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

5. Marriage

At a Gūjar wedding four plough-yokes are laid out to form a square under the marriage booth, with a copper pot full of water in the centre. At the auspicious moment the bride’s hand is placed on that of the bridegroom, and the two walk seven times round the pot, the bridegroom leading for the first four rounds and the bride for the last three. Widows are allowed to remarry, and, as girls are rather scarce in the caste, a large price is often paid for the widow to her father or guardian, though this is not willingly admitted. As much as Rs. 3000 is recorded to have been paid. A widow marriage is known as Nātra or Pāt. A woman is forbidden to marry any relative of her first husband. When the marriage of a widow is to take place a fee of Rs. 1–4 must be paid to the village proprietor to obtain his consent. The Gūjars of the Bulandshahr District of the United Provinces furnish, Mr. Crooke says,127 perhaps the only well-established instance of polyandry among the Hindus of the plains. Owing to the scarcity of women in the caste it was customary for the wife of one brother, usually the eldest, to be occasionally at the disposal of other unmarried brothers living in the house. The custom arose owing to the lack of women caused by the prevalence of female infanticide, and now that this has been stopped it is rapidly dying out, while no trace of it is believed to exist in the Central Provinces.

6. Disposal of the dead

The bodies of unmarried persons are buried, and also of those who die of any epidemic disease. Others are cremated. The funeral of an elderly man of good means and family is an occasion for great display. A large feast is given and the Brāhman priests of the caste go about inviting all the Gūjars to attend. Sometimes the number of guests rises to three or four thousand. At the conclusion of the feast one of the hosts claps his hands and all the guests then get up and immediately depart without ceremony or saying farewell. Such an occasion is known as Gūjarwāda, and the Gūjars often spend as much, or more, on a funeral as on a wedding, in the belief that the outlay is of direct benefit to the dead man’s spirit. This idea is inculcated and diligently fostered by the family priests and those Brāhmans who receive gifts for the use of the dead, the greed of these cormorants being insatiable.

7. Religion

The household goddess of the caste is known as Kul Devi, the word kul meaning family. To her a platform is erected inside the house, and she must be worshipped by the members of the family alone, no stranger being present. Offerings of cocoanuts, rice, turmeric and flowers are made to her, but no animal sacrifices. When a son of the family dies unmarried, an image of him, known as Mujia, is made on a piece of silver, copper or brass, and is worshipped on Mondays and Fridays during the month of Māgh (January). On one of these days also a feast is given to the caste. Each member of the caste has a guru or spiritual preceptor, who visits him every second or third year and receives a small present of a cocoanut or a piece of cloth. But he does not seem to perform any duties. The guru may belong to any of the religious mendicant castes. A man who is without a guru is known as Nugra and is looked down on. To meet him in the morning is considered unlucky and portends misfortune. Sir C. Elliot128 characterised the Mundle Gūjars as “A very religious race; they never plough on the new moon nor on the 8th of the month, because it is Krishna’s birthday. Their religious and social head is the Mahant of the Rāmjidās temple at Hoshangābād.” In Nimār many of the Gūjars belong to the Pīrzāda sect, which is a kind of reformed creed, based on a mixture of Hinduism and Islām.

8. Character

The Gūjars wear the dress of northern India and their women usually have skirts (lahenga) and not sāris or body-cloths. Married women have a number of strings of black beads round the neck and widows must change these for red ones. As a rule neither men nor women are tattooed. The men sometimes have their hair long and wear beards and whiskers. The Gūjars are now considered the best cultivators of the Nimār District. They are fond of irrigation and sink unfaced wells to water their land and get a second crop off it. They are generally prosperous and make good landlords. Members of the caste have the custom of lending and borrowing among themselves and not from outsiders, and this no doubt conduces to mutual economy and solvency. Like keen cultivators elsewhere, such as the Panwārs and Kurmis, the Gūjar sets store by having a good house and good cattle. The return from a Mundle Gūjar’s wedding, Captain Forsyth wrote,129 is a sight to be seen. Every Gūjar from far and near has come with his whole family in his best bullock-cart gaily ornamented, and, whatever the road may be, nothing but a smash will prevent a breakneck race homewards at full gallop, cattle which have won in several such races acquiring a much coveted reputation throughout the District.

