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The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 3
The Kalangas are at present cultivators and many of them are farmservants. They do not now admit outsiders into the caste, but they will receive the children begotten on any woman by a Kalanga man. They take food cooked without water from a Guria, but katchi food from nobody. Only the lowest castes will take food from them. They drink liquor and eat fowls and rats, but not beef or pork. A man who gets his ear torn is temporarily excluded from caste, and this penalty is also imposed for the other usual offences. A woman committing adultery with a man of another caste is permanently expelled. The Kalangas are somewhat tall in stature. Their features are Dravidian, and in their dress and ornaments they follow the Chhattīsgarhi style.
Kalār
1. Strength of the caste
Kalār, Kalwār.258—The occupational caste of distillers and sellers of fermented liquor. In 1911 the Kalārs numbered nearly 200,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār, or rather more than one per cent of the population; so they are a somewhat important caste numerically. The name is derived from the Sanskrit Kalyapāla, a distiller of liquor.
2. Internal structure
The caste has a number of subdivisions, of which the bulk are of the territorial type, as Mālvi or the immigrants from Mālwa, Lād those coming from south Gujarāt, Daharia belonging to Dāhar or the Jubbulpore country, Jaiswār and Kanaujia coming from Oudh. The Rai Kalārs are an aristocratic subcaste, the word Rai signifying the highest or ruling group like Rāj. But the Byāhut or ‘Married’ are perhaps really the most select, and are so called because they forbid the remarriage of widows, their women being thus married once for all. In Bengal they also decline to distil or sell liquor.259 The Chauske Kalārs are said to be so called because they prohibit the marriage of persons having a common ancestor up to the fourth generation. The name of the Seohāre or Sivahāre subcaste is perhaps a corruption of Somhāre or dealers in Soma, the sacred fermented liquor of the Vedas; or it may mean the worshippers of the god Siva. The Seohāre Kalārs say that they are connected with the Agarwāla Banias, their common ancestors having been the brothers Seoru and Agru. These brothers on one occasion purchased a quantity of mahua260 flowers; the price afterwards falling heavily. Agru sold his stock at a discount and cut the loss; but Seoru, unwilling to suffer it, distilled liquor from his flowers and sold the liquor, thus recouping himself for his expenditure. But in consequence of his action he was degraded from the Bania caste and his descendants became Kalārs. The Jaiswār, Kanaujia and Seohāre divisions are also found in northern India, and the Byāhut both there and in Bengal. Mr. Crooke states that the caste may be an offshoot from the Bania or other Vaishya tribes; and a slight physical resemblance may perhaps be traced between Kalārs and Banias. It may be noticed also that some of the Kalārs are Jains, a religion to which scarcely any others except Banias adhere. Another hypothesis, however, is that since the Kalārs have become prosperous and wealthy they devised a story connecting them with the Bania caste in order to improve their social position.
3. Dandsena Kalārs in Chhattīsgarh
In Chhattīsgarh the principal division of the Kalārs is that of the Dandsenas or ‘Stick-carriers,’ and in explanation of the name they relate the following story: “A Kalār boy was formerly the Mahāprasād or bosom friend of the son of the Rājpūt king of Balod.261 But the Rāja’s son fell in love with the Kalār boy’s sister and entertained evil intentions towards her. Then the Kalār boy went and complained to the Rāja, who was his Phūlbāba,262 the father of his friend, saying, ‘A dog is always coming into my house and defiling it, what am I to do?’ The Rāja replied that he must kill the dog. Then the boy asked whether he would be punished for killing him, and the Rāja said, No. So the next day as the Rājpūt boy was entering his house to get at his sister, the Kalār boy killed him, though he was his dearest friend. Then the Rājpūts attacked the Kalārs, but they were led only by the queen, as the king had said that the Kalār boy might kill the dog. But the Rājpūts were being defeated and so the Rāja intervened, and the Kalārs then ceased fighting as the Rāja had broken his word. But they left Balod, saying that they would drink no more of its waters, which they have not done to this day.”263 And the Kalārs are called Dandsena, because in this fight sticks were their only weapons.
