Kitabı oku: «The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 2», sayfa 12

Bania, Dosar

Bania, Dosar, Dūsra. ¹⁴⁵—This subcaste numbers about 600 persons. The original name is Dūsra or second, and the Dosar or Dūsra are a section of the Ummar Banias, who were so called because they permit widows to make a second marriage. Their home is the Ganges-Jumna Doāb and Oudh, and in the United Provinces they are classed as an inferior subcaste of the Ummars. Here they say that the Ummars are their elder brothers. In the Central Provinces they are said to be forming three local endogamous groups according as their homes were in the Doab, Oudh or the Allahābād country; and members of each of these marry among themselves. The Dosars say that they all belong to the Kashyap¹⁴⁶ gotra or clan, but for the purpose of marriage they have territorial or titular exogamous sections; instances of these are Gangapāri, a native of Oudh; Sāgarah, a resident of Saugor; Makraha, a seller of makka or maize, and Tamākhuha, a tobacco-seller. They pay a bridegroom-price, the full recognised amount of which is Rs. 211, either in cash or brass cooking-vessels. Those who cannot afford this sum give half of it or Rs. 105, and the poorest classes pay anything they can afford. The Dosars are Vaishnava Hindus and employ Sanādhya Brāhmans as their priests. These Brāhmans will take food without water from their clients, but they are an inferior class and are looked down upon by other Brāhmans. The caste are mainly shopkeepers, and they deal in gold and silver ornaments, as well as grain, tobacco and all kinds of groceries.

Bania, Gahoi

Bania, Gahoi. ¹⁴⁷—This Hindu subcaste numbered nearly 7000 persons in 1911, belonging principally to the Saugor, Jubbulpore and Narsinghpur Districts. Their home is the Bundelkhand country, which these Districts adjoin, and they say that their original headquarters was at Kharagpur in Bundelkhand, whence they have spread over the surrounding country. They tell a curious story of their origin to the effect that once upon a time there was a certain schoolmaster, one Biya Pānde Brāhman, who could foretell the future. One day he was in his school with his boys when he foresaw that there was about to be an earthquake. He immediately warned his boys to get out of the building, and himself led the way. Only twelve of the boys had followed, and the others were still hesitating, when the earthquake began, the school fell in, and they were all buried in the ruins. The schoolmaster formed the boys who had escaped into one caste, calling them Gahoi, which is supposed to mean that which is left or the residue; and he determined that he and his descendants would be the priests of the new caste. At the weddings of the Gahois an image of the schoolmaster is painted on the house wall, and the bridegroom worships it with offerings of butter and flowers. The story indicates clearly that the Gahois are of mixed descent from several castes.

The subcaste has twelve gotras or sections, and seventy-two al or ānken, which are subsections of the gotras. Several of the al names appear to be of a titular or totemistic character, as Mor peacock, Sohania beautiful, Nagaria a drummer, Pahāria a hillman, Matele the name of a village headman in Bundelkhand, Piparvānia from the pīpal tree, Dadaria a singer. The rule of exogamy is said to be that a man must not marry in his own gotra nor in the al of his mother or either grandmother.¹⁴⁸ Their weddings are held only at the bride’s house, no ceremonies being performed at the bridegroom’s; at the ceremony the bridegroom stands in the centre of the shed by the marriage-post and the bride walks seven times round him. At their weddings the Gahois still use the old rupees of the Nāgpur kingdom for presents and payments to menials, and they hoard them up, when they can get them, for this special purpose. The rupee is sacred with the Bania, and this is an instance of the preservation of old accessories for religious ceremonies when they have been superseded in ordinary use. Polygamy is permitted, but is rare. The Gahois employ Bhārgava Brāhmans for their priests, and these are presumably the descendants of the schoolmaster who founded the caste. At the thirteenth-day feast after a death the Brāhmans must be fed first before the members of the caste. On this occasion thirteen brass or earthen vessels are filled with flour, and a piece of money, and presented to thirteen Brāhmans, while the family priest receives a bed and piece of cloth. The priests are said to be greedy, and to raise quarrels over the value of the presents given to them. At the Diwāli festival the Gahois worship the implements of their trade, pen and ink, and their account-books. The Gahois are Vaishnava Hindus, and abstain from all flesh and alcoholic liquor. They trade in grain and groceries, and are bankers and moneylenders. They are considered to be cunning in business, and a proverb says that a Gahoi will deceive even his own father.

