The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 2

3. The Mullahs.

“Their leader, both in things religious and social, is the head Mullah of Surat. The ruling Mullah names his successor, generally, but it is said not always, from among the members of his own family. Short of worship the head Mullah is treated with the greatest respect. He lives in much state and entertains with the most profuse liberality. On both religious and civil questions his authority is final. Discipline is enforced in religious matters by fine, and in case of adultery, drunkenness and other offences, by fine, excommunication and rarely by flogging. On ceremonial occasions the head Mullah sits on his throne, and in token of his power has the flyflapper, chauri, held before him. As the Bohras enter they make three prostrations, salaams, close their hands and stand before him. To such as are worthy he says ‘Be seated,’ to others ‘Stand.’ Once a year, on the 18th Rajjab, every Dāudi lays his palm within the head Mullah’s hand and takes an oath to be faithful. On this day when he goes to the mosque the Bohras are said to kiss the Mullah’s footsteps and to apply the dust he treads to their heads and eyes.” Each considerable settlement of the sect has a deputy Mullah of its own.

4. Bohra graveyards.

The Sahadra or burial-place of the Bohras at Burhānpur contains the tombs of three of the Surat Mullahs who happened to die when they were at Burhānpur. The tombs are in shell-lime and are fairly handsome erections. The Bohras support here by voluntary subscription a rest-house, where members of the sect coming to the city can obtain free board and lodging for as long as they like to stay. Mr. Conolly says of their graveyards:391

“Their burial-grounds have a pleasing appearance, the tombs being regularly arranged in streets, east and west. The tombs themselves, which are, of course, north and south, the corpse resting on its right side, differ in no respect from those of Sunnis, with the exception of a small chirāgh takia or lamp-socket, cut out of the north face, just like the cavity for the inscription of our own tombs.”

5. Religious customs.

Of their religion Mr. Kitts writes:392 “In prayers they differ both from Shias and Sunnis in that they follow their Mullah, praying aloud after him, but without much regularity of posture. The times for commencing their devotions are about five minutes later than those observed by Sunnis. After the midday and sunset supplications they allow a short interval to elapse, remaining themselves in the mosque meanwhile. They then commence the afternoon and evening prayers and thus run five services into three.”

Mr. Thurston notes that the Bohras consider themselves so superior to other sects that if another Muhammadan enters their mosque they afterwards clean the spot which he has occupied during his prayers.393 They show strictness in other ways, making their own sweetmeats at home and declining to eat those of the Halwai (confectioner). It is said also that they will not have their clothes washed by a Dhobi, nor wear shoes made by a Chamār, nor take food touched by any Hindu. They are said to bathe only on Fridays, and some of them not on every Friday. If a dog touches them they are unclean and must change their clothes. They celebrate the Id and Ramazān a day before other Muhammadans. At the Muharram their women break all their bangles and wear new bangles next day to show that they have been widowed, and during this period they observe mourning by going without shoes and not using umbrellas. Mr. Conolly says of them: “I must not omit to notice that a fine of 20 cowries (equally for rich and poor) punishes the non-attendance of a Bohra at the daily prayers. A large sum is exacted for remissness during the Ramazān, and it is said that the dread of loss operates powerfully upon a class of men who are particularly penny-wise. The money collected thus is transmitted by the Ujjain Mullah to his chief at Surat, who devotes it to religious purposes such as repairing or building mosques, assisting the needy of his subjects and the like. Several other offences have the same characteristic punishment, such as fornication, drunkenness, etc. But the cunning Bohras elude many of the fines and daily indulge in practices not sanctioned by their creed; thus in their shops pictures and figures may be purchased though it is against the commandments to sell the likeness of any living thing.”

It has been seen that when a Bohra is buried a prayer for pity on his soul and body is laid in the dead man’s hands, of which Mr. Farīdi gives the text. But other Muhammadans tell a story to the effect that the head Mullah writes a letter to the archangel Gabriel in which he is instructed to supply a stream of honey, a stream of milk, water and some fruit trees, a golden building and a number of houris, the extent of the order depending on the amount of money which has been paid to the Mullah by the departed in his lifetime; and this letter is placed beneath the dead man’s head in the grave, the Bohras having no coffins. The Bohras indignantly repudiate any such version of the letter, and no doubt if the custom ever existed it has died out.

