II

SUBCASTES

417

have been initiated with the Saksenas of northern India, with the result that intermarriage is to be resumed between the two sections.

(c) The Bhatnagar take their name from the old town of Bhātner, near Bikaner. They are divided into the Vaishya or Kadīm, of pure descent, and the Gaur, who are apparently the offspring of intermarriage with the Gaur subcaste.

(d) Ambastha or Amisht. These are said to have settled on the Girnar hill, and to take their name from their worship of the goddess Ambāji or Amba Devi. Mr. Crooke suggests that they may be connected with the old Ambastha caste who were noted for their skill in medicine. The practice of surgery is the occupation of some Kayasths.1 also supposed that the names may come from the Ameth pargana of Oudh. The Ambastha Kayasths are chiefly found in south Bihār, where they are numerous and influential.2

(e) Ashthana or Aithāna. This is an Oudh subcaste. They have two groups, the Pūrabi or eastern, who are found in Jaunpur and its neighbourhood, and the Pachhauri or western, who live in or about Lucknow.

(f) Balmik or Vālmīki. These are a subcaste of western India. Bālmīk or Valmik was the traditional author of the Rāmāyana, but they do not trace their descent from him. The name may have some territorial meaning. The Valmiki are divided into three endogamous groups according as they live in Bombay, Cutch or Surat.

(g) The Mathur subcaste are named after Mathura or Muttra. They are also split into the local groups Dihlawi of Delhi, Katchi of Cutch and Lachauli of Jodhpur.

(h) The Kulsreshtha or 'well-born' Kāyasths belong chiefly to the districts of Agra and Etah. They are divided into the Bārakhhera, or those of twelve villages, and the Chha Khera of six villages.

(2) The Suryadhwaja subcaste belong to Ballia, Ghāzipur and Bijnor. Their origin is obscure. They profess excessive purity, and call themselves Sakadwīpi or Scythian Brahmans.

1 Tribes and Castes, art. Kāyasth.
2 Bhattacharya, loc. cit.,
p. 188.

VOL. III

2 E

8. Exogamy.

9. Mar

riage

customs.

(k) The Karan subcaste belong to Bihār, and have two local divisions, the Gayawale from Gaya, and the Tirhutia from Tirhut.

(1) The Gaur Kayasths, like the Gaur Brahmans and Rājpūts, apparently take their name from Gaur or Lakhnauti, the old kingdom of Bengal. They have the Khare and Dusre subdivisions, and also three local groups named after Bengal, Delhi and Budaun.

(m) The Nigum subcaste, whose name is apparently the same as that of the Nikumbh Rājpūts, are divided into two endogamous groups, the Kadīm or old, and the Unāya, or those coming from Unao. Sometimes the Unaya are considered as a separate thirteenth subcaste of mixed descent.

Educated Kayasths now follow the standard rule of exogamy, which prohibits marriage between persons within five degrees of affinity on the female side and seven on the male. That is, persons having a common grandparent on the female side cannot intermarry, while for those related through males the prohibition extends a generation further back. This is believed to be the meaning of the rule but it is not quite clear. In Damoh the Srivastab Kayasths still retain exogamous sections which are all named after places in the United Provinces, as Hamirpur ki baink (section), Lucknowbar, Kāshi ki Pānde (a wise man of Benāres), Partābpūria, Cawnpore-bar, Sultānpuria and so on. They say that the ancestors of these sections were families who came from the above places in northern India, and settled in Damoh; here they came to be known by the places from which they had immigrated, and so founded new exogamous sections. A man cannot marry in his own section, or that of his mother or grandmother. In the Central Provinces a man may marry two sisters, but in northern India this is prohibited.

Marriage may be infant or adult, and, as in many places husbands are difficult to find, girls occasionally remain unmarried till nearly twenty, and may also be mated to boys younger than themselves. In northern India a substantial bridegroom-price is paid, which increases for a well-educated boy, but this custom is not so well established in the Central

II

MARRIAGE SONGS

419

Provinces. However, in Damoh it is said that a sum of
Rs. 200 is paid to the bridegroom's family. The marriage
ceremony is performed according to the proper ritual for the
highest or Brahma form of marriage recognised by Manu
with Vedic texts. When the bridegroom arrives at the
bride's house he is given sherbet to drink. It is said that
he then stands on a pestle, and the bride's mother throws
wheat-flour balls to the four points of the compass, and
shows the bridegroom a miniature plough, a grinding pestle,
a churning-staff and an arrow, and pulls his nose. The
bridegroom's struggles to prevent his mother-in-law pulling
his nose are the cause of much merriment, while the two
parties afterwards have a fight for the footstool on which he
stands.1
An image of a cow in flour is then brought, and
the bridegroom pierces its nostrils with a little stick of gold.
Kayasths do not pierce the nostrils of bullocks themselves,
but these rites perhaps recall their dependence on agriculture
in their capacity of village accountants.