Gurao

1. Origin of the caste

Gurao.130—A caste of village priests of the temples of Mahādeo in the Marātha Districts. They numbered about 14,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār in 1911. The Guraos say that they were formerly Brāhmans and worshippers of Siva, but for some negligence or mistake in his ritual they were cursed by the god and degraded from the status of Brāhmans, though subsequently the god relented and permitted them to worship him and take the offerings made to him.

Guraos with figures made at the Holi festival called Gangour

It is related that a certain Brāhman, who was a votary of Siva, had to go on a journey. He left his son behind and strictly enjoined on him to perform the worship of the god at midday. The son had bathed and purified himself for this purpose, when shortly before midday his wife came to him and so importuned him to have conjugal intercourse with her that he was obliged to comply. It was then midday and in his impure condition the son went to the shrine of the god to worship him. But Siva cursed him and said that his descendants should be degraded from the status of Brāhmans, though he afterwards relented so far as to permit of their continuing to act as his priests; and this was the origin of the Guraos. It seems doubtful, however, whether the caste are really of Brāhman origin. They were formerly village priests, and Grant-Duff gives the Gurao as one of the village menials in the Marātha villages. They have the privilege of taking the Naivedya or offerings of cooked food made to the god Mahādeo, which Brāhmans will not accept. They also sell leaf-plates and flowers and bel leaves131 which are offered at the temples of Mahādeo; and on the festival of Shivrātri and during the month of Shrāwan (July) they take round the bel leaves which the cultivators require for their offerings and receive presents in return. In Wardha the Guraos get small gifts of grain from the cultivators at seed-time and harvest. They also act as village musicians and blow the conch-shell, beat the drum and play other musical instruments for the morning and evening worship at the temple. They play on the cymbals and drums at the marriages of Brāhmans and other high castes. In the Bombay Presidency132 some are astrologers and fortune-tellers, and others make the bāsing or coronet of flowers which the bridegroom wears. Sometimes they play on the drum or fiddle for their spiritual followers, the dancing-girls or Kalāvants. When a dancing-girl became pregnant she worshipped the Gurao, and he, in return, placed the missi or tooth-powder made from myrobalans on her teeth. If this was not done before her child was born, a Kalāvantin was put out of caste. In some localities the Guraos will take food from Kunbis. And further, as will be seen subsequently, the caste have no proper gotras or exogamous sections, but in arranging their marriages they simply avoid persons having a common surname. All these considerations point to the fact that the caste is not of Brāhmanical origin but belongs to a lower class of the population. Nevertheless in Wardha they are known as Shaiva Brāhmans and rank above the Kunbis. They may study the Sāma Veda only and not the others, and may repeat the Rudra Gayatri or sacred verse of Siva. Clearly the Brāhmans could not accept the offerings of cooked food made at Siva’s shrine; though the larger temples of this deity have Brāhman priests. It seems uncertain whether Siva or Mahādeo was first a village deity and was subsequently exalted to the position of a member of the supreme Hindu Trinity, or whether the opposite process took place and the Guraos obtained their priestly functions on his worship being popularised. But in any case it would appear that they were originally a class of village priests regarded as the servants of the cultivating community, by whose gifts and offerings they were maintained. Grant-Duff in enumerating the village servants says: “Ninth, the Gurao, who is a Sūdra employed to wash the ornaments and attend the idol in the village temples, and on occasions of feasting to prepare the patraoli or leaves which the Hindus substitute for plates. They are also trumpeters by profession and in this capacity are much employed in Marātha armies.”133

2. Internal structure

The caste has several subdivisions which are principally of a territorial nature, as Warāde from Berār; Jhāde, inhabitants of the forest or rice country; Telanga, of the Telugu country; Dakshne, from the Deccan; Mārwāri, from Mārwār, and so on. Other subcastes are the Ahīr and Jain Guraos, of whom the former are apparently Ahīrs who have adopted the priestly profession, while the Jain Guraos are held in Bombay to be the descendants of Jain temple servants who entered the caste when their own deities were thrown out and their shrines annexed by the votaries of Siva.134 In Bombay, Mr. Enthoven states “That the Koli and Marātha ministrants at the temples of Siva and other deities often describe themselves as Guraos, but they have not formed themselves into separate castes and are members of the general Koli or Marātha community. They cease to call themselves Guraos when they cease to minister at temples.”135 In the Central Provinces one of the subcastes is known as Vājantri because they act as village musicians. The caste have no regular exogamous sections, but a number of surnames which answer the same purpose. These are of a professional type, as Lokhandes, an iron-dealer; Phulzares, a maker of fireworks; Sontake, a gold-merchant; Gaikwād, a cowherd; Nākade, long-nosed, and so on. They say they all belong to the same gotra, Sānkhiāyan, named after Sānkhiāya Rishi, the ancestor of the caste.

