The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1

“‘It is proposed to promote communion with departed saints among the more advanced Brāhmos. With a view to achieve this object successfully ancient prophets and saints will be taken one after another on special occasions and made the subject of close study, meditation and prayer. Particular places will also be assigned to which the devotees will resort as pilgrims. There for hours together they will try to draw inspiration from particular saints. We believe a spiritual pilgrimage to Moses will be shortly undertaken. Only earnest devotees ought to join.’”

8. Recent history of the Samāj

Keshub Chandar Sen died in 1884, and the Brahmo Samāj seems subsequently to have returned more or less to its first position of pure theism coupled with Hindu social reform. His successor in the leadership of the sect was Bābu P.C. Mazumdār, who visited America and created a favourable impression at the Parliament of Religions at Chicago. Under his guidance the Samāj seems to have gradually drifted towards American Unitarianism, and to have been supported in no slight degree by funds from the United States of America.262 He died in 1905, and left no one of prominent character and attainments to succeed to the leadership. In 1911 the adherents of the different branches of the Samāj numbered at the census only 5500 persons.

9. Character of the movement

The history of the Brahmo Samāj is of great interest, because it was the first attempt at the reform and purification of Hinduism made under the influence of Christianity, the long line of Vaishnavite reformers who strove to abrogate Hindu polytheism and the deadening restrictions of caste, having probably been inspired by the contemplation of Islam. The Samāj is further distinguished by the admirable toleration and broadness of view of its religious position, and by having had for its leaders three men of exceptional character and attainments, two of whom, and especially Keshub Chandar Sen, made a profound impression in England among all classes of society. But the failure of the Samāj to attract any large number of converts from among the Hindus was only what might have been expected. For it requires its followers practically to cut themselves adrift from family and caste ties and offers nothing in return but an undefined theism, not calculated to excite any enthusiasm or strong feeling in ordinary minds. Its efforts at social reform have probably, however, been of substantial value in weakening the rigidity of Hindu rules on caste and marriage.

Dādupanthi Sect. 263

Dādupanthi Sect.—One of the sects founded by Vaishnava reformers of the school of Kabīr; a few of its members are found in the western Districts of the Central Provinces. Dādu was a Pinjāra or cotton-cleaner by caste. He was born at Ahmadabād in the sixteenth century, and died at Nārāyana in the Jaipur State shortly after A.D. 1600. He is said to have been the fifth successor in spiritual inspiration from Kabīr, or the sixth from Rāmānand. Dādu preached the unity of God and protested against the animistic abuses which had grown up in Hinduism. “To this day,” writes Mr. Coldstream, “the Dādupanthis use the words Sat Rām, the True God, as a current phrase expressive of their creed. Dādu forbade the worship of idols, and did not build temples; now temples are built by his followers, who say they worship in them the Dādubani or Sacred Book.” This is what has been done by other sects such as the Sikhs and Dhāmis, whose founders eschewed the veneration of idols; but their uneducated followers could not dispense with some visible symbol for their adoration, and hence the sacred script has been enthroned in a temple. The worship of the Dādupanthis, Professor Wilson says, is addressed to Rāma, but it is restricted to the Japa or repetition of his name, and the Rāma intended is the deity negatively described in the Vedanta theology. The chief place of worship of the sect is Nārāyana, where Dādu died. A small building on a hill marks the place of his disappearance, and his bed and the sacred books are kept there as objects of veneration.

Like other sects, the Dādupanthis are divided into celibate or priestly and lay or householder branches. But they have also a third offshoot, consisting in the Nāga Gosains of Jaipur, nearly naked ascetics, who constituted a valuable part of the troops of Jaipur and other States. It is said that the Nāgas always formed the van of the army of Jaipur. The sect have white caps with four corners and a flap hanging down at the back, which each follower has to make for himself. To prevent the destruction of animal life entailed by cremation, the tenets of the sect enjoin that corpses should be laid in the forests to be devoured by birds and beasts. This rule, however, is not observed, and their dead are burnt at early dawn.