6. Occupation.

The Bohras, Captain Forsyth remarks, though bigoted religionists, are certainly the most civilised and enterprising and perhaps also the most industrious class in the Nimār District. They deal generally in hardware, piece-goods and drugs, and are very keen traders. There is a proverb, “He who is sharper than a Bohra must be mad, and he who is fairer than a Khatri must be a leper.” Some of them are only pedlars and hawkers, and in past times their position seems to have been lower than at present. An old account says:394 “The Bohras are an inferior set of travelling merchants. The inside of a Bohra’s box is like that of an English country shop; spelling-books, prayer-books, lavender-water, soap, tapes, scissors, knives, needles and thread make but a small part of the variety.” And again: “In Bombay the Bohras go about the town as the dirty Jews do in London early and late, carrying a bag and inviting by the same nasal tone servants and others to fill it with old clothes, empty bottles, scraps of iron, etc.”395

7. Houses and dress.

Of their method of living Malcolm wrote:396 “I visited several of the houses of this tribe at Shāhjahānpur, where a colony of them are settled, and was gratified to find not only in their apartments, but in the spaciousness and cleanliness of their kitchens, in the well-constructed chimney, the neatly arranged pantries, and the polished dishes and plates as much of real comfort in domestic arrangements as could be found anywhere. We took the parties we visited by surprise and there could have been no preparation.” The Bohras do not charge interest on loans, and they combine to support indigent members of the community, never allowing one of their caste to beg. The caste may easily be known from other Muhammadans by their small, tightly wound turbans and little skull-caps, and their long flowing robes, and loose trousers widening from the ankle upwards and gathered in at the waist with a string. The women dress in a coloured cotton or silk petticoat, a short-sleeved bodice and a coloured cotton head-scarf. When they go out of doors they throw a dark cloak over the head which covers the body to the ankles, with gauze openings for the eyes.

Brāhman 397

1. Origin and development of the caste.

Brāhman, Bāman.—The well-known priestly caste of India and the first of the four traditional castes of the Hindu scriptures. In 1911 the Brāhmans numbered about 450,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār, or nearly 3 per cent of the population. This is less than the average strength for India as a whole, which is about 4½ per cent. The caste is spread over the whole Province, but is in greatest numbers in proportion to the population in Saugor and Jubbulpore, and weakest in the Feudatory States.

The name Brāhman or Brahma is said to be from the root brih or vrih, to increase. The god Brahma is considered as the spirit and soul of the universe, the divine essence and source of all being. Brāhmana, the masculine numerative singular, originally denoted one who prays, a worshipper or the composer or reciter of a hymn.398 It is the common term used in the Vedas for the officiating priest. Sir H. Risley remarks on the origin of the caste:399 “The best modern opinion seems disposed to find the germ of the Brāhman caste in the bards, ministers and family priests who were attached to the king’s household in Vedic times. Different stages of this institution may be observed. In the earliest ages the head of every Aryan household was his own priest, and even a king would himself perform the sacrifices which were appropriate to his rank. By degrees families or guilds of priestly singers arose, who sought service under the kings, and were rewarded by rich presents for the hymns or praise and prayer recited and sacrifices offered by them on behalf of their masters. As time went on the sacrifices became more numerous and more elaborate, and the mass of ritual grew to such an extent that the king could no longer cope with it unaided. The employment of purohits or family priests, formerly optional, now became a sacred duty if the sacrifices were not to fall into disuse. The Brāhman obtained a monopoly of priestly functions, and a race of sacerdotal specialists arose which tended continually to close its ranks against the intrusion of outsiders.” Gradually then from the household priests and those who made it their business to commit to memory and recite the sacred hymns and verses handed down orally from generation to generation through this agency, an occupational caste emerged, which arrogated to itself the monopoly of these functions, and the doctrine developed that nobody could perform them who was not qualified by birth, that is, nobody could be a Brāhman who was not the son of a Brāhman. When religious ritual became more important, as apparently it did, a desire would naturally arise among the priests to make their revered and lucrative profession a hereditary monopoly; and this they were easily and naturally able to do by only teaching the sacred songs and the sacrificial rules and procedure to their own descendants. The process indeed would be to a considerable extent automatic, because the priests would always take their own sons for their pupils in the first place, and in the circumstances of early Indian society a married priesthood would thus naturally evolve into a hereditary caste. The Levites among the Jews and the priests of the Pārsis formed similar hereditary orders, and the reason why they did not arise in other great religions would appear to have been the prescription or encouragement of the rule of celibacy for the clergy and the foundation of monasteries, to which admission was free. But the military landed aristocracies of Europe practically formed hereditary castes which were analogous to the Brāhman and Rājpūt castes, though of a less stereotyped and primitive character. The rise of the Brāhman caste was thus perhaps a comparatively simple and natural product of religious and social evolution, and might have occurred independently of the development of the caste system as a whole. The former might be accounted for by reasons which would be inadequate to explain the latter, even though as a matter of fact the same factors were at work in both cases.