4. Social customs
The marriage customs of the caste follow the ordinary Hindu ritual prevalent in the locality and are not of special interest. Before a Kalār wedding procession starts a ceremony known as marrying the well is performed. The mother or aunt of the bridegroom goes to the well and sits in the mouth with her legs hanging down inside it and asks what the bridegroom will give her. He then goes round the well seven times, and a stick of kāns264 grass is thrown into it at each turn. Afterwards he promises the woman some handsome present and she returns to the house. Another explanation of the story is that the woman pretends to be overcome with grief at the bridegroom’s departure and threatens to throw herself into the well unless he will give her something. The well-to-do marry their daughters at an early age, but no stigma attaches to those who have to postpone the ceremony. A bride-price is not customary, but if the girl’s parents are poor they sometimes receive help from those of the boy in order to carry out the wedding. Matches are usually arranged at the caste feasts, and a Brāhman officiates at the ceremony. Divorce is recognised and widows are allowed to marry again except by the Byāhut subcaste. The Kalārs worship the ordinary Hindu deities, and those who sell liquor revere an earthen jar filled with wine at the Holi festival. The educated are usually Vaishnavas by sect, and as already stated a few of them belong to the Jain religion. The social status of the Kalārs is equivalent to that of the village menials, ranking below the good cultivating castes. Brāhmans do not take water from their hands. But in Mandla, where the Kalārs are important and prosperous, certain Sarwaria Brāhmans who were their household priests took water from them, thus recognising them as socially pure. This has led to a split among the local Sarwaria Brāhmans, the families who did not take water from the Kalārs refusing to intermarry with those who did so.
While the highest castes of Hindus eschew spirituous liquor the cultivating and middle classes are divided, some drinking it and others not; and to the menial and labouring classes, and especially to the forest tribes, it is the principal luxury of their lives. Unfortunately they have not learnt to indulge in moderation and nearly always drink to excess if they have the means, while the intoxicating effect of even a moderate quantity is quickly perceptible in their behaviour.
In the Central Provinces the liquor drunk is nearly all distilled from the flowers of the mahua tree (Bassia latifolia), though elsewhere it is often made from cane sugar. The smell of the fermented mahua and the refuse water lying about make the village liquor-shop an unattractive place. But the trade has greatly profited the Kalārs by the influence which it has given them over the lower classes. “With the control of the liquor-supply in their hands,” Mr. Montgomerie writes, “they also controlled the Gonds, and have played a more important part in the past history of the Chhindwāra District than their numbers would indicate.”265 The Kalār and Teli (oil-presser) are usually about on the same standing; they are the creditors of the poorer tenants and labourers, as the Bania is of the landowners and substantial cultivators. These two of the village trades are not suited to the method of payment by annual contributions of grain, and must from an early period have been conducted by single transactions of barter. Hence the Kalār and Teli learnt to keep accounts and to appreciate the importance of the margin of profit. This knowledge and the system of dealing on credit with the exaction of interest have stood them in good stead and they have prospered at the expense of their fellow-villagers. The Kalārs have acquired substantial property in several Districts, especially in those mainly populated by Gonds, as Mandla, Betūl and Chhindwāra. In British Districts of the Central Provinces they own 750 villages, or about 4 per cent of the total. In former times when salt was highly taxed and expensive the Gonds had no salt. The Kalārs imported rock-salt and sold it to the Gonds in large pieces. These were hung up in the Gond houses just as they are in stables, and after a meal every one would go up to the lump of salt and lick it as ponies do. When the Gonds began to wear cloth instead of leaves and beads the Kalārs retailed them thin strips of cloth just sufficient for decency, and for the cloth and salt a large proportion of the Gond’s harvest went to the Kalār. When a Gond has threshed his grain the Kalār takes round liquor to the threshing-floor and receives a present of grain much in excess of its value. Thus the Gond has sold his birthright for a mess of pottage and the Kalār has taken his heritage. Only a small proportion of the caste are still supported by the liquor traffic, and a third of the whole are agriculturists. Others have engaged in the timber trade, purchasing teak timber from the Gonds in exchange for liquor, a form of commerce which has naturally redounded to their great advantage. A few are educated and have risen to good positions in Government service. Sir D. Ibbetson describes them as ‘Notorious for enterprise, energy and obstinacy. Death may budge, but a Kalār won’t.’ The Sikh Kalārs, who usually call themselves Ahluwālia, contain many men who have attained to high positions under Government, especially as soldiers, and the general testimony is that they make brave soldiers.266 One of the ruling chiefs of the Punjab belongs to this caste. Until quite recently the manufacture of liquor, except in the large towns, was conducted in small pot-stills, of which there was one for a circle of perhaps two dozen villages with subordinate shops. The right of manufacture and vend in each separate one of these stills was sold annually by auction at the District headquarters, and the Kalārs assembled to bid for it. And here instances of their dogged perseverance could often be noticed; when a man would bid up for a licence to a sum far in excess of the profits which he could hope to acquire from it, rather than allow himself to be deprived of a still which he desired to retain.
