The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume III Part 21

3. Marriage and other customs.

The social customs of the Injhwars resemble those of the lower Maratha castes. [173] Marriage is forbidden between members of the same sept and first cousins, and a man should also not take a wife from the sept of his brother or sister-in-law. This rule prevents the marriage of two brothers to two sisters, to which there is of course no objection on the ground of affinity. Girls are usually not married until they are grown up; but in places where they have been much subjected to Hindu influences, the Injhwars will sometimes wed an adult girl to a basil plant in order to avoid the stigma of keeping her in the house unmarried. The boy's father goes to make a proposal of marriage, and the girl's father, if he approves it, intimates his consent by washing his visitor's feet. A bride-price of about Rs. 20 is usually paid, which is increased somewhat if the bridegroom is a widower, and decreased if the bride has been seduced before marriage. The marriage is performed by throwing coloured rice over the couple. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted. A bachelor who marries a widow must first go through the ceremony with an arka or swallow-wort plant, this being considered his real marriage. The Injhwars usually bury the dead, and in accordance with Dravidian custom place the corpse in the grave with the feet to the north. When the body is that of a young girl, the face is left exposed as it is carried to the grave. The regular ceremonies are performed for the welfare of the deceased's soul, and they try to ascertain its fate in the next incarnation by spreading flour on the ground overnight and looking in the morning for anything resembling the foot-mark of a human being, animal or bird. On the festival of Akhatij and in the month of Kartik (October) they offer libations to the dead, setting out a large pitcher of water for a male and a small one for a female. On the former they paint five lines of sandalwood to represent a man's caste-mark, and on the latter five splashes of kunku or the red powder which women rub on their foreheads. A burning lamp is placed before the pitchers, and they feed a male Mali or gardener as representative of a dead man and a female for a woman.

4. Occupation and social status.

The Injhwars are generally labourers and cultivators, while the Sonjharias wash for gold. The women of the Maratha or Chandewar subcaste serve as midwives. Their social status is low, and in the forest tracts they will eat snakes and crocodiles, and in fact almost anything except beef. They will admit members of the Brahman, Dhimar (waterman), Mali and Gowari castes into the community on payment of a premium of five to fifteen rupees and a dinner to the caste-fellows. The candidate for admission, whether male or female, must have his head shaved clean. Both men and women can obtain pardon for a liaison with an outsider belonging to any except the most impure castes by giving a feast to the community. To be beaten with a shoe involves temporary excommunication from caste, unless the striker be a Government official, when no penalty is inflicted. If a man kills a cat, he is required to have an image of it made in silver, which, after being worshipped, is presented to a temple or thrown into a river.

Jadam

Jadam. [174]--A branch of the well-known Yadu or Yadava sept of Rajputs which has now developed into a caste in the Nerbudda valley. Colonel Tod describes the Yadu as the most ill.u.s.trious of all the tribes of India, this name having been borne by the descendants of Buddha, progenitor of the Lunar race. The Yadavas were the herdsmen of Mathura, and Krishna was born in this tribe. His son was Bharat, from whom the cla.s.sical name of Bharatavarsha for India is held to be derived. It is related that when Krishna was about to ascend to heaven, he reflected that the Yadavas had multiplied exceedingly and would probably cause trouble to the world after he had left it. So he decided to reduce their numbers, and one day he persuaded one of his companions to dress up as a pregnant woman in jest, and they took him to the hermitage of the saint Durvasa and asked the saint to what the woman would give birth. Durvasa, who was of a very irascible temper, divined that he was being trifled with, and replied that a rice-pestle would be born by which the Yadavas would be destroyed. On the return of the party they found to their astonishment that a pestle had actually, as it were, been born from the man. So they were alarmed at the words of the saint and tried to destroy the pestle by rubbing it on a stone. But as the sawdust of the pestle fell on the ground there sprang up from it the shoots of the Gondla or Elephant gra.s.s, which grows taller than the head of a man on horseback. And some time afterwards a quarrel arose among the Yadavas, and they tore up the stalks of this gra.s.s and slew each other with it. Only one woman escaped, whose son was afterwards the King of Mathura and the ancestor of the existing tribe. Another body, however, with whom was Krishna, fled to Gujarat, and on the coast there built the great temple of Dwarka, in the place known as Jagat Khant, or the World's End. The story has some resemblance to that of the sowing of the dragon's teeth by Cadmus at Thebes. The princ.i.p.al branches of the Yadavas are the Yaduvansi chiefs of Karauli, in Rajputana, and the Bhatti chiefs of Jaisalmer. The Jadams of Hoshangabad say that they immigrated from Karauli State about 700 years ago, having come to the country on a foray for plunder and afterwards settled here. They have now developed into a caste, marrying among themselves. In Hoshangabad the caste has two subdivisions, the Kachhotia who belong princ.i.p.ally to the Sohagpur tahsil, and the Adhodias who live in Seoni and Harda. These two groups are endogamous and do not marry with each other. The Kachhotia are the offspring of irregular unions and are looked down upon by the others. They say that they have fifty-two exogamous groups or sections, but this number is used locally as an expression of indefinite magnitude. All the sections appear to be named after villages where their ancestors once lived, but the preference for totemism has led some of the groups to connect their names with natural objects. Thus the designation of the Semaria section may be held to be derived from a village of that name, both on account of its form, and because the other known section-names are taken from villages. But the Semaria Jadams have adopted the semar or cotton-tree as their totem and pay reverence to this. [175]