Bania, Golapūrab

Bania, Golapūrab, Golahre.—This Jain subcaste numbers about 6000 persons in the Central Provinces, and belongs mainly to the Saugor, Damoh and Narsinghpur Districts. Its distribution is nearly the same as that of the Gahois, and it is probably also a Bundelkhand group. The Golapūrabs are practically all Digambari Jains with a small Hindu minority. In some localities they intermarry with Parwār Banias who are also Digambari Jains; and they will take food cooked without water from the Nema subcaste who are Hindus. According to one story the Golapūrabs were the offspring of a Pūrabia, that is probably a Bais Rājpūt, by a kept woman of the Ahīr caste. This fits in very well with the name, as Golak means a bastard, and the termination pūrab would be from Pūrabia; but it is probably the name which has given rise to the story, or at any rate to the supposed descent from a Pūrabia. In the United Provinces a small subcaste of Bania called Golahre exists, belonging to the Jhānsi District, that is the country of the Golapūrabs, and Jain by religion. There is no doubt that this group is the same as the Golapūrabs, and Mr. Crooke derives¹⁴⁹ the name from gola, a grain-mart, which seems more probable than the derivation suggested above. But it is an interesting fact that there is also a caste of cultivators called Golapūrab in the United Provinces, found only in the Agra District. It is suggested that these people are the illegitimate offspring of Sanādhya Brāhmans, with whom they appear to be closely connected. From their sept-names, however, which include those of several Rājpūt clans and also some titular terms of a low-caste type, Mr. Crooke thinks their Brāhmanical origin improbable. It is noticeable that these Golapūrabs though a cultivating caste have, like the Banias, a subcaste called Dasa, comprising persons of irregular descent; they also prohibit the remarriage of widows, and abstain from all flesh and from onions and garlic. Such customs are peculiar in a cultivating caste, and resemble those of Banias. It seems possible that a detailed investigation might give ground for supposing that both the Golahre and Golapūrab subcastes of Banias in the United and Central Provinces respectively are connected with this cultivating caste of Golapūrabs. The latter might have abandoned the Jain religion on taking to cultivation, as a Jain cannot well drive the plough, which involves destruction of animal life; or the Bania section might have adopted Jainism in order to obtain a better social position and differentiate themselves from the cultivators. Unfortunately no detailed information about the Golapūrabs of the Central Provinces is available, from which the probability or otherwise of this hypothesis could be tested.

Bania, Kasarwāni

Bania, Kasarwāni.¹⁵⁰—This Hindu subcaste numbers about 6500 persons in the Central Provinces, who belong mainly to Saugor, Jubbulpore and the three Chhattīsgarh Districts. The name is probably derived from kānsa, bell-metal, as these Banias retail brass and bell-metal vessels. The Kasarwānis may therefore not improbably be an occupational group formed from persons who engaged in the trade, and in that case they may be wholly or partly derived from the Kasārs and Tameras, the castes which work in brass, copper and bell-metal. The Kasarwānis are numerous in Allahābād and Mīrzāpur, and they may have come to Chhattīsgarh from Mīrzāpur, attracted by the bell-metal industries in Ratanpur and Drūg. In Saugor and also in the United Provinces they say that they came from Kara Mānikpur several generations ago. If the selling of metal vessels was their original calling, many, or the majority of them, have now abandoned it, and deal in grain and groceries, and lend money like other Banias. The Kasarwānis do not observe the same standard of strictness as the good Bania subcastes in their social rules. They eat the flesh of goats, sheep, birds and fish, though they abstain from liquor. They permit the remarriage of widows and divorce; and women who have been divorced can marry again in the caste by the same rite as widows. They also allow the exchange of girls in marriage between two families. They do not as a rule wear the sacred thread. Their priests are Sarwaria Brāhmans, and these Brāhmans and a few Bania subcastes, such as the Agarwālas, Umres and Gahois, can take food cooked without water from them, but other Brāhmans and Rājpūts will not take any kind of food. Matches are arranged in the presence of the head of the caste panchāyat, who is known as Chaudhri. The parents on each side give their consent, and in pledge of it six pice (farthings) are taken from both of them, mixed together and given to their family priests and barbers, four pice to the priests and two to the barbers. The following is a local derivation of the name; the word kasar means more or the increase, and bhata means less; and Hamāra kya kasar bhata? means ‘How does my account stand?’ Hence Kasarbāni is one who keeps accounts, that is a Bania.

Bania, Kasaundhan

Bania, Kasaundhan.—This subcaste numbers about 5500 persons in the Central Provinces and is returned principally from the Bilāspur, Raipur and Jubbulpore Districts. The name is derived¹⁵¹ by Mr. Crooke from kānsa, bell-metal, and dhana, wealth, and it would appear that the Kasaundhans like the Kasārwanis are an occupational group, made up of shopkeepers who dealt in metal vessels. Like them also the Kasaundhans may have originally been constituted from the metal-working castes, and indeed they may be only a local branch of the Kasarwānis, though no information is available which would decide this point. In the United Provinces both the Kasarwānis and Kasaundhans are divided into the Pūrbia or eastern and Pachhaiyān or western subcastes. Dharam Das, the great disciple of Kabīr, who founded the Kabīrpanthi sect in the Central Provinces, was a Kasaundhan Bania, and the Kabīrpanthi Mahants or high-priests of Kawardha are of this caste. It is probable that a good many of the Kasaundhan Banias in Bilāspur and Raipur belong to the Kabīrpanthi sect. The remainder are ordinary Hindus.

