The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 3

12. Missionary work

Nevertheless the wandering Gosains have done much to foster and maintain the Hindu religion among the people. They are the gurus or spiritual preceptors of the middle and lower castes, and though their teaching may be of little advantage, it perhaps quickens and maintains to some extent the religious feelings of their clients. In former times the Gosains travelled over the wildest tracts of country, proselytising the primitive non-Aryan tribes, for whose conversion to Hinduism they are largely responsible. On such journeys they necessarily carried their lives in their hands, and not infrequently lost them.

13. The Gosain caste

The majority of the Gosains are, however, now married and form an ordinary caste. Buchanan states that the ten different orders became exogamous groups, the members of which married with each other, but it is doubtful whether this is the case at present. It is said that all Giri Gosains marry, whether they are mendicants or not, while the Bhārthi order can marry or not as they please. They prohibit any marriage between first cousins, but permit widow remarriage and divorce. They eat the flesh of all clean animals and also of fowls, and drink liquor, and will take cooked food from the higher castes, including Sunārs and Kunbis. Hence they do not rank high socially, and Brāhmans do not take water from them, but their religious character gives them some prestige. Many Gosains have become landholders, obtaining their estates either as charitable grants from clients or through moneylending transactions. In this capacity they do not usually turn out well, and are often considered harsh landlords and grasping creditors.

Gowāri

1. Origin of the caste

Gowāri.114—The herdsman or grazier caste of the Marātha country, corresponding to the Ahīrs or Gaolis. The name is derived from gai or gao, the cow, and means a cowherd. The Gowāris numbered more than 150,000 persons in 1911, of whom nearly 120,000 belonged to the Nāgpur division and nearly 30,000 to Berār. In localities where the Gowāris predominate, Ahīrs or Gaolis, the regular herdsman caste, are found only in small numbers. The honorific title of the Gowāris is Dhare, which is said to mean ‘One who keeps cattle.’ The Gowāris rank distinctly below the Ahīrs or Gaolis. The legend of their origin is that an Ahīr, who was tending the cows of Krishna, stood in need of a helper. He found a small boy in the forest and took him home and brought him up. He then gave to the boy the work of grazing cows in the jungle, while he himself stayed at home and made milk and butter. This boy was the ancestor of the Gowāri caste. His descendants took to eating fowls and peacocks and drinking liquor, and hence were degraded below the Gaolis. But the latter will allow Gowāris to sit at their feasts and eat, they will carry the corpse of a Gowāri to the grave, and they will act as members of the panchāyat in readmitting a Gowāri who has been put out of caste. In the Marātha country any man who touches the corpse of a man of another caste is temporarily excommunicated, and the fact that a Gaoli will do this for a Gowāri demonstrates the close relationship of the castes. The legend, in fact, indicates quite clearly and correctly the origin of the Gowāris. The small boy in the forest was a Gond, and the Gowāri caste is of mixed descent from Ahīrs and Gonds. The Ahīrs or Gaolis of the Marātha country have largely abandoned the work of grazing cattle in the forest, and have taken to the more profitable business of making milk and ghī. The herdsman’s duties have been relegated to the mixed class of Gowāris, produced from the unions of Ahīrs and Gonds in the forests, and not improbably including a considerable section of pure Gond blood. At present only Gaolis and no other caste are admitted into the Gowāri community, though there is evidence that the rule was not formerly so strict.

2. Subcastes

The Gowāris have three divisions, the Gai Gowāri, Inga, and Māria or Gond Gowāri. The Gai or cow Gowāris are the highest and probably have more Gaoli blood in them. The Inga and Māria or Gond Gowāris are more directly derived from the Gonds. Māria is the name given to a large section of the Gond tribe in Chānda. Both the other two subcastes will take cooked food from the Gai Gowāris and the Gond Gowāris from the Inga, but the Inga subcaste will not take it from the Gond, nor the Gai Gowāris from either of the other two. The Gond Gowāris have been treated as a distinct caste and a separate article is given on them, but at the census Mr. Marten has amalgamated them with the Gowāris. This is probably more correct, as they are locally held to be a branch of the caste. But their customs differ in some points from those of the other Gowāris. They will admit outsiders from any respectable caste and worship the Gond gods,115 and there seems no harm, therefore, in allowing the separate article on them to remain.