Infant-marriage is favoured in the caste, and polygamy is also prevalent. This is often the case among the agricultural castes, where a man will marry several wives in order to obtain their a.s.sistance in his cultivation, a wife being a more industrious and reliable worker than a hired servant. No penalty is, however, imposed for allowing a girl to reach adolescence before marriage, and this not infrequently happens. If a girl becomes with child through a man of the caste she is united to him by a simple rite known as gunda, in which she merely gives him a ring or throws a garland of flowers over his neck. A caste feast is also exacted, and the couple are then considered to be married. The remarriage of widows is permitted, but it is known by the opprobrious name of Kukar-gauna or 'dog-marriage,' signifying that it is held to be little or no better than a simple illicit connection. Divorce is also somewhat common in the caste, notwithstanding that the person who occupies the position of co-respondent must repay to the husband the expenses incurred by him on the marriage ceremony. Some women are known to have had ten or twelve husbands.

The Jadams are proprietors, tenants and labourers, and are reckoned to be efficient cultivators; they plough with their own hands and allow their women to work in the fields. They will also eat food cooked with water in the field, which is against the practice of the higher castes. They eat flesh, including that of the wild pig, and fish, but abstain from liquor, and will take food cooked with water only from Jijhotia or Sanadhya Brahmans who are their family priests. A Brahman will take water from the hands of a Jadam in a metal, but not in an earthen, vessel. Boys are invested with the sacred thread at the time of their wedding, a common practice among the higher agricultural castes, and one pointing to the hypothesis suggested in the article on Gurao that the invest.i.ture with the sacred thread was in its origin a rite of p.u.b.erty. The women wear a peculiar dress know as saw.a.n.g, consisting of a small skirt of about six feet of cloth and a long body-cloth wrapped round the waist and over the shoulders. They also have larger spangles on the forehead than other women. The women of the caste are emanc.i.p.ated to an unusual degree, and it is stated that they commonly accompany their husbands to market for shopping, to prevent them from being cheated. Dr. Hunter describes the Jadam as a brave soldier, but a bad agriculturist; but in the Central Provinces his courage is rated less highly, and a proverb quoted about him is: 'Patta khatka, Jadam satka,' or 'The Jadam trembles at the rustle of a leaf.'