Bania, Khandelwāl

Bania, Khandelwāl.—This subcaste numbers about 1500 persons in the Central Provinces; they are most numerous in the Hoshangābād and Amraoti Districts, but are scattered all over the Province. They take their name from the town of Khandela in the Jaipur State of Rājputāna, which was formerly the capital of the Shekhāwati federation. There is also a Khandelwāl subcaste of the Brāhman caste, found in the United Provinces.¹⁵² Mr. Bhattachārya says of them:¹⁵³ “The Khandelwāl Banias are not inferior to any other division of the caste either in wealth or refinement. There are both Vaishnavites and Jains among them, and the Vaishnavite Khandelwāls wear the sacred thread. The millionaire Seths of Mathura are Khandelwāl Banias.”

Bania, Lād

Bania, Lād.—This subcaste numbers about 5000 persons in the Central Provinces, being settled in Nimār, Nāgpur and all the Berār Districts. The Lād Banias came from Gujarāt, and Lād is derived from Lāt-desh, the old name for Gujarāt. Like other Banias they are divided into the Bīsa and Dasa groups or twenties and tens, the Dasa being of irregular descent. Their family priests are Khedāwal Brāhmans, and their caste deity is Ashāpuri of Ashnai, near Petlād. Lād women, especially those of Baroda, are noted for their taste in dress. The Lād Banias are Hindus of the Vallabhachārya sect, who worship Krishna, and were formerly addicted to sexual indulgence.¹⁵⁴

Bania, Lingāyat

Bania, Lingāyat.—The Lingāyat Banias number nearly 8000 persons in the Central Provinces, being numerous in Wardha, Nāgpur and all the Berār Districts. A brief account of the Lingāyat sect has been given in a separate article. The Lingāyat Banias form a separate endogamous group, and they do not eat or intermarry either with other Banias or with members of other castes belonging to the Lingāyat sect. But they retain the name and occupation of Banias. They have five subdivisions, Pancham, Dikshāwant, Chilliwant, Takalkar and Kanade. The Pancham or Panchamsālis are the descendants of the original Brāhman converts to the Lingāyat sect. They are the main body of the community and are initiated by what is known as the eight-fold sacrament or eshta-varna. The Dikshāwant, from diksha or initiation, are a subdivision of the Panchamsālis, who apparently initiate disciples like the Dikshit Brāhmans. The Takalkar are said to take their name from a forest called Takali, where their first ancestress bore a child to the god Siva. The Kanade are from Canara. The meaning of the term Chilliwant is not known; it is said that a member of this subcaste will throw away his food or water if it is seen by any one who is not a Lingāyat, and they shave the whole head. The above form endogamous subcastes. The Lingāyat Banias also have exogamous groups, the names of which are mainly titular, of a low-caste type. Instances of them are Kaode, from kawa a crow, Teli an oil-seller, Thubri a dwarf, Ubadkar an incendiary, Gudkari a sugar-seller and Dhāmankar from Dhāmangaon. They say that the maths or exogamous groups are no longer regarded, and that marriage is now prohibited between persons having the same surname. It is stated that if a girl is not married before adolescence she is finally expelled from the caste, but this rule has probably become obsolete. The proposal for marriage comes from either the boy’s or girl’s party, and sometimes the bridegroom receives a small sum for his travelling expenses, while at other times a bride-price is paid. At the wedding, rice coloured red is put in the hands of the bridegroom and juāri coloured yellow in those of the bride. The bridegroom places the rice on the bride’s head and she lays the juāri at his feet. A dish full of water with a golden ring in it is put between them, and they lay their hands on the ring together under the water and walk five times round a decorative little marriage-shed erected inside the real one. A feast is given, and the bridal couple sit on a little dais and eat out of the same dish. The remarriage of widows is permitted, but the widow may not marry a man belonging to the section either of her first husband or of her father. Divorce is recognised. The Lingāyats bury the dead in a sitting posture with the lingam or emblem of Siva, which has never left the dead man during his lifetime, clasped in his right hand. Sometimes a platform is made over the grave with an image of Siva. They do not shave the head in token of mourning. Their principal festival is Shivrātri or Siva’s night, when they offer the leaves of the bel tree and ashes to the god. A Lingāyat must never be without the lingam or phallic sign of Siva, which is carried slung round the neck in a little case of silver, copper or brass. If he loses it, he must not eat, drink nor smoke until he finds it or obtains another. The Lingāyats do not employ Brāhmans for any purpose, but are served by their own priests, the Jangams,¹⁵⁵ who are recruited both by descent and by initiation from members of the Pancham group. The Lingāyat Banias are practically all immigrants from the Telugu country; they have Telugu names and speak this language in their homes. They deal in grain, cloth, groceries and spices.