Dhāmi, Prannāthi Sect

Dhāmi, Prannāthi Sect.—A small religious sect or order, having its headquarters in the Panna State of Bundelkhand. A few members of the sect are found in the Saugor and Damoh Districts of the Central Provinces. The name Dhāmi is simply a derivative from dhām, a monastery, and in northern India they are called Prannāthi after their founder. They are also known as Sāthi Bhai, brothers in religion, or simply as Bhai or brothers. The sect takes its origin from one Prannāth, a Rājpūt who lived in the latter part of Aurāngzeb’s reign towards the end of the seventeenth century. He is said to have acquired great influence with Chatra Sāl, Rāja of Panna, by the discovery of a diamond mine there, and on this account Panna was made the home of the sect. Prannāth was well acquainted with the sacred books of Islam, and, like other Hindu reformers, he attempted to propagate a faith which should combine the two religions. To this end he composed a work in Gujarāti called the Kulzam Sarup, in which texts from the Korān and the Vedas are brought together and shown not to be incompatible. His creed also proclaimed the abolition of the worship of idols, and apparently of caste restrictions and the supremacy of Brāhmans. As a test of a disciple’s assent to the real identity of the Hindu and Muhammadan creeds, the ceremony of initiation consists in eating in the society of the followers of both religions; but the amalgamation appears to be carried no further, and members of the sect continue to follow generally their own religious practices. Theoretically they should worship no material objects except the Founder’s Book of Faith, which lies on a table covered with gold cloth in the principal temple at Panna. But in fact they adore the boy Krishna as he was at Mathura, and in some temples there are images of Rādha and Krishna, while in others the decorations are so arranged as to look like an idol from a distance. All temples, however, contain a copy of the sacred book, round which a lighted lamp is waved in the morning and evening. The Dhāmis now say also that their founder Prannāth was an incarnation of Krishna, and they observe the Janam-Ashtami or Krishna’s birthday as their principal festival. They wear the Rādha Vallabhi tilak or sect-mark, consisting of two white lines drawn down the forehead from the roots of the hair, and curving to meet at the top of the nose, with a small red dot between them. On the cheeks and temples they make rosette-like marks by bunching up the five fingers, dipping them in a solution of sandalwood and then applying them to the face.264 They regard the Jumna as a sacred river and its water as holy, no doubt because Mathura is on its banks, but pay no reverence to the Ganges. Their priests observe celibacy, but do not practise asceticism, and all the Dhāmis are strict vegetarians.

There is also a branch of the sect in Gujarāt, where the founder is known as Meherāj Thākur. He appears to have been identical with Prannāth, and instituted a local headquarters at Surat.265 It is related by Mr. Bhimbhai Kirpārām that Meherāj Thākur was himself the disciple of one Deo Chand, a native of Amarkot in Sind. The latter was devoted to the study of the Bhāgwat Purān, and came to Jāmnagar in Kāthiāwār, where he founded a temple to Rādha and Krishna. As there is a temple at Panna consecrated to Deo Chand as the Guru or preceptor of Prannāth, and as the book of the faith is written in Gujarāti, the above account would appear to be correct, and it follows that the sect originated in the worship of Krishna, and was refined by Prannāth into a purer form of faith. A number of Cutchis in Surat are adherents of the sect, and usually visit the temple at Panna on the full-moon day of Kārtik (October). Curiously enough the sect has also found a home in Nepāl, having been preached there, it is said, by missionary Dhāmis in the time of Rāja Rām Bahādur Shāh of Nepāl, about 150 years ago. Its members there are known as Pranāmi or Parnāmi, a corruption of Prannāthi and they often come to Panna to study the sacred book. It is reported that there are usually about forty Nepālis lodging in the premises of the great temple at Panna.266

Jain Religion

[Bibliography: The Jainas, by Dr. J.G. Bühler and J. Burgess, London, 1903; The Religions of India, Professor E.W. Hopkins; The Religions of India, Professor A. Barth; Punjab Census Report (1891), Sir E.D. Maclagan; article on Jainism in Dr. Hastings’ Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.]

1. Numbers and distribution

Jain.—The total number of Jains in the Central Provinces in 1911 was 71,000 persons. They nearly all belong to the Bania caste, and are engaged in moneylending and trade like other Banias. They reside principally in the Vindhyan Districts, Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore, and in the principal towns of the Nāgpur country and Berār.