Jadua

Jadua-, Jaduah-Brahman. [176]--This is the name of a cla.s.s of swindlers, who make money by pretending to turn other metals into gold or finding buried treasure. They are believed to have originated from the caste of Bhadris or Jyotishis, the astrologers of western India. The Jyotishi or Joshi astrologers are probably an offshoot of the Brahman caste. The name Jadua is derived from jadu, magic. The Bhadris or Jyotishis were in former times, Mr. Knyvett writes, attached to the courts of all important rajas in western India, where they told fortunes and prophesied future events from their computations of the stars, often obtaining great influence and being consulted as oracles. Readers of Quentin Durward will not need to be reminded that an exactly similar state of things obtained in Europe. And both the European and Indian astrologers were continually searching for the philosopher's stone and endeavouring by the practice of alchemy to discover the secret of changing silver and other metals into gold. It is easy to understand how the more dishonest members of the community would come to make a livelihood by the pretence of being possessed of this power. The Jaduas belong princ.i.p.ally to Bihar, and Mr. Knyvett's account of them is based on inquiries in that Province. But it is probable that, like the Bhadris, travelling parties of Jaduas occasionally visit the Central Provinces. Their method of procedure is somewhat as follows. They start out in parties of three or four and make inquiries for the whereabouts of some likely dupe, in the shape of an ignorant and superst.i.tious person possessed of property. Sometimes they settle temporarily in a village and open a small grain-shop in order to facilitate their search. When the victim has been selected one of them proceeds to his village in the disguise of a Sadhu or anchorite, being usually accompanied by another as his chela or disciple. Soon afterwards the others come, one of them perhaps posing as a considerable landholder, and go about inquiring if a very holy Brahman has been seen. They go to the house of their intended dupe, who naturally asks why they are seeking the Brahman; they reply that they have come to do homage to him as he had turned their silver and bra.s.s ornaments into gold. The dupe at once goes with them in search of the Brahman, and is greatly impressed by seeing the landholder worship him with profound respect and make him presents of cloth, money and cattle. He at once falls into the trap and says that he too has a quant.i.ty of silver which he would like to have turned into gold. The Brahman pretends reluctance, but eventually yields to the dupe's entreaties and allows himself to be led to the latter's house, where with his chela he takes up his quarters in an inner room, dark and with a mud floor. A variety of tricks are now resorted to, to impress the dupe with the magic powers of the swindlers. Sometimes he is directed to place a rupee on his forehead and go to the door and look at the sun for five minutes, being a.s.sured that when he returns the Brahman will have disappeared by magic. Having looked at the sun for five minutes he can naturally see nothing on returning to a dark room and expresses wonder at the Brahman's disappearance and gradual reappearance as his eyes get accustomed to the darkness. Or if the trick to be practised is the production of buried treasure, a rupee may be buried in the ground and after various incantations two rupees are produced from the same spot by sleight of hand. Or by some trickery the victim is shown the mouth of an earthen vessel containing silver or gold coins in a hole dug in the ground. He is told that the treasure cannot be obtained until more treasure has been added to it and religious rites have been performed. Sometimes the victim is made to visit a secluded spot, where he is informed that after repeating certain incantations Sivaji will appear before him. A confederate, dressed in tinsel and paint, appears before the victim posing as Sivaji, and informs him that there is treasure buried in his house, and it is only necessary to follow the instructions of the holy Brahman in order to obtain it. The silver ornaments, all that can be collected, are then made over to the Brahman, who pretends to tie them in a cloth or place them in an earthen pot and bury them in the floor of the room. If buried treasure is to be found the Brahman explains that it is first necessary to bury more treasure in order to obtain it, and if the ornaments are to be turned into gold they are buried for the purpose of trans.m.u.tation. During the process the victim is induced on some pretence to leave the room or cover himself with a sheet, when a bundle containing mud or stones is subst.i.tuted for the treasure. The Brahman calls for ghi, oil and incense, and lights a fire over the place where the ornaments are supposed to be buried, bidding his victim watch over it for some hours or days until his return. The Brahman and his disciple, with the silver concealed about them, then leave the house, join their confederates and make their escape. The duped villager patiently watches the fire until he becomes tired of waiting for the Brahman's return, when he digs up the earth and finds nothing in the cloth but stones and rubbish.

Jangam

Jangam, Jangama.--A Sivite order of wandering religious mendicants. The Jangams are the priests or gurus of the Sivite sect of Lingayats. They numbered 3500 persons in the Central Provinces and Berar in 1911, and frequent the Maratha country. The Jangam is said to be so called because he wears a movable emblem of Siva (jana gama, to come and go) in contradistinction to the Sthawar or fixed emblems found in temples. The Jangams discard many of the modern phases of Hinduism. They reject the poems in honour of Vishnu, Rama and Krishna, such as the Bhagavad Gita and Ramayana; they also deny the authority of Brahmans, the efficacy of pilgrimage and self-mortification, and the restrictions of caste; while they revere princ.i.p.ally the Vedas and the teaching of the great Sivite reformer Shankar Acharya. [177] Like other religious orders, the Jangams have now become a caste, and are divided into two groups of celibate and married members. The Gharbaris (married members) celebrate their weddings in the usual Maratha fashion, except that they perform no hom or fire sacrifice. They permit the remarriage of widows. The Jangams wear ochre-coloured or badami clothes and long necklaces of seeds called rudraksha [178]