3. Totemism and exogamy

The Gowāris have exogamous sections of the titular and totemistic types, such as Chachania from chachan, a bird, Lohār from loha iron, Ambadāre a mango-branch, Kohria from the Kohri or Kohli caste, Sarwaina a Gond sept, and Rāwat the name of the Ahīr caste in Chhattīsgarh. Some septs do not permit intermarriage between their members, saying that they are Dūdh-Bhais or foster-brothers, born from the same mother. Thus the Chachania, Kohria, Senwaria, Sendua (vermilion) and Wāgare (tiger) septs cannot intermarry. They say that their fathers were different, but their mothers were related or one and the same. This is apparently a relic of polyandry, and it is possible that in some cases the Gonds may have allowed Ahīrs sojourning in the forest to have access to their wives during the period of their stay. If this was permitted to Ahīrs of different sections coming to the same Gond village in successive years, the offspring might be the ancestors of sections who consider themselves to be related to each other in the manner of the Gowāri sections.

Marriage is prohibited within the same section or kur, and between sections related to each other as Dūdh-Bhais in the manner explained above. A man can marry his daughter to his sister’s son, but cannot take her daughter for his son. The children of two sisters cannot be married.

4. Marriage customs

Girls are usually married after attaining maturity, and a bride-price is paid which is normally two khandis (800 lbs.) of grain, Rs. 16 to 20 in cash, and a piece of cloth. The auspicious date of the wedding is calculated by a Mahār Mohturia or soothsayer. Brāhmans are not employed, the ceremony being performed by the bhānya or sister’s son of either the girl’s father or the boy’s father. If he is not available, any one whom either the girl’s father or the boy’s father addresses as bhānja or nephew in the village, according to the common custom of addressing each other by terms of relationship, even though he may be no relative and belong to another caste, may be substituted; and if no such person is available a son-in-law of either of the parties. The peculiar importance thus attached to the sister’s son as a relation is probably a relic of the matriarchate, when a man’s sister’s son was his heir. The substitution of a son-in-law who might inherit in the absence of a sister’s son perhaps strengthens this view. The wedding is held mainly according to the Marātha ritual.116 The procession goes to the girl’s house, and the bridegroom is wrapped in a blanket and carries a spear, in the absence of which the wedding cannot be held. A spear is also essential among the Gonds. The ancestors of the caste are invited to the wedding by beating a drum and calling on them to attend. The original ancestors are said to be Kode Kodwan, the names of two Gond gods, Bāghoba (the tiger-god), and Meghnāth, son of Rāwan, the demon king of Ceylon, after whom the Gonds are called Rāwanvansi, or descendants of Rāwan. The wedding costs about Rs. 50, all of which is spent by the boy’s father. The girl’s father only gives a feast to the caste out of the amount which he receives as bride-price. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted.

5. Funeral rites

The dead are either buried or burnt, burial being more common. The corpse is laid with head to the south and feet to the north. On returning from the funeral they go and drink at the liquor-shop, and then kill a cock on the spot where the deceased died, and offer some meat to his spirit, placing it outside the house. The caste-fellows sit and wait until a crow comes and pecks at the food, when they think that the deceased has enjoyed it, and begin to eat themselves. If no crow comes before night the food may be given to a cow, and the party can then begin to eat. When the next wedding is held in the family, the deceased is brought down from the skies and enshrined among the deified ancestors.

6. Religion

The principal deities of the Gowāris are the Kode Kodwan or deified ancestors. They are worshipped at the annual festivals, and also at weddings. When a man or woman dies without children their spirits are known as Dhal, and are worshipped in the families to which they belonged. A male Dhal is represented by a stick of bamboo with one cross-piece at the top, and a female Dhal by a stick with two others crossing each other lashed to it at the top. These sticks are worshipped at the Diwāli festival, and carried in procession. Dudhera is a godling worshipped for the protection of cattle. He is represented by a clay horse placed near a white ant-hill. If a cow stops giving milk her udder is smoked with the burning wood of a tree called sānwal, and this is supposed to drive away the spirits who drink the milk from the udder. All Gowāris revere the haryal, or green pigeon. They say that it gives a sound like a Gowāri calling his cows, and that it is a kinsman. They would on no account kill this bird. They say that the cows will go to a tree from which green pigeons are cooing, and that on one occasion when a thief was driving away their cows a green pigeon cooed from a tree, and the cows turned round and came back again. This is like the story of the sacred geese at Rome, who gave warning of the attack of the Goths.

