in strictness, confined to the military families of the country, many of whom claim a doubtful but not improbable descent from the Rajpoots.
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The women in the Mahratta country are well treated; they are the helpmates, but by no means the slaves of their husbands; nor are they in the degraded state in which some travellers have described the condition of the women in other parts of India, and in which the ordinances of the Shasters would place them. There is one custom generally observed among them, which is, that the wives of all the chiefs and military men, who pretend to Rajpoot descent, are as strictly veiled as the Mahomedan ladies of rank, and as much disgrace attaches to their being seen, particularly by persons not Hindoos. This observance they probably adopted, in the first instance, from the Deccanee Mussulmans, or the Moghuls, but they say it is handed down as a usage of the branch of Rajpoots, from whom they are descended. Mahratta ladies of this description, on the death of their husbands, frequently immolate themselves with the corpse; but in cases where they either have helpless infants, or important family affairs requiring their care, they are rarely permitted to do so. Should they for the latter reason choose to survive, their veil is in a great degree removed, as they are obliged to appear where business demands their presence, in company with men, in an assembly, or even in battle.
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With regard to religion, the principal feature in that of all Hindoos is their belief in the transmigration of the soul; and without attempting to reconcile, much less to defend, the ridiculous inconsistencies of their wild mythology, or to account for the differences that exist, in what may be now stated, from that which prevails in other parts of India, a brief summary of the religious creed of the Mahrattas will here be useful, especially to the reader in England:—They believe that the great Divine Spirit pervades the universe; that the soul of every human being is a part of that great spirit, and when perfectly purified is re-united to it. This is the ultimate reward of the good, whilst the punishment of the wicked consists in being re-born in a state proportionately distant from that reunion. The soul which animates the body of a Bramin is nearest to this state of beatitude, provided he shall duly fulfil the ordinances of his faith; but if he do not, his soul shall be detained in nurruk,¹ or hell, until sufficient torture, in expiation of sins, has been inflicted, when it will be sent to re-animate some other living shape upon the earth. The souls of all mankind must, therefore, pass through the human form of a Bramin as their last probation, unless that perfect goodness can be attained, which they describe in the character of a Sadhoo; in which case immediate admittance is gained to eternal happiness.
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Linked texts (5)
- Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
- Yājñavalkyasmṛti — Yājñavalkya, Sanskrit
- Mahābhārata — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
- Dharmaśāstra
- Vālmīkirāmāyaṇa — Vālmīki, Sanskrit