The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 4

4. Diffusion of the Panwārs over India

After this they spread to various places in northern India, and to the Central Provinces and Bombay. The modern state of Dhār is or was recently still held by a Panwār family, who had attained high rank under the Marāthas and received it as a grant from the Peshwa. Malcolm considered them to be the descendants of Rājpūt emigrants to the Deccan. He wrote of them:384 “In the early period of Marātha history the family of Puār appears to have been one of the most distinguished. They were of the Rājpūt tribe, numbers of which had been settled in Mālwa at a remote era; from whence this branch had migrated to the Deccan. Sivaji Puār, the first of the family that can be traced in the latter country, was a landholder; and his grandsons, Sambaji and Kāloji, were military commanders in the service of the celebrated Sivaji. Anand Rao Puār was vested with authority to collect the Marātha share of the revenue of Mālwa and Gujarāt in 1734, and he soon afterwards settled at Dhār, which province, with the adjoining districts and the tributes of some neighbouring Rājpūt chiefs, was assigned for the support of himself and his adherents. It is a curious coincidence that the success of the Marāthas should, by making Dhār the capital of Anand Rāo and his descendants, restore the sovereignty of a race who had seven centuries before been expelled from the government of that city and territory. But the present family, though of the same tribe (Puār), claim no descent from the ancient Hindu princes of Mālwa. They have, like all the Kshatriya tribes who became incorporated with the Marāthas, adopted even in their modes of thinking the habits of that people. The heads of the family, with feelings more suited to chiefs of that nation than Rājpūt princes, have purchased the office of patel or headman in some villages in the Deccan; and their descendants continue to attach value to their ancient, though humble, rights of village officers in that quarter. Notwithstanding that these usages and the connections they formed have amalgamated this family with the Marāthas, they still claim, both on account of their high birth and of being officers of the Rāja of Satāra (not of the Peshwa), rank and precedence over the houses of Sindhia and Holkar; and these claims, even when their fortunes were at the lowest ebb, were always admitted as far as related to points of form and ceremony.” The great Marātha house of Nimbhālkar is believed to have originated from ancestors of the Panwār Rājpūt clan. While one branch of the Panwārs went to the Deccan after the fall of Dhār and marrying with the people there became a leading military family of the Marāthas, the destiny of another group who migrated to northern India was less distinguished. Here they split into two, and the inferior section is described by Mr. Crooke as follows:385 “The Khidmatiā, Barwār or Chobdār are said to be an inferior branch of the Panwārs, descended from a low-caste woman. No high-caste Hindu eats food or drinks water touched by them.” According to the Ain-i-Akbari386 a thousand men of the sept guarded the environs of the palace of Akbar, and Abul Fazl says of them: “The caste to which they belong was notorious for highway robbery, and former rulers were not able to keep them in check. The effective orders of His Majesty have led them to honesty; they are now famous for their trustworthiness. They were formerly called Māwis. Their chief has received the title of Khidmat Rao. Being near the person of His Majesty he lives in affluence. His men are called Khidmatias.” Thus another body of Panwārs went north and sold their swords to the Mughal Emperor, who formed them into a bodyguard. Their case is exactly analogous to that of the Scotch and Swiss Guards of the French kings. In both cases the monarch preferred to entrust the care of his person to foreigners, on whose fidelity he could the better rely, as their only means of support and advancement lay in his personal favour, and they had no local sympathies which could be used as a lever to undermine their loyalty. Buchanan states that a Panwār dynasty ruled for a considerable period over the territory of Shāhabād in Bengal. And Jagdeo Panwār was the trusted minister of Sidhrāj, the great Solanki Rāja of Gujarāt. The story of the adventures of Jagdeo and his wife when they set out together to seek their fortune is an interesting episode in the Rāsmāla. In the Punjab the Panwārs are found settled up the whole course of the Sutlej and along the lower Indus, and have also spread up the Biās into Jalandhar and Gurdāspur.387

