A History of the Mahrattas v1.c7.65

v1.c7.65

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.)]