2. The Jain religion. Its connection with Buddhism

The Jain tenets present marked features of resemblance to Buddhism, and it was for some time held that Jainism was merely a later offshoot from that religion. The more generally accepted view now, however, is that the Jīna or prophet of the Jains was a real historical personage, who lived in the sixth century B.C., being a contemporary of Gautama, the Buddha. Vardhamāna, as he was commonly called, is said to have been the younger son of a small chieftain in the province of Videha or Tirhūt. Like Sakya-Muni the Buddha or enlightened, Vardhamāna became an ascetic, and after twelve years of a wandering life he appeared as a prophet, proclaiming a modification of the doctrine of his own teacher Pārsva or Pārasnāth. From this time he was known as Mahāvīra, the great hero, the same name which in its familiar form of Mahābīr is applied to the god Hanumān. The title of Jīna or victorious, from which the Jains take their name, was subsequently conferred on him, his sect at its first institution being called Nirgrantha or ascetic. There are very close resemblances in the traditions concerning the lives of Vardhamāna and Gautama or Buddha. Both were of royal birth; the same names recur among their relatives and disciples; and they lived and preached in the same part of the country, Bihār and Tirhūt.267 Vardhamāna is said to have died during Buddha’s lifetime, the date of the latter’s death being about 480 B.C.268 Their doctrines also, with some important differences, present, on the whole, a close resemblance. Like the Buddhists, the Jains claim to have been patronised by the Maurya princes. While Asoka was mainly instrumental in the propagation of Buddhism over India, his grandfather Chandragupta is stated to have been a Jain, and his grandson Sampadi also figures in Jain tradition. A district which is a holy land for one is almost always a holy land for the other, and their sacred places adjoin each other in Bihār, in the peninsula of Gujarāt, on Mount Abu in Rājputāna and elsewhere.269 The earliest of the Jain books belongs to the sixth century A.D., the existence of the Nirgrantha sect in Buddha’s lifetime being proved by the Cingalese books of the Buddhists, and by references to it in the inscriptions of Asoka and others.270 While then M. Barth’s theory that Jainism was simply a later sect of Buddhism has been discarded by subsequent scholars, it seems likely that several of the details of Vardhamāna’s life now recorded in the Jain books are not really authentic, but were taken from that of Buddha with necessary alterations, when the true facts about their own prophet had been irrevocably lost.

Jain temples at Muktagiri, Betul

3. The Jain tenets. The Tirthakars

Like the Buddhists, the Jains recognise no creator of the world, and suppose it to have existed from eternity. Similarly, they had originally no real god, but the Jīna or victor, like the Buddha or Enlightened One, was held to have been an ordinary mortal man, who by his own power had attained to omniscience and freedom, and out of pity for suffering mankind preached and declared the way of salvation which he had found.271 This doctrine, however, was too abstruse for the people, and in both cases the prophet himself gradually came to be deified. Further, in order perhaps to furnish objects of worship less distinctively human and to whom a larger share of the attributes of deity could be imputed, in both religions a succession of mythical predecessors of the prophet was gradually brought into existence. The Buddhists recognise twenty-five Buddhas or divine prophets, who appeared at long epochs of time and taught the same system one after another; and the Jains have twenty-four Tirthakārs or Tirthānkars, who similarly taught their religion. Of these only Vardhamāna, its real founder, who was the twenty-fourth, and possibly Pārsva or Pārasnāth, the twenty-third and the founder’s preceptor, are or may be historical. The other twenty-two Tirthakārs are purely mythical. The first, Rishaba, was born more than 100 billion years ago, as the son of a king of Ajodhya; he lived more than 8 million years, and was 500 bow-lengths in height. He therefore is as superhuman as any god, and his date takes us back almost to eternity. The others succeeded each other at shorter intervals of time, and show a progressive decline in stature and length of life. The images of the Tirthakārs are worshipped in the Jain temples like those of the Buddhas in Buddhist temples. As with Buddhism also, the main feature of Jain belief is the transmigration of souls, and each successive incarnation depends on the sum of good and bad actions or karman in the previous life. They hold also the primitive animistic doctrine that souls exist not only in animals and plants but in stones, lumps of earth, drops of water, fire and wind, and the human soul may pass even into these if its sins condemn it to such a fate.272

4. The transmigration of souls

The aim which Jainism, like Buddhism, sets before its disciples is the escape from the endless round of successive existences, known as Samsāra, through the extinction of the karman or sum of actions. This is attained by complete subjection of the passions and destruction of all desires and appetites of the body and mind, that is, by the most rigid asceticism, as well as by observing all the moral rules prescribed by the religion. It was the Jīna or prophet who showed this way of escape, and hence he is called Tirthakār or ‘The Finder of the Ford,’ through the ocean of existence.273 But Jainism differs from Buddhism in that it holds that the soul, when finally emancipated, reaches a heaven and there continues for ever a separate intellectual existence, and is not absorbed into Nirvāna or a state of blessed nothingness.