beads, which resemble a nutmeg in size, in colour and nearly in shape; they besmear their forehead, arms and various other parts of the body with cowdung ashes. They wear the lingam or phallic sign of Siva either about the neck or loins in a little casket of gold, silver, copper or bra.s.s. As the lingam is supposed to represent the G.o.d and to be eternal, they are buried and not burnt after death, because the lingam must be buried with them and must not be destroyed in the fire. If any Jangam loses the lingam he or she must not eat or drink until it has been replaced by the guru or spiritual preceptor. It must be worshipped thrice a day, and ashes and bel [179] leaves are offered to it, besides food when the owner is about to partake of this himself. The Jangams worship no deity other than Siva or Mahadeo, and their great festival is the Shivratri. Some of them make pilgrimages to Pachmarhi, to the Mahadeo hills. Most of them subsist by begging and singing songs in praise of Mahadeo. Grant-Duff gives the Jangam as one of the twenty-four village servants in a Maratha village, perhaps as the priest of the local shrine of Siva, or as the caste priest of the Lingayats, who are numerous in some Districts of Bombay. He carries a wallet over the shoulder and a conch-sh.e.l.l and bell in the hand. On approaching the door of a house he rings his bell to bring out the occupant, and having received alms proceeds on his way, blowing his conch-sh.e.l.l, which is supposed to be a propitious act for the alms-giver, and to ensure his safe pa.s.sage to heaven. The wallet is meant to hold the grain given to him, and on returning home he never empties it completely, but leaves a little grain in it as its own share. The Jangams are strict vegetarians, and take food only from the hands of Lingayats. They bless their food before eating it and always finish it completely, and afterwards wash the dish with water and drink down the water. When a child is born, the priest is sent for and his feet are washed with water in a bra.s.s tray. The water is then rubbed over the bodies of those present, and a few drops sprinkled on the walls of the house as a ceremony of purification. The priest's great toes are then washed in a cup of water, and he dips the lingam he wears into this, and then sips a few drops of the water, each person present doing the same. This is called karuna or sanctification. He then dips a new lingam into the holy water, and ties it round the child's neck for a minute or two, afterwards handing it to the mother to be kept till the child is old enough to wear it. The dead are buried in a sitting posture, the lingam being placed in the palm of the hand. On the third day a clay image of Mahadeo is carried to the grave, and food and flowers are offered to it, as well as any intoxicants to which the deceased person may have been addicted. The following notice of the Jangams more than a century ago may be quoted from the Abbe Dubois, though the custom described does not, so far as is known, prevail at present, at least in the Central Provinces: [180] "The gurus or priests of Siva, who are known in the Western Provinces by the name of Jangams, are for the most part celibates. They have a custom which is peculiar to themselves, and curious enough to be worth remarking. When a guru travels about his district he lodges with some member of the sect, and the members contend among themselves for the honour of receiving him. When he has selected the house he wishes to stay in, the master and all the other male inmates are obliged, out of respect for him, to leave it and go and stay elsewhere. The holy man remains there day and night with only the women of the house, whom he keeps to wait on him and cook for him, without creating any scandal or exciting the jealousy of the husbands. All the same, some scandal-mongers have remarked that the Jangams always take care to choose a house where the women are young." The Jangams are not given to austerities, and go about well clad.

JAT

List of Paragraphs

1. Theories of the origin of the caste.

2. Sir D. Ibbetson's description of the caste.

3. Are the Jats and Rajputs distinct?

4. The position of the Jat in the Punjab.

5. Social status of the Jats.

6. Brahmanical legend of origin.

7. The Jats in the Central Provinces.

8. Marriage customs.

9. Funeral rites.

10. The Paida ceremony.

11. Customs at birth.

12. Religion.

13. Social customs.

14. Occupation.

1. Theories of the origin of the caste.

Jat. [181]--The representative cultivating caste of the Punjab, corresponding to the Kurmi of Hindustan, the Kunbi of the Deccan, and the Kapu of Telingana. In the Central Provinces 10,000 Jats were returned in 1911, of whom 5000 belonged to Hoshangabad and the bulk of the remainder to Narsinghpur, Saugor and Jubbulpore. The origin of the Jat caste has been the subject of much discussion. Sir D. Ibbetson stated some of the theories as follows: [182] "Suffice it to say that both General Cunningham and Major Tod agree in considering the Jats to be of Indo-Scythian stock. The former identifies them with the Zanthii of Strabo and the Jatii of Pliny and Ptolemy; and holds that they probably entered the Punjab from their home on the Oxus very shortly after the Meds or Mands, who also were Indo-Scythians, and who moved into the Punjab about a century before Christ.... Major Tod cla.s.ses the Jats as one of the great Rajput tribes, and extends his identification with the Getae to both races; but here General Cunningham differs, holding the Rajputs to belong to the original Aryan stock, and the Jats to a later wave of immigrants from the north-west, probably of Scythian race." It is highly probable that the Jats may date their settlement in the Punjab from one of the three Scythian inroads mentioned by Mr. V. A. Smith, [183] but I do not know that there is as yet considered to be adequate evidence to identify them with any particular one.