5. Liquor held divine in Vedic times
Though alcoholic liquor is now eschewed by the higher castes of Hindus and forbidden by their religion, this has by no means always been the case. In Vedic times the liquor known as Soma was held in so much esteem by the Aryans that it was deified and worshipped as one of their principal gods. Dr. Hopkins summarises267 the attributes of the divine wine, Soma, as follows, from passages in the Rig-Veda: “This offering of the juice of the Soma-plant in India was performed thrice daily. It is said in the Rig-Veda that Soma grows upon the mountain Mūjawat, that its or his father is Parjanya, the rain-god, and that the waters are his sisters. From this mountain, or from the sky, accounts differ, Soma was brought by a hawk. He is himself represented in other places as a bird; and as a divinity he shares in the praise given to Indra. It was he who helped Indra to slay Vritra, the demon that keeps back the rain. Indra, intoxicated by Soma, does his great deeds, and indeed all the gods depend on Soma for immortality. Divine, a weapon-bearing god, he often simply takes the place of Indra and other gods in Vedic eulogy. It is the god Soma himself who slays Vritra, Soma who overthrows cities, Soma who begets the gods, creates the sun, upholds the sky, prolongs life, sees all things, and is the one best friend of god and man, the divine drop (īndu), the friend of Indra. As a god he is associated not only with Indra but also with Agni, Rudra and Pushān. A few passages in the later portion of the Rig-Veda show that Soma already was identified with the moon before the end of this period. After this the lunar yellow god was regularly regarded as the visible and divine Soma of heaven represented on earth by the plant.” Mr. Hopkins discards the view advanced by some commentators that it is the moon and not the beverage to which the Vedic hymns and worship are addressed, and there is no reason to doubt that he is right.
The soma plant has been thought to be the Asclepias acida,268 a plant growing in Persia and called hom in Persian. The early Persians believed that the hom plant gave great energy to body and mind.269 An angel is believed to preside over the plant, and the Hom Yast is devoted to its praises. Twigs of it are beaten in water in the smaller Agiari or fire-temple, and this water is considered sacred, and is given to newborn children to drink.270 Dr. Hopkins states, however, that the hom or Asclepias acida was not the original soma, as it does not grow in the Punjab region, but must have been a later substitute. Afterwards again another kind of liquor, sura, became the popular drink, and soma, which was now not so agreeable, was reserved as the priests’ (gods’) drink, a sacrosanct beverage not for the vulgar, and not esteemed by the priests except as it kept up the rite.271
Soma is said to have been prepared from the juice of the creeper already mentioned, which was diluted with water, mixed with barley meal, clarified butter and the flour of wild rice, and fermented in a jar for nine days.272 Sura was simply arrack prepared from rice-flour, or rice-beer.