5. Strict rules against taking life

The moral precepts of the Jains are of the same type as those of Buddhism and Vaishnavite Hinduism, but of an excessive rigidity, at any rate in the case of the Yatis or Jatis, the ascetics. They promise not to hurt, not to speak untruths, to appropriate nothing to themselves without permission, to preserve chastity and to practise self-sacrifice. But these simple rules are extraordinarily expanded on the part of the Jains. Thus, concerning the oath not to hurt, on which the Jains lay most emphasis: it prohibits not only the intentional killing or injuring of living beings, plants or the souls existing in dead matter, but requires also the utmost carefulness in the whole manner of life, and a watchfulness also over all movements and functions of the body by which anything living might be hurt. It demands, finally, strict watch over the heart and tongue, and the avoidance of all thoughts and words which might lead to disputes and quarrels, and thereby do harm. In like manner the rule of sacrifice requires not only that the ascetic should have no houses or possessions, but he must also acquire a complete unconcern towards agreeable or disagreeable impressions, and destroy all feelings of attachment to anything living or dead.274 Similarly, death by voluntary starvation is prescribed for those ascetics who have reached the Kewalin or brightest stage of knowledge, as the means of entering their heaven. Owing to the late date of the Jain scriptures, any or all of its doctrines may have been adopted from Buddhism between the commencement of the two religions and the time when they were compiled. The Jains did not definitely abolish caste, and hence escaped the persecution to which Buddhism was subjected during the period of its decline from the fifth or sixth century A.D. On account of this trouble many Buddhists became Jains, and hence a further fusion of the doctrines of the rival sects may have ensued. The Digambara sect of Jains agree with the Buddhists in holding that women cannot attain Nirvāna or heaven, while the Swetambara sect say that they can, and also admit women as nuns into the ascetic order. The Jain scripture, the Yogashāstra, speaks of women as the lamps that burn on the road that leads to the gates of hell.

6. Jain sects

The Jains are divided into the above two principal sects, the Digambara and the Swetambara. The Digambara are the more numerous and the stricter sect. According to their tenets death by voluntary starvation is necessary for ascetics who would attain heaven, though of course the rule is not now observed. The name Digambara signifies sky-clad, and Swetambara white-clad. Formerly the Digambara ascetics went naked, and were the gymnosophists of the Greek writers, but now they take off their clothes, if at all, only at meals. The theory of the origin of the two sects is that Pārasnāth, the twenty-third Tirthakār, wore clothes, while Mahāvīra the twenty-fourth did not, and the two sects follow their respective examples. The Digambaras now wear ochre-coloured cloth, and the Swetambaras white. The principal difference at present is that the images in Digambara temples are naked and bare, while those of the Swetambaras are clothed, presumably in white, and also decorated with jewellery and ornaments. The Digambara ascetics may not use vessels for cooking or holding their food, but must take it in their hands from their disciples and eat it thus; while the Swetambara ascetics may use vessels. The Digambara, however, do not consider the straining-cloth, brush, and gauze before the mouth essential to the character of an ascetic, while the Swetambara insist on them. There is in the Central Provinces another small sect called Channāgri or Samaiya, and known elsewhere as Dhundia. These do not put images in their temples at all, but only copies of the Jain sacred books, and pay reverence to them. They will, however, worship in regular Jain temples at places where there are none of their own.