7. Caste rules and the panchāyat

The head of the caste committee is known as Shendia, from shendi, a scalp-lock or pig-tail, perhaps because he is at the top of the caste as the scalp-lock is at the top of the head. The Shendia is elected, and holds office for life. He has to readmit offenders into caste by being the first to eat and drink with them, thus taking their sins on himself. On such occasions it is necessary to have a little opium, which is mixed with sugar and water, and distributed to all members of the caste. If the quantity is insufficient for every one to drink, the man responsible for preparing it is fined, and this mixture, especially the opium, is indispensable on all such occasions. The custom indicates that a sacred or sacrificial character is attributed to the opium, as the drinking of the mixture together is the sign of the readmission of a temporary outcaste into the community. After this has been drunk he becomes a member of the caste, even though he may not give the penalty feast for some time afterwards. The Ahīrs and Sunārs of the Marātha country have the same rite of purification by the common drinking of opium and water. A caste penalty is incurred for the removal of bitāl or impurity arising from the usual offences, and among others for touching the corpse of a man of any other caste, or of a buffalo, horse, cow, cat or dog, for using abusive language to a casteman at any meeting or feast, and for getting up from a caste feast without permission from the headman. For touching the corpse of a prohibited animal and for going to jail a man has to get his head, beard and whiskers shaved. If a woman becomes with child by a man of another caste, she is temporarily expelled, but can be readmitted after the child has been born and she has disposed of it to somebody else. Such children are often made over for a few rupees to Muhammadans, who bring them up as menial servants in their families, or, if they have no child of their own, sometimes adopt them. On readmission a lock of the woman’s hair is cut off. In the same case, if no child is born of the liaison, the woman is taken back with the simple penalty of a feast. Permanent expulsion is imposed for taking food from, or having an intrigue with a member of an impure caste as Mādgi, Mehtar, Pardhān, Mahār and Māng.

8. Social customs

The Gowāris eat pork, fowls, rats, lizards and peacocks, and abstain only from beef and the flesh of monkeys, crocodiles and jackals. They will take food from a Māna, Marār or Kohli, and water from a Gond. Kunbis will take water from them, and Gonds, Dhīmars and Dhobis will accept cooked food. All Gowāri men are tattooed with a straight vertical line on the forehead, and many of them have the figures of a peacock, deer or horse on the right shoulder or on both shoulders. A man without the mark on the forehead will scarcely be admitted to be a true Gowāri, and would have to prove his birth before he was allowed to join a caste feast. Women are tattooed with a pattern of straight and crooked lines on the right arm below the elbow, which they call Sīta’s arm. They have a vertical line standing on a horizontal one on the forehead, and dots on the temples.

Gūjar

1. Historical notice of the caste

Gūjar.—A great historical caste who have given their name to the Gujarāt District and the town of Gujarānwāla in the Punjab, the peninsula of Gujarāt or Kāthiāwār and the tract known as Gūjargarh in Gwālior. In the Central Provinces the Gūjars numbered 56,000 persons in 1911, of whom the great majority belonged to the Hoshangābād and Nimār Districts. In these Provinces the caste is thus practically confined to the Nerbudda Valley, and they appear to have come here from Gwālior probably in the middle of the sixteenth century, to which period the first important influx of Hindus into this area has been ascribed. But some of the Nimār Gūjars are immigrants from Gujarāt. Owing to their distinctive appearance and character and their exploits as cattle-raiders, the origin of the Gūjars has been the subject of much discussion. General Cunningham identified them with the Yueh-chi or Tochāri, the tribe of Indo-Scythians who invaded India in the first century of the Christian era. The king Kadphises I. and his successors belonged to the Kushān section of the Yueh-chi tribe, and their rule extended over north-western India down to Gujarāt in the period 45–225 A.D. Mr. V. A. Smith, however, discards this theory and considers the Gūjars or Gurjaras to have been a branch of the white Huns who invaded India in the fifth and sixth centuries. He writes:117 “The earliest foreign immigration within the limits of the historical period which can be verified is that of the Sakas in the second century B.C.; and the next is that of the Yueh-chi and Kushāns in the first century A.D. Probably none of the existing Rājpūt clans can carry back their genuine pedigrees so far. The third recorded great irruption of foreign barbarians occurred during the fifth century and the early part of the sixth. There are indications that the immigration from Central Asia continued during the third century, but, if it did, no distinct record of the event has been preserved, and, so far as positive knowledge goes, only three certain irruptions of foreigners on a large scale through the northern and north-western passes can be proved to have taken place within the historical period anterior to the Muhammadan invasions of the tenth and eleventh centuries. The first and second, as above observed, were those of the Sakas and Yueh-chi respectively, and the third was that of the Hūnas or white Huns. It seems to be clearly established that the Hun group of tribes or hordes made their principal permanent settlements in the Punjab and Rājputāna. The most important element in the group after the Huns themselves was that of the Gurjaras, whose name still survives in the spoken form Gūjar as the designation of a widely diffused middle-class caste in north-western India. The prominent position occupied by Gurjara kingdoms in early mediaeval times is a recent discovery. The existence of a small Gurjara principality in Bharōch (Broach), and of a larger state in Rājputāna, has been known to archaeologists for many years, but the recognition of the fact that Bhoja and the other kings of the powerful Kanauj dynasty in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries were Gurjaras is of very recent date and is not yet general. Certain misreadings of epigraphic dates obscured the true history of that dynasty, and the correct readings have been established only within the last two or three years. It is now definitely proved that Bhoja (circ. A.D. 840–890), his predecessors and successors belonged to the Pratihāra (Parihār) clan of the Gurjara tribe or caste, and, consequently, that the well-known clan of Parihār Rājpūts is a branch of the Gurjara or Gūjar stock.”118