2. Their monopoly of literature.

The hereditary monopoly of the sacred scriptures would be strengthened and made absolute when the Sanskrit language, in which they had been composed and handed down, ceased to be the ordinary spoken language of the people. Nobody then could learn them unless he was taught by a Brāhman priest. And by keeping the sacred literature in an unknown language the priesthood made their own position absolutely secure and got into their own hands the allocation of the penalties and rewards promised by religion, for which these books were the authority, that is to say, the disposal of the souls of Hindus in the afterlife. They, in fact, held the keys of heaven and hell. The jealousy with which they guarded them is well shown by the Abbé Dubois:400 “To the Brāhmans alone belongs the right of reading the Vedas, and they are so jealous of this, or rather it is so much to their interest to prevent other castes obtaining any insight into their contents, that the Brāhmans have inculcated the absurd theory, which is implicitly believed, that should anybody of any other caste be so highly imprudent as even to read the title-page his head would immediately split in two. The very few Brāhmans who are able to read those sacred books in the original, only do so in secret and in a whisper. Expulsion from caste, without the smallest hope of re-entering it, would be the lightest punishment of a Brāhman who exposed those books to the eyes of the profane.” It would probably be unfair, however, to suppose that the Vedas were kept in the original Sanskrit simply from motives of policy. It was probably thought that the actual words of the sacred text had themselves a concrete force and potency which would be lost in a translation. This is the idea underlying the whole class of beliefs in the virtue of charms and spells.

But the Brāhmans had the monopoly not only of the sacred Sanskrit literature, but practically of any kind of literacy or education. They were for long the only literate section of the people. Subsequently two other castes learnt to read and write in response to an economic demand, the Kāyasths and the Banias. The Kāyasths, it has been suggested in the article on that caste, were to a large extent the offspring and inmates of the households of Brāhmans, and were no doubt taught by them, but only to read and write the vernacular for the purpose of keeping the village records and accounts of rent. They were excluded from any knowledge of Sanskrit, and the Kāyasths subsequently became an educated caste in spite of their Brāhman preceptors, by learning Persian under their Muhammadan, and English under their European employers. The Banias never desired nor were encouraged to attain to any higher degree of literacy than that necessary for keeping accounts of sale and loan transactions. The Brāhmans thus remained the only class with any real education, and acquired a monopoly not only of intellectual and religious leadership, but largely of public administration under the Hindu kings. No literature existed outside their own, which was mainly of a sacerdotal character; and India had no heritage such as that bequeathed by Greece and Rome to mediaeval Europe which could produce a Renaissance or revival of literacy, leading to the Reformation of religion and the breaking of the fetters in which the Roman priesthood had bound the human mind. The Brāhmans thus established, not only a complete religious, but also a social ascendancy which is only now beginning to break down since the British Government has made education available to all.

3. Absence of central authority.

The Brāhman body, however, lacked one very important element of strength. They were apparently never organised nor controlled by any central authority such as that which made the Roman church so powerful and cohesive. Colleges and seats of learning existed at Benāres and other places, at which their youth were trained in the knowledge of religion and of the measure of their own pretensions, and the means by which these were to be sustained. But probably only a small minority can have attended them, and even these when they returned home must have been left practically to themselves, spread as the Brāhmans were over the whole of India with no means of postal communication or rapid transit. And by this fact the chaotic character of the Hindu religion, its freedom of belief and worship, its innumerable deities, and the almost complete absence of dogmas may probably be to a great extent explained. And further the Brāhman caste itself cannot have been so strictly organised that outsiders and the priests of the lower alien religions never obtained entrance to it. As shown by Mr. Crooke, many foreign elements, both individuals and groups, have at various times been admitted into the caste.