The following curious pa.s.sage from the Mahabharata would appear to refer to the Jats: [184]

"An old and excellent Brahman reviling the countries Bahika and Madra in the dwelling of Dhritarashtra, related facts long known, and thus described those nations. External to the Himavan, and beyond the Ganges, beyond the Sarasvati and Yamuna rivers and Kurukshetra, between five rivers, and the Sindhu as the sixth, are situated the Bahikas, devoid of ritual or observance, and therefore to be shunned. Their figtree is named Govardhana (i.e. the place of cow-killing); their market-place is Subhadram (the place of vending liquor: at least so say the commentators), and these give t.i.tles to the doorway of the royal palace. A business of great importance compelled me to dwell amongst the Bahikas, and their customs are therefore well known to me. The chief city is called Shakala, and the river Apaga. The people are also named Jarttikas; and their customs are shameful. They drink spirits made from sugar and grain, and eat meat seasoned with garlic; and live on flesh and wine: their women intoxicated appear in public places, with no other garb than garlands and perfumes, dancing and singing, and vociferating indecencies in tones more harsh than those of the camel or the a.s.s; they indulge in promiscuous intercourse and are under no restraint. They clothe themselves in skins and blankets, and sound the cymbal and drum and conch, and cry aloud with hoa.r.s.e voices: 'We will hasten to delight, in thick forests and in pleasant places; we will feast and sport; and gathering on the highways spring upon the travellers, and spoil and scourge them!' In Shakala, a female demon (a Rakshasi) on the fourteenth day of the dark fortnight sings aloud: 'I will feast on the flesh of kine, and quaff the inebriating spirit attended by fair and graceful females.' The Sudra-like Bahikas have no inst.i.tutes nor sacrifices; and neither deities, manes, nor Brahmans accept their offerings. They eat out of wooden or earthen plates, nor heed their being smeared with wine or viands, or licked by dogs, and they use equally in its various preparations the milk of ewes, of camels and of a.s.ses. Who that has drunk milk in the city Yugandhara can hope to enter Svarga? Bahi and Hika were the names of two fiends in the Vipasha river; the Bahikas are their descendants and not of the creation of Brahma. Some say the Arattas are the name of the people and Bahika of the waters. The Vedas are not known there, nor oblation, nor sacrifice, and the G.o.ds will not partake of their food. The Prasthalas (perhaps borderers), Madras, Gandharas, Arattas, Khashas, Vasas, Atisindhus (or those beyond the Indus), Sauviras, are all equally infamous. There one who is by birth a Brahman, becomes a Kshatriya, or a Vaishya, or a Sudra, or a Barber, and having been a barber becomes a Brahman again. A virtuous woman was once violated by Aratta ruffians, and she cursed the race, and their women have ever since been unchaste. On this account their heirs are their sisters'

children, not their own. All countries have their laws and G.o.ds: the Yavanas are wise, and preeminently brave; the Mlechchas observe their own ritual, but the Madrakas are worthless. Madra is the ordure of the earth: it is the region of inebriety, unchast.i.ty, robbery, and murder: fie on the Panchanada people! fie on the Aratta race!"

In the above account the country referred to is clearly the Punjab, from the mention of the five rivers and the Indus. The people are called Bahika or Jarttika, and would therefore seem to be the Jats. And the account would appear to refer to a period when they were newly settled in the Punjab and had not come under Hindu influence. But at the same time the Aryans or Hindus had pa.s.sed through the Punjab and were settled in Hindustan. And it would therefore seem to be a necessary inference that the Jats were comparatively late immigrants, and were one of the tribes who invaded India between the second century B.C. and the fifth century A.D. as suggested above.

2. Sir D. Ibbetson's description of the caste.

Sir D. Ibbetson held that the Jats and Rajputs must be, to some extent at least, of the same blood. Though the Jats are represented in the Central Provinces only by a small body of immigrants it will be permissible to quote the following pa.s.sages from his admirable and cla.s.sical account of the caste: [185]

"It may be that the original Rajput and the original Jat entered India at different periods in its history, though to my mind the term Rajput is an occupational rather than an ethnological expression. But if they do originally represent two separate waves of immigration, it is at least exceedingly probable, both from their almost identical physique and facial character and from the close communion which has always existed between them, that they belong to one and the same ethnic stock; while, whether this be so or not, it is almost certain that they have been for many centuries and still are so intermingled and so blended into one people that it is practically impossible to distinguish them as separate wholes. It is indeed more than probable that the process of fusion has not ended here, and that the people who thus in the main resulted from the blending of the Jat and the Rajput, if these two were ever distinct, is by no means free from foreign elements....

3. Are the Jats and Rajputs distinct?