Bania, Maheshri

Bania, Maheshri.—This important subcaste of Banias numbered about 14,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, of whom 8000 belonged to the Berār Districts, and the remainder principally to Hoshangābād, Nimār, Wardha and Nāgpur. The name is said to be derived from Maheshwar, an ancient town on the Nerbudda, near Indore, and one of the earliest Rājpūt settlements. But some of them say that their original home is in Bīkanīr, and tell a story to the effect that their ancestor was a Rāja who was turned into stone with his seventy-two followers by some ascetics whose devotions they had interrupted in the forest. But when their wives came to commit sati by the stone figures the god Siva intervened and brought them to life again. He told them to give up the profession of arms and take to trade. So the seventy-two followers were the ancestors of the seventy-two gotras or sections of the Maheshris, and the Rāja became their tribal Bhāt or genealogist, and they were called Maheshri or Maheswari, from Mahesh, a name of Siva. In Gujarāt the term Maheshri or Meshri appears to be used for all Banias who are not Jains, including the other important Hindu subcastes.¹⁵⁶ This is somewhat peculiar, and perhaps tends to show that several of the local subcastes are of recent formation. But though they profess to be named after Siva, the Maheshris, like practically all other Hindu Banias, are Vaishnava by sect, and wear the kunti or necklace of beads of basil. A small minority are Jains. It is to be noticed that both the place of their origin, an early Rājpūt settlement of the Yādava clan, and their own legend tend to show that they were derived from the Rājpūt caste; for as their ancestors were attendants on a Rāja and followed the profession of arms, which they were told to abandon, they could be none other than Rājpūts. The Maheshris also have the Rājpūt custom of sending a cocoanut as a symbol of a proposal of marriage. In Nimār the Maheshri Banias say they belong to the Dhākar subcaste, a name which usually means illegitimate, though they themselves explain that it is derived from a place called Dhākargarh, from which they migrated. As already stated they are divided into seventy-two exogamous clans, the names of which appear to be titular or territorial. It is said that at their weddings when the bridegroom gets to the door of the marriage-shed, the bride’s mother ties a scarf round his neck and takes hold of his nose and drags him into the shed. Sometimes they make the bridegroom kneel down and pay reverence to a shoe as a joke. They do not observe the custom of the pangat or formal festal assembly, which is usual among Hindu castes; according to this, none can begin to eat until all the guests have assembled, when they all sit down at once. Among the Maheshris the guests sit down as they come in, and are served and take their food and go. They only have the pangat feast on very rare occasions. The Maheshris are one of the richest, most enterprising and influential classes of Banias. They are intelligent, of high-bred appearance, cleanly habits and courteous manners. The great bankers, Sir Kastūrchand Daga of Kamptee, of the firm of Bansi Lāl Abīrchand, and Rai Bahādur Seth Jīwan Das and Diwān Bahādur Seth Ballabh Das, of Jubbulpore, belong to this subcaste.

Bania, Nema

Bania, Nema.—This subcaste numbers nearly 4000 persons, the bulk of whom reside in the Saugor, Damoh, Narsinghpur and Seoni Districts. The Nemas are most largely returned from Central India, and are probably a Bundelkhand group; they will eat food cooked without water with Golapūrab Banias, who are also found in Bundelkhand. They are mainly Hindus, with a small minority of Jains. The origin of the name is obscure; the suggestion that it comes from Nimār appears to be untenable, as there are very few Nemas in that District. They say that when Parasurāma was slaying the Kshatriyas fourteen young Rājpūt princes, who at the time were studying religion with their family priests, were saved by the latter on renouncing their Kshatriya status and declaring themselves to be Vaishyas. These fourteen princes were the ancestors of the fourteen gotras of the Nema subcaste, but the gotras actually bear the names of the fourteen Rīshis or saints who saved their lives. These sections appear to be of the usual Brāhmanical type, but marriage is regulated by another set of fifty-two subsections, with names which are apparently titular or territorial. Like other Bania groups the Nemas are divided into Bīsa and Dasa subdivisions or twenties and tens, the Bīsa being of pure and the Dasa of irregular descent. There is also a third group of Pacha or fives, who appear to be the offspring of kept women. After some generations, when the details of their ancestry are forgotten, the Pachas probably obtain promotion into the Dasa group. The Bīsa and Dasa groups take food together, but do not intermarry. The Nemas wear the sacred thread and apparently prohibit the remarriage of widows. The Nemas are considered to be very keen business men, and a saying about them is, “Where a sheep grazes or a Nema trades, what is there left for anybody else?”