4. Mixed elements in the caste.

The early texts indicate that Brāhmans were in the habit of forming connections with the widows of Rājanyas and Vaishyas, even if they did not take possession of the wives of such men while they were still alive.401 The sons of Angiras, one of the great ancestral sages, were Brāhmans as well as Kshatriyas. The descendants of Garga, another well-known eponymous ancestor, were Kshatriyas by birth but became Brāhmans. Visvāmitra was a Kshatriya, who, by the force of his austerities, compelled Brahma to admit him into the Brāhmanical order, so that he might be on a level with Vasishtha with whom he had quarrelled. According to a passage in the Mahābhārata all castes become Brāhmans when once they have crossed the Gomti on a pilgrimage to the hermitage of Vasishtha.402 In more recent times there are legends of persons created Brāhmans by Hindu Rājas. Sir J. Malcolm in Central India found many low-caste female slaves in Brāhman houses, the owners of which had treated them as belonging to their own caste.403

It would appear also that in some cases the caste priests of different castes have become Brāhmans. Thus the Sāraswat Brāhmans of the Punjab are the priests of the Khatri caste. They have the same complicated arrangement of exogamy and hypergamy as the Khatris, and will take food from that caste. It seems not improbable that they are really descendants of Khatri priests who have become Brāhmans.404

Similarly such groups as the Oswāl, Srimāl and Palliwāl Brāhmans of Rājputāna, who are priests of the subcastes of Banias of the same name, may originally have been caste priests and become Brāhmans. The Nāramdeo Brāhmans, or those living on the Nerbudda River, are said to be descendants of a Brāhman father by a woman of the Naoda or Dhīmar caste; and the Golapūrab Brāhmans similarly of a Brāhman father and Ahīr mother. In many cases, such as the island of Onkar Mandhāta in the Nerbudda in Nimār, and the Mahādeo caves at Pachmarhi, the places of worship of the non-Aryan tribes have been adopted by Hinduism and the old mountain or river gods transformed into Hindu deities. At the same time it is not improbable that the tribal priests of the old shrines have been admitted into the Brāhman caste.

5. Caste subdivisions.

The Brāhman caste has ten main territorial divisions, forming two groups, the Pānch-Gaur or five northern, and the Pānch-Drāvida or five southern. The boundary line between the two groups is supposed to be the Nerbudda River, which is also the boundary between Hindustān and the Deccan. But the Gujarāti Brāhmans belong to the southern group, though Gujarāt is north of the Nerbudda. The five northern divisions are:

(a) Sāraswat.—These belong to the Punjab and are named after the Sāraswati river of the classical period, on whose banks they are supposed to have lived.

(b) Gaur.—The home of these is the country round Delhi, but they say that the name is from the old Gaur or Lakhnauti kingdom of Bengal. If this is correct, it is difficult to understand how they came from Bengal to Delhi contrary to the usual tendency of migration. General Cunningham has suggested that Gaura was also the name of the modern Gonda District, and it is possible that the term was once used for a considerable tract in northern India as well as Bengal, since it has come to be applied to all the northern Brāhmans.405

(c) Kānkubja or Kanaujia.—These are named after the old town of Kanauj on the Ganges near Cawnpore, once the capital of India. The Kanaujia are the most important of the northern groups and extend from the west of Oudh to beyond Benāres and into the northern Districts of the Central Provinces. Here they are subdivided into four principal groups—the Kanaujia, Jijhotia, Sarwaria and Sanādhya, which are treated in annexed subordinate articles.

(d) Maithil.—They take their name from Mithila, the old term for Bihār or Tirhūt, and belong to this tract.

(e) Utkal.—These are the Brāhmans of Orissa.

The five groups of the Pānch-Drāvida are as follows:

(a) Maharāshtra.—These belong to the Marātha country or Bombay. They are subdivided into three main territorial groups—the Deshasth, or those of the home country, that is the Poona tract above the Western Ghāts; the Konkonasth, who belong to the Bombay Konkan or littoral; and the Karhāra, named after a place in the Satāra District.406

(b) Tailanga or Andhra.—The Brāhmans of the Telugu country, Hyderābād and the northern part of Madras. This territory was known as Andhra and governed by an important dynasty of the same name in early times.

(c) Drāvida.—The Brāhmans of the Tamil country or the south of Madras.

(d) Karnāta.—The Brāhmans of the Carnatic, or the Canarese country. The Canarese area comprises the Mysore State, and the British Districts of Canara, Dharwar and Belgaum.