Gūjar village proprietress and her land agent

2. The Gūjars and the Khazars

Sir J. Campbell identified the Gūjars with the Khazar tribe of Central Asia:119 “What is known of the early history of the Gujaras in India points to their arrival during the last quarter of the fifth or the first quarter of the sixth century (A.D. 470–520). That is the Gujaras seem to have formed part of the great horde of which the Juān-Juān or Avārs, and the Ephthalites, Yetas or White Hūnas were leading elements. The question remains: How far does the arrival of the Gujara in India, during the early sixth century, agree with what is known of the history of the Khazar? The name Khazar appears under the following forms: Among Chinese as Kosa, among Russians as Khwalisses, among Byzantines as Chozars or Chazars, among Armenians as Khazirs and among Arabs as Khozar. Other variations come closer to Gujara. These are Gazar, the form Kazar takes to the north of the sea of Asof; Ghysar, the name for Khazars who have become Jews; and Ghusar, the form of Khazar in use among the Lesghians of the Caucasus. Howarth and the writer in the Encyclopædia Britannica follow Klaproth in holding that the Khazars are the same as the White Hūnas....

“Admitting that the Khazar and White Hūna are one, it must also be the case that the Khazars included two distinct elements, a fair or Ak-Khazar, the Akatziroi or Khazaroi of Byzantine historians, and a dark or Kāra Khazar. The Kāra Khazar was short, ugly and as black as an Indian. He was the Ughrian nomad of the steppes, who formed the rank and file of the army. The White Khazar or White Hūna was fair-skinned, black-haired and beautiful, their women (in the ninth and tenth centuries) being sought after in the bazārs of Bāghdād and Byzantium. According to Klaproth, a view adopted by the writer in the Encyclopædia Britannica, the White Khazar represented the white race which, since before Christ has been settled round the Caspian. As White Hūnas, Ephthalites,120 White Ughrians and White Bulgars, this white race were the carriers between Europe and East Asia; they were also the bearers of the brunt of the Tartar inroads. A trace both of the beautiful and coarse clans seems to survive in the complimentary Mārwār proverb, ‘Handsome as a Hūna,’ and in the abusive Gujarāt proverb, ‘Yellow and short as a Hūna’s beard.’ Under its Hindu form Gurjara, Khazar appears to have become the name by which the great bulk of the sixth-century horde was known.” Sir J. Campbell was of opinion that the Sesodia or Gahlot Rājpūts, the most illustrious of all the clans, were of Gūjar stock, as well as the Parihār, Chauhān, and Chalukya or Solankī; these last were three of the Agnikula clans or those created from the firepit,121 and a Solankī dynasty ruled in Gujarāt. He also considered the Nāgar Brāhmans of Gujarāt to be derived from the Gūjars and considerable sections of the Ahīr and Kunbi castes. The Badgūjar (great Gūjar) clan of Rājpūts is no doubt also an aristocratic branch of the caste. In Ajmere it is said that though all Gūjars are not Rājpūts, no Rājpūt becomes a hero unless he is suckled by a Gūjar woman. Gūjarika dudh, nāhari ka dudh; or ‘Gūjar’s milk is tiger’s milk.’ A Rājpūt who has not been suckled by a Gūjar woman is a gidar or jackal.122