After the wedding the bridegroom's father takes various
kinds of fruit, as almonds, dates and raisins, and fills the
bride's lap with them four times, finally adding a cocoanut
and a rupee.
This is a ceremony to induce fertility, and
the cocoanut perhaps represents a child.

The following are some specimens of songs sung at 10. Marweddings. The first is about Rāma's departure from Ajodhia riage

when he went to the forests:

Now Hari (Rāma) has driven his chariot forth to the jungle.

His father and mother are weeping.

Kaushilya 2 stood up and said, 'Now, whom shall I call my diamond

and my ruby?'

Dasrath went to the tower of his palace to see his son ;

As Rama's chariot set forth under the shade of the trees, he wished that he might die.

Bharat ran after his brother with naked feet.

He said, 'Oh brother, you are going to the forest, to whom do you give the kingdom of Oudh ?'

Rāma said, 'When fourteen years have passed away I shall come back from the jungles. Till then I give the kingdom to you.'

The following is a love dialogue :

1 Hindus of Gujarāt, p. 72.

2 Dasrath and Kaushilya were the father and mother of Rāma.

songs.

II. Social rules.

Make a beautiful garden for me to see my king.
In that garden what flowers shall I set?
Lemons, oranges, pomegranates, figs.

In that garden what music shall there be?

A tambourine, a fiddle, a guitar and a dancing girl.

In that garden what attendants shall there be?

A writer, a supervisor, a secretary for writing letters.1

The next is a love-song by a woman :

How has your countenance changed, my lord?
Why speak you not to your slave?

If I were a deer in the forest and you a famous warrior, would you not shoot me with your gun?

If I were a fish in the water and you the son of a fisherman, would you not catch me with your drag-net?

If I were a cuckoo in the garden and you the gardener's son, would you not trap me with your liming-stick?

The last is a dialogue between Rādha and Krishna. Radha with her maidens was bathing in the river when Krishna stole all their clothes and climbed up a tree with them. Girdhari is a name of Krishna :

R. You and I cannot be friends, Girdhāri; I am wearing a silk-
embroidered cloth and you a black blanket.

You are the son of old Nānd, the shepherd, and I am a princess of
Mathura.

You have taken my clothes and climbed up a kadamb tree.
naked in the river.

I am

K. I will not give you your clothes till you come out of the water.
R. If I come out of the water the people will laugh and clap at me.
All my companions seeing your beauty say, 'You have vanquished us ;
we are overcome.'

Polygamy is permitted but is seldom resorted to, except
for the sake of offspring. Neither widow-marriage nor
divorce are recognised, and either a girl or married woman
is expelled from the caste if detected in a liaison.
A man
may keep a woman of another caste if he does not eat from
her hand nor permit her to eat in the chauk or purified
place where he and his family take their meals. The prac-
tice of keeping women was formerly common but has now
been largely suppressed. Women of all castes were kept
except Brahmans and Kāyasths. Illegitimate children were
known as Dogle or Surait and called Kayasths, ranking as

1 These are the occupations of the Kayasths.

II

RELIGION-SOCIAL CUSTOMS

421

an inferior group of the caste. And it is not unlikely that in the past the descendants of such irregular unions have been admitted to the Dūsre or lower branch of the different subcastes.

customs.

During the seventh month of a woman's pregnancy a 12. Birth dinner is given to the caste-fellows and songs are sung. After this occasion the woman must not go outside her own village, nor can she go to draw water from a well or to bathe in a tank. She can only go into the street or to another house in her own village.

On the sixth day after a birth a dinner is given to the caste and songs are sung. The women bring small silver coins or rupees and place them in the mother's lap. The occasion of the first appearance of the signs of maturity in a girl is not observed at all if she is in her father's house. But if she has gone to her father-in-law's house, she is dressed in new clothes, her hair after being washed is tied up, and she is seated in the chauk or purified space, while the women come and sing songs.

The Kayasths venerate the ordinary Hindu deities. 13. Religion. They worship Chitragupta, their divine ancestor, at weddings and at the Holi and Diwali festivals. Twice a year they venerate the pen and ink, the implements of their profession, to which they owe their great success. The patwaris in Hoshangābād formerly received small fees, known as diwat puja, from the cultivators for worshipping the ink-bottle on their behalf, presumably owing to the idea that, if neglected, it might make a malicious mistake in the record of their rights.

The dead are burnt, and the proper offerings are made 14. Social on the anniversaries, according to the prescribed Hindu customs. ritual. Kayasth names usually end in Prasad, Singh, Baksh, Sewak, and Lala in the Central Provinces. Lala, which is a term of endearment, is often employed as a synonym for the caste. Dāda or uncle is a respectful term of address for Kayasths. Two names are usually given to a boy, one for ceremonial and the other for ordinary use.

The Kayasths will take food cooked with water from Brāhmans, and that cooked without water (pakki) from Rājpūts and Banias. Some Hindustāni Brāhmans, as well