6. Subsequent prohibition of alcohol
Though in the cold regions of Central Asia the cheering and warming liquor had been held divine, in the hot plains of India the evil effects of alcohol were apparently soon realised. “Even more bold is the scorn of the gods in Hymn x. 119 of the Rig-Veda, which introduces Indra in his merriest humour, ready to give away everything, ready to destroy the earth and all that it contains, boasting of his greatness in ridiculous fashion—all this because, as the refrain tells us, he is in an advanced state of intoxication caused by excessive appreciation of the soma offered to him. Another Hymn (vii. 103) sings of the frogs, comparing their voices to the noise of a Brāhmanical school and their hopping round the tank to the behaviour of drunken priests celebrating a nocturnal offering of soma.”273 It seems clear, therefore, that the evil effects of drunkenness were early realised, and led to a religious prohibition of alcohol. Dr. Rājendra Lāl Mitra writes:274 “But the fact remains unquestioned that from an early period the Hindus have denounced in their sacred writings the use of wine as sinful, and two of their greatest law-givers, Manu and Yajnavalkya, held that the only expiation meet for a Brāhman who had polluted himself by drinking spirit was suicide by a draught of spirit or water or cow’s urine or milk, in a boiling state taken in a burning hot metal pot. Angira, Vasishtha and Paithūrasi restricted the drink to boiling spirits alone. Dewala went a step farther and prescribed a draught of molten silver, copper or lead as the most appropriate.... Manu likewise provides for the judicial cognisance of such offences by Brāhmans, and ordains excommunication, and branding on the forehead the figure of a bottle as the most appropriate punishment.”
7. Spirits habitually drunk in ancient times
Nevertheless the consumption of alcohol was common in classical times. Bhāradwāja, a great sage, offered wine to Bhārata and his soldiers when they spent a night under his roof.275 When Sīta crossed the Ganges on her way to the southern wilderness she begged the river for a safe passage, saying, “Be merciful to me, O Goddess, and I shall on my return home worship thee with a thousand jars of arrack and dishes of well-dressed flesh meat.” When crossing the Jumna she said, “Be auspicious, O Goddess; I am crossing thee. When my husband has accomplished his vow I shall worship thee with a thousand head of cattle and a hundred jars of arrack.” Similarly the companions of Krishna, the Yādavas, destroyed each other when they were overcome by drink; and many other instances are given by Dr. Rājendra Lāl Mitra. The Purānas abound in descriptions of wine and drinking, and though the object of many of them is to condemn the use of wine the inference is clear that there was a widespread malady which they proposed to overcome.276 Pulastya, an ancient sage and author of one of the original Smritis, enumerates twelve different kinds of liquor, besides the soma beer which is not usually reckoned under the head of madya or wine, and his successors have added largely to the list. The twelve principal liquors of this sage are those of the jack fruit, the grape, honey or mead, date-liquor, palm-liquor or toddy, sugarcane-liquor, mahua-liquor, rum and those made from long-pepper, soap-berries and cocoanuts.277 All these drinks were not merely fermented, but distilled and flavoured with different kinds of spices, fruits and herbs; they were thus varieties of spirits or liqueurs. It is probable that without the use of glass bottles and corks it would be very difficult to keep fermented wine for any length of time in the Indian climate. But spirits drunk neat as they were would produce more markedly evil results in a hot country, and would strengthen and accelerate the reaction against alcoholic liquor, which has gone so far that probably a substantial majority at least of the inhabitants of India are total abstainers. To this good result the adoption of Buddhism as stated by Dr. Mitra no doubt largely contributed. This was for some centuries the state religion, and was a strong force in aid of temperance as well as of abstention from flesh. The Sivite revival reacted in favour of liquor drinking as well as of the consumption of drugs. But the prohibition of alcohol has again been a leading tenet of practically all the Vaishnava reforming sects.
8. Drunkenness and divine inspiration
The intoxication of alcohol is considered by primitive people as a form of divine inspiration or possession like epileptic fits and insanity. This is apparently the explanation of the Vedic liquor, Soma, being deified as one of the greatest gods. In later Hindu mythology, Varuni, the goddess of wine, was produced when the gods churned the ocean with the mountain Mandara as a churning-stick on the back of the tortoise, Vishnu, and the serpent as a rope, for the purpose of restoring to man the comforts lost during the great flood.278 Varuni was considered to be the consort of Varūna, the Vedic Neptune.