3. Marriage and ceremonies of adolescence

Marriage is avoided between persons having the same surname and those within six degrees of descent from a common ancestor whether male or female. The marriage ceremony generally resembles that of the Brāhmans. Before the wedding the bridegroom’s father prepares an image of Siva from rice and til-seed,136 covers it with a cloth and sends it to the bride’s house. In return her mother prepares and sends back a similar image of Gauri, Siva’s consort. Girls are married as infants, and when a woman arrives at adolescence the following ritual is observed: She goes to her husband’s house and is there secluded for three or four days while her impurity lasts. On its termination she is bathed and clothed in a green dress and yellow choli or breast-cloth, and seated in a gaily decked wooden frame. Her lap is filled with wheat and a cocoanut, and her female friends and relatives and father and father-in-law give her presents of sweets and clothes. This is known as the Shāntik ceremony and is practised by the higher castes in the Marātha country. It may continue for as long as sixteen days. Finally, on an auspicious day the bride and bridegroom are given delicate food and dressed in new clothes. The fire sacrifice is offered and they are taken into a room where a bed, the gift of the bride’s parents, has been prepared for them, and left to consummate the marriage. This is known as Garbhādhān. Next day the bride’s parents give new clothes and a feast to the bridegroom’s family; this feast is known as Godai, and after giving it the bride’s parents may eat at their daughter’s house. A girl seduced by a man of the caste may be properly married to him after her parents have performed Prāyaschit or atonement. But if she has a child out of wedlock, he is relegated to the Vidūr or illegitimate group. Even if a girl be seduced by a stranger, provided he be of higher or equal caste, as the Kunbis and Marāthas, she may be taken back into the community.

4. Birth customs

If a child is born at an unlucky season, they take two winnowing-fans and tie the baby between them with a thread wound many times round about. A cow is brought and made to lick the child, which is thus supposed to have been born again from it as a calf, the evil omen of the first birth being removed. The father performs the fire sacrifice, and a human figure is made from cooked rice and worshipped. A burning wick is placed in its stomach and it is taken out and left at cross-roads, this being probably a substitute for the member of the family whose death was presaged by the untimely birth of the child. Similarly if any one dies at the astronomical period known as Panchak, they make five figures of wheat-flour and burn or bury them with the body, as it is thought that otherwise five members of the family would die.

5. The sacred thread

Boys are invested with the sacred thread at the age of five, seven or nine years, and until that time they are considered to be Sūdras and not members of the caste. From a hundred to three hundred rupees may be spent on the investiture. On the day before the ceremony a Brāhman and his wife are invited to take food, and a yellow thread with a mango leaf is tied round the boy’s wrist. The spirits of other boys who died before their thread ceremony was performed and of women of the family who died before their husbands are invited to attend. These are represented by young boys and married women of other families who come to the house and are bathed and anointed with turmeric and oil, and given presents of sugar and new clothes. Next day the initiate is seated on a platform in a shed erected for the purpose and puts on the sacred thread made of cotton and also a strip of the skin of the black-buck with a silk apron and cap. The boy’s father takes him on his lap and whispers or, as the Hindus say, blows the Gāyatri mantra or sacred text into his ear. A sacrifice is performed, and the friends and fellow-castemen of the family make presents to the boy of copper and silver coin. The amount thus given is not used by the parents, but is spent on the boy’s education or on the purchase of an ornament for him. On the conclusion of the ceremony the boy mounts a wooden model of a horse and pretends to set out for Benāres. His paternal uncle then says to him, ‘Why are you going away?’ And the boy replies, ‘Because you have not married me.’ His uncle then promises to find a bride for him and he gives up his project. The part played by the maternal uncle in this ceremony is probably a survival of the period of the matriarchate, when a man’s property descended to his sister’s son. He would thus naturally claim the boy as a husband for his own daughter, and such a marriage apparently became customary and in course of time acquired binding force. And although all recollection of the rule of inheritance through women has long been forgotten, the marriage of a brother’s daughter to a sister’s son is still considered peculiarly suitable, and the idea that it is the duty of the maternal uncle to find a bride for his nephew appears to be simply a development of this. The above account also gives reason for supposing that the investiture with the sacred thread was originally a ceremony of puberty.