(e) Gurjara.—The Brāhmans of Gujarāt, of whom two subcastes are found in the Central Provinces. The first consists of the Khedāwāls, named after Kheda, a village in Gujarāt, who are a strictly orthodox class holding a good position in the caste. And the second are the Nāgar Brāhmans, who have been long settled in Nimār and the adjacent tracts, and act as village priests and astrologers. Their social status is somewhat lower.

There are, however, a large number of other subcastes, and the tendency to fissure in a large caste, and to the formation of small local groups which marry among themselves, is nowhere more strikingly apparent than among the Brāhmans. This is only natural, as they, more than any other caste, attach importance to strict ceremonial observance in matters of food and the daily ritual of prayer, and any group which was suspected of backsliding in respect of these on emigration to a new locality would be debarred from intermarriage with the parent caste at home. An instance of this is found among the Chhattīsgarhi Brāhmans, who have been long settled in this backward tract and cut off from communication with northern India. They are mainly of the Kanaujia division, but the Kanaujias of Oudh will neither take food nor intermarry with them, and they now constitute a separate subcaste of Kanaujias. Similarly the Mālwi Brāhmans, whose home is in Mālwa, whence they have spread to Hoshangābād and Betul, are believed to have been originally a branch of the Gaur or Kanaujia, but have now become a distinct subcaste, and have adopted many of the customs of Marātha Brāhmans. Mandla contains a colony of Sarwaria407 Brāhmans who received grants of villages from the Gond kings and have settled down there. They are now cultivators, and some have taken to the plough, while they also permit widow-remarriage in all but the name. They are naturally cut off from intercourse with the orthodox Sarwarias and marry among themselves. The Harenia Brāhmans of Saugor are believed to have immigrated from Hariāna some generations ago and form a separate local group; and also the Laheria Brāhmans of the same District, who, like the Mandla Sarwarias, permit widows to marry. In Hoshangābād there is a small subcaste of Bawīsa or ‘Twenty-two’ Brāhmans, descended from twenty-two families from northern India, who settled here and have since married among themselves. A similar diversity of subcastes is found in other Provinces. The Brāhmans of Bengal are also mainly of the Kanaujia division, but they are divided into several local subcastes, of which the principal are Rārhi and Barendra, named after tracts in Bengal, and quite distinct from the subdivisions of the Kanaujia group in the Central Provinces.

6. Miscellaneous groups.

Another class of local subdivisions consists of those Brāhmans who live on the banks of the various sacred rivers or at famous shrines, and earn their livelihood by conducting pilgrims through the series of ceremonies and acts of worship which are performed on a visit to such places; they receive presents from the pilgrims and the offerings made at the shrines. The most prominent among these are the Gayawāls of Gaya, the Prayāgwāls of Allahābād (Prayāg), the Chaubes of Mathura, the Gangapūtras (Sons of the Ganges) of Benāres, the Pandarāms of southern India and the Nāramdeo Brāhmans who hold charge of the many temples on the Nerbudda. As such men accept gifts from pilgrims they are generally looked down on by good Brāhmans and marry among themselves. Many of them have a character for extortion and for fleecing their clients, a propensity commonly developed in a profession of this kind. Such a reputation particularly attaches to the Chaubes of Mathura and Brindāban, the holy places of the god Krishna. They are strong and finely built men, but gluttonous, idle and dissolute. Some of the Benāres Brāhmans are known as Sawalākhi, or having one and a quarter lakhs, apparently on account of the wealth they amass from pilgrims. A much lower group are the Mahā-Brāhmans (great Brāhmans), who are also known as Patīt (degraded) or Katia. These accept the gifts offered by the relatives after a death for the use of the dead man in the next world during the period of mourning; they also eat food which it is supposed will benefit the dead man, and are considered to represent him. Probably on this account they share in the impurity attaching to the dead, and are despised by all castes and sometimes not permitted to live in the village. Other Brāhmans are degraded on account of their having partly adopted Muhammadan practices. The Husaini Brāhmans of western India are so called as they combine Muhammadan with Hindu rites. They are principally beggars. And the Kalanki Brāhmans of Wardha and other Districts are looked down upon because, it is said, that at the bidding of a Muhammadan governor they make a figure of a cow from sugar and eat it up. Probably they may have really acted as priests to Muhammadans who were inclined to adopt certain Hindu rites on the principle of imitation, and with a view to please their disciples conformed to some extent to Islām.