Similarly the Bacchantes in their drunken frenzy were considered to be possessed by the wine-god Dionysus. “The Aztecs regarded pulque or the wine of the country as bad, on account of the wild deeds which men did under its influence. But these wild deeds were believed to be the acts, not of the drunken man, but of the wine-god by whom he was possessed and inspired; and so seriously was this theory of inspiration held that if any one spoke ill of or insulted a tipsy man, he was liable to be punished for disrespect to the wine-god incarnate in his votary.”279 Sir James Frazer thinks that the grape-juice was also considered to be the blood of the vine. At one time the arrack or rice-beer liquor was also considered by the Hindus as holy and purifying. Siva says to his consort: “Oh, sweet-speaking goddess, the salvation of Brāhmans depends on drinking wine.... No one becomes a Brāhman by repeating the Gāyatri, the mother of the Vedas; he is called a Brāhman only when he has knowledge of Brahma. The ambrosia of the gods is their Brahma, and on earth it is arrack, and because one attains the character of a god (suratva) therefore is arrack called sura.”280 The Sākta Tantras insist upon the use of wine as an element of devotion. The Kaulas, who are the most ardent followers of the Sākta Tantras, celebrate their rites at midnight in a closed room, when they sit in a circle round a jar of country arrack, one or more young women of a lewd character being in the company; they drink, drink and drink until they fall down on the ground in utter helplessness, then rising again they drink in the hope of never having a second birth.281 “I knew a highly respectable widow lady, connected with one of the most distinguished families in Calcutta, who belonged to the Kaula sect, and had survived the 75th anniversary of her birthday, who never said her prayers (and she did so regularly every morning and evening) without touching the point of her tongue with a tooth-pick dipped in a phial of arrack, and sprinkling a few drops of the liquor on the flowers which she offered to her god. I doubt very much if she had ever drunk a wine-glassful of arrack at once in all her life, and certain it is that she never had any idea of the pleasures of drinking; but as a faithful Kaula she felt herself in duty bound to observe the mandates of her religion with the greatest scrupulousness.”282 In this case it seems clear that the liquor was considered to have a purifying effect, which was perhaps especially requisite for the offerings of a widow.
9. Sanctity of liquor among the Gonds and other castes
Similarly the Gonds and Baigas revere the mahua tree and consider the liquor distilled from its flowers as sacred and purificatory. At a Gond wedding the sacred post round which the couple go is made of the wood of the mahua tree. The Bhatras of Bastar also use the mahua for the wedding post, and the Sonkars of Chhattīsgarh a forked branch of the tree. Minor caste offences are expiated among the Gonds by a fine of liquor, and by drinking it the culprit is purified. At a Gond funeral one man may be seen walking with a bottle or two of liquor slung to his side; this is drunk by all the party on the spot after the burial or burning of the corpse as a means of purification. Among the Korwas and other tribes the Baiga or priest protects the village from ghosts by sprinkling a line of liquor all round the boundary, over which the ghosts cannot pass. Similarly during epidemics of cholera liquor is largely used in the rites of the Baigas for averting the disease and is offered to the goddess. At their weddings the Mahārs drink together ceremoniously, a pot of liquor being placed on a folded cloth and all the guests sitting round it in a circle. An elder man then lays a new piece of cloth on the pot and worships it. He takes a cup of the liquor himself and hands round a cupful to every person present. At the Hareli or festival of the new green vegetation in July the Gonds take the branches of four kinds of trees and place them at the corners of their fields and also inside the house over the door. They pour ghī (butter) on the fire as incense and an offering to the deities. Then they go to the meeting-place of the village and there they all take a bottle or two of liquor each and drink together, having first thrown a little on the ground as an offering. Then they invite each other to their houses to take food. The Baigas do not observe Hareli, but on any moonlight night in Shrāwan (July) they will go to the field where they have sown grain and root up a few plants and bring them to the house, and, laying them on a clean place, pour ghī and a little liquor over them. Then they take the corn plants back to the field and replace them. For these rites and for offerings to the deities of disease the Gonds say that the liquor should be distilled at home by the person who offers the sacrifice and not purchased from the Government contractor. This is a reason or at any rate an excuse for the continuance of the practice of illicit distillation. Hindus generally make a libation to Devi before drinking liquor. They pour a little into their hand and sprinkle it in a circle on the ground, invoking the goddess. The palm-tree is also held sacred on account of the tāri or toddy obtained from it. “The shreds of the holy palm-tree, holy because liquor-yielding, are worn by some of the early Konkan tribes and by some of the Konkan village gods. The strip of palm-leaf is the origin of the shape of one of the favourite Hindu gold bracelet patterns.”283