Group of Gurao musicians with their instruments

6. Funeral customs

The dead are burnt and the ashes thrown into water or carried to the Ganges. A small piece of gold, two or three small pearls, and some basil leaves are put into the mouth, and flowers, red powder and betel leaves are spread over the corpse. The son or male heir of the deceased walks in front carrying fire in an earthen pot. At a small distance from the burning-ground, when the bearers change places, he picks up a stone, known as the life-stone or jivkhada. This is afterwards buried at the burning-ghāt until the priest comes to effect the purification of the mourners on the tenth day. It is then dug up, set up and worshipped, and thrown into a well. A man is burnt naked; a woman in a robe and bodice. The heads of widows are not shaved as a rule, but on the tenth day after her husband’s death a widow is asked whether she would like her head shaved; if she refuses, the people conclude that she intends to marry again. But if the deceased left no male heir to carry behind his bier the burning wood with which the funeral pyre is to be kindled, then the widow must be shaved before the funeral starts and perform this duty. If there is no male relative and no widow, the pot containing fire is tied to the bier. When the corpse of a woman who has died in child-bed is being carried to the burning-ground various rites are observed to prevent her spirit from becoming a Churel and troubling the living. A lemon charmed by a magician is buried under the corpse and a man follows the body strewing the seeds of rala, while nails are driven into the threshold of the house.137

7. Social position

The caste has now a fairly high social status and ranks above the Kunbis. They abstain from all flesh and from liquor and will take food only from the hands of a Marātha Brāhman, while Kunbis and other cultivating and serving castes will accept food from their hands. They worship Siva principally on Mondays, this day being sacred to the deity, who carries the moon as an ornament on his head, crowning the matted locks from which the Ganges flows.

8. The Jain Guraos

Of the Jain Guraos Mr. Enthoven quotes the following interesting description from the Bombay Gazetteer: “They are mainly servants in village temples which, though dedicated to Brāhmanic gods, have still by their sides broken remains of Jain images. This, and the fact that most of the temple land-grants date from a time when Jainism was the State religion, support the theory that the Jain Guraos are probably Jain temple servants who have come under the influence partly of Lingāyatism and partly of Brāhmanism. A curious survival of their Jainism occurs at Dasahra, Shimga and other leading festivals, when the village deity is taken out of the temple and carried in procession. On these occasions, in front of the village god’s palanquin, three, five or seven of the villagers, among whom the Gurao is always the leader, carry each a long, gaily-painted wooden pole resting against their right shoulder. At the top of the pole is fastened a silver mask or hand and round it is draped a rich silk robe. Of these poles, the chief one, carried by the Gurao, is called the Jain’s pillar, Jainācha khāmb.”