Jain ascetics with cloth before mouth and sweeping-brush

7. Jain ascetics

The initiation of a Yati or Jati, a Jain ascetic, is thus described: It is frequent for Banias who have no children to vow that their first-born shall be a Yati. Such a boy serves a novitiate with a guru or preceptor, and performs for him domestic offices; and when he is old enough and has made progress in his studies he is initiated. For this purpose the novice is carried out of the tower with music and rejoicing in procession, followed by a crowd of Srāvakas or Jain laymen, and taken underneath the banyan, or any other tree the juice of which is milky. His hair is pulled out at the roots with five pulls; camphor, musk, sandal, saffron and sugar are applied to the scalp; and he is then placed before his guru, stripped of his clothes and with his hands joined. A text is whispered in his ear by the guru, and he is invested with the clothes peculiar to Yatis; two cloths, a blanket and a staff; a plate for his victuals and a cloth to tie them up in; a piece of gauze to tie over his mouth to prevent the entry of insects; a cloth through which to strain his drinking-water to the same end; and a broom made of cotton threads or peacock feathers to sweep the ground before him as he walks, so that his foot may not crush any living thing. The duty of the Yati is to read and explain the sacred books to the Srāvakas morning and evening, such functions being known as Sandhya. His food consists of all kinds of grain, vegetables and fruit produced above the earth; but no roots such as yams or onions. Milk and ghī are permitted, but butter and honey are prohibited. Some strict Yatis drink no water but what has been first boiled, lest they should inadvertently destroy any insect, it being less criminal to boil them than to destroy them in the drinker’s stomach. A Yati having renounced the world and all civil duties can have no family, nor does he perform any office of mourning or rejoicing.275 A Yati was directed to travel about begging and preaching for eight months in the year, and during the four rainy months to reside in some village or town and observe a fast. The rules of conduct to be observed by him were extremely strict, as has already been seen. Those who observed them successfully were believed to acquire miraculous powers. He who was a Siddh or victor, and had overcome his Karma or the sum of his human actions and affections, could read the thoughts of others and foretell the future. He who had attained Kewalgyan, or the state of perfect knowledge which preceded the emancipation of the soul and its absorption into paradise, was a god on earth, and even the gods worshipped him. Wherever he went all plants burst into flower and brought forth fruit, whether it was their season or not. In his presence no animal bore enmity to another or tried to kill it, but all animals lived peaceably together. This was the state attained to by each Tirthakār during his last sojourn on earth. The number of Jain ascetics seems now to be less than formerly and they are not often met with, at least in the Central Provinces. They do not usually perform the function of temple priest.

8. Jain subcastes of Banias

Practically all the Jains in the Central Provinces are of the Bania caste. There is a small subcaste of Jain Kalārs, but these are said to have gone back to Hinduism.276 Of the Bania subcastes who are Jains the principal are the Parwār, Golapūrab, Oswāl and Saitwāl. Saraogi, the name for a Jain layman, and Charnāgar, a sect of Jains, are also returned as subcastes of Jain Banias. Other important subcastes of Banias, as the Agarwāl and Maheshri, have a Jain section. Nearly all Banias belong to the Digambara sect, but the Oswāl are Swetambaras. They are said to have been originally Rājpūts of Os or Osnagar in Rājputāna, and while they were yet Rājpūts a Swetambara ascetic sucked the poison from the wound of an Oswāl boy whom a snake had bitten, and this induced the community to join the Swetambara sect of the Jains.277

9. Rules and customs of the laity

The Jain laity are known as Shrāwak or Saraogi, learners. There is comparatively little to distinguish them from their Hindu brethren. Their principal tenet is to avoid the destruction of all animal, including insect life, but the Hindu Banias are practically all Vaishnavas, and observe almost the same tenderness for animal life as the Jains. The Jains are distinguished by their separate temples and method of worship, and they do not recognise the authority of the Vedas nor revere the lingam of Siva. Consequently they do not use the Hindu sacred texts at their weddings, but repeat some verses from their own scriptures. These weddings are said to be more in the nature of a civil contract than of a religious ceremony. The bride and bridegroom walk seven times round the sacred post and are then seated on a platform and promise to observe certain rules of conduct towards each other and avoid offences. It is said that formerly a Jain bride was locked up in a temple for the first night and considered to be the bride of the god. But as scandals arose from this custom, she is now only locked up for a minute or two and then let out again. Jain boys are invested with the sacred thread on the occasion of their weddings or at twenty-one or twenty-two if they are still unmarried at that age. The thread is renewed annually on the day before the full moon of Bhādon (August), after a ten days’ fast in honour of Anānt Nāth Tirthakār. The thread is made by the Jain priests of tree cotton and has three knots. At their funerals the Jains do not shave the moustaches off as a rule, and they never shave the choti or scalp-lock, which they wear like Hindus. They give a feast to the caste-fellows and distribute money in charity, but do not perform the Hindu shrāddh or offering of sacrificial cakes to the dead. The Agarwāl and Khandelwāl Jains, however, invoke the spirits of their ancestors at weddings. Traces of an old hostility between Jains and Hindus survive in the Hindu saying that one should not take refuge in a Jain temple, even to escape from a mad elephant; and in the rule that a Jain beggar will not take alms from a Hindu unless he can perform some service in return, though it may not equal the value of the alms.