5. The Nāgpur Panwārs

While the above extracts have been given to show how the Panwārs migrated from Dhār to different parts of India in search of fortune, this article is mainly concerned with a branch of the clan who came to Nāgpur, and subsequently settled in the rice country of the Wainganga Valley. At the end of the eleventh century Nāgpur appears to have been held by a Panwār ruler as an appanage of the kingdom of Mālwa.388 It has already been seen how the kings of Mālwa penetrated to Berār and the Godāvari, and Nāgpur may well also have fallen to them. Mr. Muhammad Yūsuf quotes an inscription as existing at Bhāndak in Chānda of the year A.D. 1326, in which it is mentioned that the Panwār of Dhār repaired a statue of Jag Nārāyan in that place.389 Nothing more is heard of them in Nāgpur, and their rule probably came to an end with the subversion of the kingdom of Mālwa in the thirteenth century. But there remain in Nāgpur and in the districts of Bhandāra, Bālāghāt and Seoni to the north and east of it a large number of Panwārs, who have now developed into an agricultural caste. It may be surmised that the ancestors of these people settled in the country at the time when Nāgpur was held by their clan, and a second influx may have taken place after the fall of Dhār. According to their own account, they first came to Nagardhan, an older town than Nāgpur, and once the headquarters of the locality. One of their legends is that the men who first came had no wives, and were therefore allowed to take widows of other castes into their houses. It seems reasonable to suppose that something of this kind happened, though they probably did not restrict themselves to widows. The existing family names of the caste show that it is of mixed ancestry, but the original Rājpūt strain is still perfectly apparent in their fair complexions, high foreheads and in many cases grey eyes. The Panwārs have still the habit of keeping women of lower castes to a greater degree than the ordinary, and this has been found to be a trait of other castes of mixed origin, and they are sometimes known as Dhākar, a name having the sense of illegitimacy. Though they have lived for centuries among a Marāthi-speaking people, the Panwārs retain a dialect of their own, the basis of which is Bagheli or eastern Hindi. When the Marāthas established themselves at Nāgpur in the eighteenth century some of the Panwārs took military service under them and accompanied a general of the Bhonsla ruling family on an expedition to Cuttack. In return for this they were rewarded with grants of the waste and forest lands in the valley of the Wainganga river, and here they developed great skill in the construction of tanks and the irrigation of rice land, and are the best agricultural caste in this part of the country. Their customs have many points of interest, and, as is natural, they have abandoned many of the caste observances of the Rājpūts. It is to this group of Panwārs390 settled in the Marātha rice country of the Wainganga Valley that the remainder of this article is devoted.

Transplanting rice

6. Subdivisions

They number about 150,000 persons, and include many village proprietors and substantial cultivators. The quotations already given have shown how this virile clan of Rājpūts travelled to the north, south and east from their own country in search of a livelihood. Everywhere they made their mark so that they live in history, but they paid no regard to the purity of their Rājpūt blood and took to themselves wives from the women of the country as they could get them. The Panwārs of the Wainganga Valley have developed into a caste marrying among themselves. They have no subcastes but thirty-six exogamous sections. Some of these have the names of Rājpūt clans, while others are derived from villages, titles or names of offices, or from other castes. Among the titular names are Chaudhri (headman), Patlia (patel or chief officer of a village) and Sonwānia (one who purifies offenders among the Gonds and other tribes). Among the names of other castes are Bopcha or Korku, Bhoyar (a caste of cultivators), Pārdhi (hunter), Kohli (a local cultivating caste) and Sahria (from the Saonr tribe). These names indicate how freely they have intermarried. It is noticeable that the Bhoyars and Korkus of Betūl both say that their ancestors were Panwārs of Dhār, and the occurrence of both names among the Panwārs of Bālāghāt may indicate that these castes also have some Panwār blood. Three names, Rahmat (kind), Turukh or Turk, and Farīd (a well-known saint), are of Muhammadan origin, and indicate intermarriage in that quarter.