Halba

1. Traditions of the caste

Halba, Halbi.138—A caste of cultivators and farmservants whose home is the south of the Raipur District and the Kānker and Bastar States; from here small numbers of them have spread to Bhandāra and parts of Berār. In 1911 they numbered 100,000 persons in the combined Provinces. The Halbas have several stories relating to their own origin. One of these, reported by Mr. Gokul Prasād, is as follows: One of the Uriya Rājas had erected four scarecrows in his field to keep off the birds. One night Mahādeo and Pārvati were walking on the earth and happened to pass that way, and Pārvati saw them and asked what they were. When it was explained to her she thought that as they had excited her interest something should be done for them, and at her request Mahādeo gave them life and they became two men and two women. Next morning they presented themselves before the Rāja and told him what had happened. The Rāja said, “Since you have come on earth, you must have a caste. Run after Mahādeo and find out what caste you should belong to.” So they ran after the god and inquired of him, and he said that as they had excited his and Pārvati’s attention by waving in the wind they should be called Halba, from halna, to wave. This story is clearly based on one of those fanciful punning derivations so dear to the Brāhmanical mind, but the legend about being created from scarecrows is found among other agricultural castes of non-Aryan origin, as the Lodhis. The story continues that the reason why the Halbas came to settle in Bastar and Kānker was that they had accompanied one of the Rājas of Jagannāth in Orissa, who was afflicted with leprosy, to the Sihāwa jungles, where he proposed to pass the rest of his life in retirement. On a certain day the Rāja went out hunting with his dogs, one of which was quite white. This dog jumped into a spring of water and came out with his white skin changed to copper red. The Rāja, observing this miracle, bathed in the spring himself and was cured of his leprosy. He then wished to return to Orissa, but the Halbas induced him to remain in his adopted country, and he became the ancestor of the Rājas of Kānker. The Halbas are still the household servants of the Kānker family, and when a fresh chief succeeds, one of them, who has the title of Kapardār, takes him to the temple and invests him with the Durbār kī poshak or royal robes, affixing also the tīka or badge of office on his forehead with turmeric, rice and sandalwood, and rubbing his body over with ottar of roses. Until lately the Kapardār’s family had a considerable grant of rent-free land, but this has now been taken away. A Halba is or was also the priest of the temple at Sihāwa, which is said to have been built by the first Rāja over the spring where he was healed of his leprosy. The Halbas are also connected with the Rājas of Bastar, and a suggestion has been made139 that they originally belonged to the Telugu country and came with the Rājas of Bastar from Warangal in the Deccan. Mr. Gilder derives the name from an old Canarese word Halbar or Halbaru, meaning ‘old ones or ancients’ or ‘primitive inhabitants.’ The Halba dialect, however, contains no traces of Canarese, and on the question of their entering Bastar with the Rājas, Rai Bahādur Panda Baijnāth, Diwān of Bastar, writes as follows: In the following saying relating to the coming of the Bastar Rājas, which is often repeated, the Halba’s name does not occur:

Which may be rendered: “The Rāja was of the Chalki race.140 The drum was called Dibdibi. Kosaria Rāwat, Pita Bhatra, Peng Parja and Rāja Muria,141 these four castes came with the Rāja. The tribute paid (to the Rāja) was a comb of tendu wood and a lava quail.” This doggerel rhyme is believed to recall the circumstances of the immigration of the Bastar Rājas. So the Halbas did not perhaps come with the Rāja, but they were his guards for a long time. In the Dasahra ceremony a Halba carried the royal Chhatra or Umbrella, and the Rāja walked under the protection of another Halba’s naked sword. A Halba’s widows were not sold and his intestate property was not taken over by the Rāja.

Ploughing with cows and buffaloes in Chhattīsgarh

2. Halba landowners in Bastar and Bhandāra

Thus the Halbas occupy a comparatively honourable position in Bastar. They are the highest local caste with the exception of the Brāhmans, the Dhākars or illegitimate descendants of Brāhmans, and a few Rājpūt families. The reason for this is no doubt that they have become landholders in the State, a position which it would not be difficult for them to acquire when their only rivals were the Gonds. They are moderately good cultivators, and in Dhamtari can hold their own with Hindus, so that they could well surpass the Gond. Traditions also remain in Bastar of a Halba revolt. It is said that during Rāja Daryao Deo’s reign, about 125 years back, the Halbas rebelled and many were thrown down a waterfall ninety feet high, one only of these escaping with his life. The eyes of some were also put out as a punishment for the oppression they had exercised, and a stone inscription at Donger records the oath of fealty taken by the Halbas before the image of Danteshwari, the tutelary deity of Bastar, after their insurrection was put down in Samvat 1836 or A.D. 1779. The Halbas were thus a caste of considerable influence, since they could attempt to subvert the ruling dynasty. In Bhandāra again the caste have quite a different story, and say that they came from the United Provinces or, according to another version, the Makrai State, where they were of the status of Rājpūts and wore the sacred thread. There a girl of their family, of great beauty, was asked in marriage by a Muhammadan king. The father could not refuse the king, but would not give his daughter in marriage to one not of his own caste. So he fled south and took asylum with the Gond Rāja of Chānda, from whom the Halba zamīndārs subsequently received their estates. It seems unnecessary to attach any importance to this story; the tale of the beautiful daughter is most hackneyed, and the whole has probably been devised by the Brāhmans to give the Halba zamīndārs of Bhandāra a more respectable ancestry than they could claim if they admitted having come from Bastar, certainly no home of Rājpūts. But if this supposition is correct it is interesting to note how a legend may show a caste as originating in some place with which it never had any connection whatever; and it seems a necessary conclusion that no importance can be attached to such traditions without corroborating evidence.