3. Predatory character of the Gūjars in northern India

The fact of the White Huns being tall and of fine features, in contrast to the horde which invaded Europe under Attila, accounts for these characteristics being found among the highest Rājpūt clans, who, as has been seen, are probably derived from them. The Gūjar caste generally is now, however, no doubt of mixed and impure blood. They were distinguished in the past as vagrant and predatory marauders, and must have assimilated various foreign elements. Mr. Crooke writes of them:123 “The Gūjars as a tribe have always been noted for their turbulence and habit of cattle-stealing. Bābar in his Memoirs describes how the commander of the rearguard captured a few Gūjar ruffians who followed the camp, decapitated them and sent their heads to the Emperor. The Gūjars of Pāli and Pāhal became exceedingly audacious while Sher Shāh was fortifying Delhi, and he marched to the hills and expelled them so that not a vestige of their habitations was left. Jahāngīr remarks that the Gūjars live chiefly on milk and curds and seldom cultivate land; and Bābar says: ‘Every time I entered Hindustān the Jāts and Gūjars have regularly poured down in prodigious numbers from the hills and wilds to carry off oxen and buffaloes. These were the wretches that really inflicted the chief hardships and were guilty of the chief oppression in the country.’ They maintained their old reputation in the Mutiny when they perpetrated numerous outrages and seriously impeded the operations of the British Army before Delhi.” In northern India the Gūjars are a pastoral caste. The saying about them is—

Ahīr, Gadaria, Gūjar,E tinon tâken ujar,

or, ‘The Ahīr, Gadaria and Gūjar want waste land’; that is for grazing their flocks. In Kāngra the Gūjars generally keep buffaloes. Here they are described as “A fine, manly race with peculiar and handsome features. They are mild and inoffensive in manner, and in these hills are not distinguished by the bad pre-eminence which attaches to their race in the plains.”124 Sir D. Ibbetson had a very unfavourable opinion of the Gūjars of the plains, of whom he wrote as follows:125 “The Gūjar is a fine stalwart fellow, of precisely the same physical type as the Jāt; and the theory of aboriginal descent which has been propounded is to my mind conclusively negatived by his cast of countenance. He is of the same social standing as the Jāt, or perhaps slightly inferior; but the two eat and drink in common without any scruple, and the proverb says: ‘The Jāt, Gūjar, Ahīr and Gola are all hail fellow well met.’ But he is far inferior in both personal character and repute to the Jāt. He is lazy to a degree, and a wretched cultivator; his women, though not secluded, will not do field-work save of the lightest kind; while his fondness for cattle extends to those of other people. The difference between a Gūjar and a Rājpūt cattle-thief was once explained to me thus by a Jāt: ‘The Rājpūt will steal your buffalo. But he will not send his old father to say he knows where it is and will get it back for Rs. 20, and then keep the Rs. 20 and the buffalo too. The Gūjar will.’”

4. Subdivisions

The Gūjars of the Central Provinces have, however, entirely given up the predatory habits of their brethren in northern India and have developed into excellent cultivators and respectable law-abiding citizens. In Hoshangābād they have three subcastes, Lekha, Mundle and Jādam. The Mundle or ‘Shaven’ are so called because they take off their turbans when they eat and expose their crowns bare of hair, while the Lekha eat with their turbans on. The Mundle are also known as Rewe, from the Rewa or Nerbudda, near which they reside. The Jādam are probably an offshoot from the cultivating caste of Hoshangābād of that name, Jādam being a corruption of Jādubansi, a tribe of Rājpūts. The Badgūjars, who belong to Nimār, consider themselves the highest, deriving their name from bara or ‘great’ Gūjar. As already seen, there is a Badgūjar clan of Rājpūts. The Nimār Badgūjars, however, were formerly engaged in the somewhat humble calling of clearing cotton of its seeds, and on this account they are also known as Ludhāre, the word lodhna meaning to work the hand-ginning machine (charkhi). It seems possible that the small caste of Lorhas of the Hoshangābād District, whose special avocation is to grow san-hemp, may be derived from these Ludhāre Gūjars. The Kekre or Kanwe subcaste are the lowest and are of illegitimate descent. They are known as Kekre or ‘Crabs,’ but prefer their other name. They will take food from the other subcastes, but these do not return the compliment. Another group in the Sohāgpur Tahsīl of Hoshangābād are the Lilorhia Gūjars. They say that their ancestors were grazing calves when some of them with their herdsmen were stolen by Brahma. Then Krishna created fresh cowherds and the Lilorhias were made from the sweat of his forehead (lilat). Afterwards Brahma restored the original cowherds, who were known as Murelia, because they were the first players on the murli or flute.126 The Badgūjars or highest branch of the clan are descendants of these Murelias. The caste have also a set of exogamous groups, several of which bear the names of Rājpūt clans, while others are called after villages, titles or nicknames or natural objects. A man is not permitted to marry any one belonging either to his own sept or that of his mother or grandmother.