7. Marriage customs

Girls are usually, but not necessarily, wedded before adolescence. Occasionally a Panwār boy who cannot afford a regular marriage will enter his prospective father-in-law’s house and serve him for a year or more, when he will obtain a daughter in marriage. And sometimes a girl will contract a liking for some man or boy of the caste and will go to his house, leaving her home. In such cases the parents accept the accomplished fact, and the couple are married. If the boy’s parents refuse their consent they are temporarily put out of caste, and subsequently the neighbours will not pay them the customary visits on the occasions of family joys and griefs. Even if a girl has lived with a man of another caste, as long as she has not borne a child, she may be re-admitted to the community on payment of such penalty as the elders may determine. If her own parents will not take her back, a man of the same gotra or section is appointed as her guardian and she can be married from his house.

The ceremonies of a Panwār marriage are elaborate. Marriage-sheds are erected at the houses both of the bride and bridegroom in accordance with the usual practice, and just before the marriage, parties are given at both houses; the village watchman brings the toran or string of mango-leaves, which is hung round the marriage-shed in the manner of a triumphal arch, and in the evening the party assembles, the men sitting at one side of the shed and the women at the other. Presents of clothes are made to the child who is to be married, and the following song is sung:

The mother of the bride grew angry and went away to the mango grove.Come soon, come quickly, Mother, it is the time for giving clothes.The father of the bridegroom has sent the bride a fold of cloth from his house,The fold of it is like the curve of the winnowing-fan, and there is a bodice decked with coral and pearls.

Before the actual wedding the father of the bridegroom goes to the bride’s house and gives her clothes and other presents, and the following is a specimen given by Mr. Muhammad Yūsuf of the songs sung on this occasion:

Five years old to-day is Bāja Bai the bride;Send word to the mother of the bridegroom;Her dress is too short, send for the Koshta, Husband;The Koshta came and wove a border to the dress.

Afterwards the girl’s father goes and makes similar presents to the bridegroom. After many preliminary ceremonies the marriage procession proper sets forth, consisting of men only. Before the boy starts his mother places her breast in his mouth; the maid-servants stand before him with vessels of water, and he puts a pice in each. During the journey songs are sung, of which the following is a specimen:

The linseed and gram are in flower in Chait.391O! the boy bridegroom is going to another country;O Mother! how may he go to another country?Make payment before he enters another country;O Mother! how may he cross the border of another country?Make payment before he crosses the border of another country;O Mother! how may he touch another’s bower?Make payment before he touches another’s bower;O Mother! how shall he bathe with strange water?Make payment before he bathes with strange water;O Mother! how may he eat another’s banwat?392Make payment before he eats another’s banwat;O Mother! how shall he marry another woman?He shall wed her holding the little finger of her left hand.

The bridegroom’s party are always driven to the wedding in bullock-carts, and when they approach the bride’s village her people also come to meet them in carts. All the party then turn and race to the village, and the winner obtains much distinction. The cartmen afterwards go to the bridegroom’s father and he has to make them a present of from one to forty rupees. On arriving at the village the bridegroom is carried to Devi’s shrine in a man’s arms, while four other men hold a canopy over him, and from there to the marriage-shed. He touches a bamboo of this, and a man seated on the top pours turmeric and water over his head. Five men of the groom’s party go to the bride’s house carrying salt, and here their feet are washed and the tīka or mark of anointing is made on their foreheads. Afterwards they carry rice in the same manner and with this is the wedding-rice, coloured yellow with turmeric and known as the Lagun-gāth. Before sunset the bridegroom goes to the bride’s house for the wedding. Two baskets are hung before Dulha Deo’s shrine inside the house, and the couple are seated in these with a cloth between them. The ends of their clothes are knotted, each places the right foot on the left foot of the other and holds the other’s ear with the hand. Meanwhile a Brāhman has climbed on to the roof of the house, and after saying the names of the bride and bridegroom shouts loudly, ‘Rām nawara, Sīta nawari, Saodhān,’ or ‘Rām, the Bridegroom, and Sīta, the Bride, pay heed,’ The people inside the house repeat these words and someone beats on a brass plate; the wedding-rice is poured over the heads of the couple, and a quid of betel is placed first in the mouth of one and then of the other. The bridegroom’s party dance in the marriage-shed and their feet are washed. Two plough-yokes are brought in and a cloth spread over them, and the couple are seated on them face to face. A string of twisted grass is drawn round their necks and a thread is tied round their marriage-crowns. The bride’s dowry is given and her relatives make presents to her. This property is known as khamora, and is retained by a wife for her own use, her husband having no control over it. It is customary also in the caste for the parents to supply clothes to a married daughter as long as they live, and during this period a wife will not accept any clothes from her husband. On the following day the maid-servants bring a present of gulāl or red powder to the fathers of the bride and bridegroom, who sprinkle it over each other. The bridegroom’s father makes them a present of from one to twenty rupees according to his means, and also gives suitable fees to the barber, the washerman, the Barai or betel-leaf seller and the Bhāt or bard. The maid-servants then bring vessels of water and throw it over each other in sport. After the evening meal, the party go back, the bride and bridegroom riding in the same cart. As they start the women sing:

Let us go to the basket-makerAnd buy a costly pair of fans;Fans worth a lot of money;Let us praise the mother of the bride.

8. Widow-marriage

After a few days at her husband’s house the bride returns home, and though she pays short visits to his family from time to time, she does not go to live with her husband until she is adolescent, when the usual pathoni or going-away ceremony is performed to celebrate the event. The people repeat a set of verses containing advice which the bride’s mother is supposed to give her on this occasion, in which the desire imputed to the caste to make money out of their daughters is satirised. They are no doubt libellous as being a gross exaggeration, but may contain some substratum of truth. The gist of them is as follows: “Girl, if you are my daughter, heed what I say. I will make you many sweetmeats and speak words of wisdom. Always treat your husband better than his parents. Increase your private money (khamora) by selling rice and sugar; abuse your sisters-in-law to your husband’s mother and become her favourite. Get influence over your husband and make him come with you to live with us. If you cannot persuade him, abandon your modesty and make quarrels in the household. Do not fear the village officers, but go to the houses of the patel393 and Pāndia394 and ask them to arrange your quarrel.”

It is not intended to imply that Panwār women behave in this manner, but the passage is interesting as a sidelight on the joint family system. It concludes by advising the girl, if she cannot detach her husband from his family, to poison him and return as a widow. This last counsel is a gibe at the custom which the caste have of taking large sums of money for a widow on her second marriage. As such a woman is usually adult, and able at once to perform the duties of a wife and to work in the fields, she is highly valued, and her price ranges from Rs. 25 to Rs. 1000. In former times, it is stated, the disposal of widows did not rest with their parents but with the Sendia or headman of the caste. The last of them was Karūn Panwār of Tumsar, who was empowered by the Bhonsla Rāja of Nāgpur to act in this manner, and was accustomed to receive an average sum of Rs. 25 for each widow or divorced woman whom he gave away in marriage. His power extended even to the reinstatement of women expelled from the caste, whom he could subsequently make over to any one who would pay for them. At the end of his life he lost his authority among the people by keeping a Dhīmar woman as a mistress, and he had no successor. A Panwār widow must not marry again until the expiry of six months after her husband’s death. The stool on which a widow sits for her second marriage is afterwards stolen by her husband’s friends. After the wedding when she reaches the boundary of his village the axle of her cart is removed, and a new one made of tendu wood is substituted for it. The discarded axle and the shoes worn by the husband at the ceremony are thrown away, and the stolen stool is buried in a field. These things, Mr. Hīra Lāl points out, are regarded as defiled, because they have been accessories in an unlucky ceremony, that of the marriage of a widow. On this point Dr. Jevons writes395 that the peculiar characteristic of taboo is this transmissibility of its infection or contagion. In ancient Greece the offerings used for the purification of the murderer became themselves polluted during the process and had to be buried. A similar reasoning applies to the articles employed in the marriage of a widow. The wood of the tendu or ebony tree396 is chosen for the substituted axle, because it has the valuable property of keeping off spirits and ghosts. When a child is born a plank of this wood is laid along the door of the room to keep the spirits from troubling the mother and the newborn infant. In the same way, no doubt, this wood keeps the ghost of the first husband from entering with the widow into her second husband’s village. The reason for the ebony-wood being a spirit-scarer seems to lie in its property of giving out sparks when burnt. “The burning wood gives out showers of sparks, and it is a common amusement to put pieces in a camp fire in order to see the column of sparks ascend.”397 The sparks would have a powerful effect on the primitive mind and probably impart a sacred character to the tree, and as they would scare away wild animals, the property of averting spirits might come to attach to the wood. The Panwārs seldom resort to divorce, except in the case of open and flagrant immorality on the part of a wife. “They are not strict,” Mr. Low writes,398 “in the matter of sexual offences within the caste, though they bitterly resent and if able heavily avenge any attempt on the virtue of their women by an outsider. The men of the caste are on the other hand somewhat notorious for the freedom with which they enter into relations with the women of other castes.” They not infrequently have Gond and Ahīr girls from the families of their farmservants as members of their households.

9. Religion

The caste worship the ordinary Hindu divinities, and their household god is Dūlha Deo, the deified bridegroom. He is represented by a nut and a date, which are wrapped in a cloth and hung on a peg in the wall of the house above the platform erected to him. Every year, or at the time of a marriage or the birth of a first child, a goat is offered to Dūlha Deo. The animal is brought to the platform and given some rice to eat. A dedicatory mark of red ochre is made on its forehead and water is poured over the body, and as soon as it shivers it is killed. The shivering is considered to be an indication from the deity that the sacrifice is acceptable. The flesh is cooked and eaten by the family inside the house, and the skin and bones are buried below the floor. Nārāyan Deo or Vishnu or the Sun is represented by a bunch of peacock’s feathers. He is generally kept in the house of a Mahār, and when his worship is to be celebrated he is brought thence in a gourd to the Panwār’s house, and a black goat, rice and cakes are offered to him by the head of the household. While the offering is being made the Mahār sings and dances, and when the flesh of the goat is eaten he is permitted to sit inside the Panwār’s house and begin the feast, the Panwārs eating after him. On ordinary occasions a Mahār is not allowed to come inside the house, and any Panwār who took food with him would be put out of caste; and this rite is no doubt a recognition of the position of the Mahārs as the earlier residents of the country before the Panwārs came to it. The Turukh or Turk sept of Panwārs pay a similar worship to Bāba Farīd, the Muhammadan saint of Girar. He is also represented by a bundle of peacock’s feathers, and when a goat is sacrificed to him a Muhammadan kills it and is the first to partake of its flesh.

10. Worship of the spirits of those dying a violent death

When a man has been killed by a tiger (bāgh) he is deified and worshipped as Bāgh Deo. A hut is made in the yard of the house, and an image of a tiger is placed inside and worshipped on the anniversary of the man’s death. The members of the household will not afterwards kill a tiger, as they think the animal has become a member of the family. A man who is bitten by a cobra (nāg) and dies is similarly worshipped as Nāg Deo. The image of a snake made of silver or iron is venerated, and the family will not kill a snake. If a man is killed by some other animal, or by drowning or a fall from a tree, his spirit is worshipped as Ban Deo or the forest god with similar rites, being represented by a little lump of rice and red lead. In all these cases it is supposed, as pointed out by Sir James Frazer, that the ghost of the man who has come to such an untimely end is especially malignant, and will bring trouble upon the survivors unless appeased with sacrifices and offerings. A good instance of the same belief is given by him in Psyche’s Task399 as found among the Karens of Burma: “They put red, yellow and white rice in a basket and leave it in the forest, saying: Ghosts of such as died by falling from a tree, ghosts of such as died of hunger or thirst, ghosts of such as died by the tiger’s tooth or the serpent’s fang, ghosts of the murdered dead, ghosts of such as died by smallpox or cholera, ghosts of dead lepers, oh ill-treat us not, seize not upon our persons, do us no harm! Oh stay here in this wood! We will bring hither red rice, yellow rice, and white rice for your subsistence.”

That the same superstition is generally prevalent in the Central Provinces appears to be shown by the fact that among castes who practise cremation, the bodies of men who come to a violent end or die of smallpox or leprosy are buried, though whether burial is considered as more likely to prevent the ghost from walking than cremation, is not clear. Possibly, however, it may be considered that the bodies are too impure to be committed to the sacred fire.