The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume III Part 22

"But whether Jats and Rajputs were or were not originally distinct, and whatever aboriginal elements may have been affiliated to their society, I think that the two now form a common stock, the distinction between Jat and Rajput being social rather than ethnic. I believe that those families of that common stock whom the tide of fortune has raised to political importance have become Rajputs almost by mere virtue of their rise; and that their descendants have retained the t.i.tle and its privileges on the condition, strictly enforced, of observing the rules by which the higher are distinguished from the lower castes in the Hindu scale of precedence; of preserving their purity of blood by refusing to marry with families of inferior social rank, of rigidly abstaining from widow-marriage, and of refraining from degrading occupations. Those who transgressed these rules have fallen from their high position and ceased to be Rajputs; while such families as, attaining a dominant position in their territory, began to affect social exclusiveness and to observe the rules, have become not only Rajas but also Rajputs or sons of Rajas. For the last seven centuries at least the process of elevation has been almost at a standstill. Under the Delhi Emperors king-making was practically impossible. Under the Sikhs the Rajput was overshadowed by the Jat, who resented his a.s.sumption of superiority and his refusal to join him on equal terms in the ranks of the Khalsa, deliberately persecuted him wherever and whenever he had the power, and preferred his t.i.tle of Jat Sikh to that of the proudest Rajput. On the frontier the dominance of Pathans and Biloches and the general prevalence of Muhammadan feelings and ideas placed recent Indian origin at a discount, and led the leading families who belonged to neither of these two races to claim connection not with the Kshatriyas of the Sanskrit cla.s.sics but with the Mughal conquerors of India or the Qureshi cousins of the Prophet; in so much that even admittedly Rajput tribes of famous ancestry, such as the Khokha, have begun to follow the example. But in the hills, where Rajput dynasties, with genealogies perhaps more ancient and unbroken than can be shown by any other royal families in the world, retained their independence till yesterday, and where many of them still enjoy as great social authority as ever, the twin processes of degradation from and elevation to Rajput rank are still to be seen in operation. The Raja is there the fountain not only of honour but also of caste, which is the same thing in India....

4. The position of the Jat in the Punjab.

"The Jat is in every respect the most important of the Punjab peoples. In point of numbers he surpa.s.ses the Rajput, who comes next to him, in the proportion of nearly three to one; while the two together const.i.tute twenty-seven per cent of the whole population of the Province. Politically he ruled the Punjab till the Khalsa yielded to our arms. Ethnologically he is the peculiar and most prominent product of the plain of the five rivers. And from an economical and administrative point of view he is the husbandman, the peasant, the revenue-payer par excellence of the Province. His manners do not bear the impress of generations of wild freedom which marks the races of our frontier mountains. But he is more honest, more industrious, more st.u.r.dy, and no less manly than they. St.u.r.dy independence indeed and patient, vigorous labour are his strongest characteristics. The Jat is of all Punjab races the most impatient of tribal or communal control, and the one which a.s.serts the freedom of the individual most strongly. In tracts where, as in Rohtak, the Jat tribes have the field to themselves, and are compelled, in default of rival castes as enemies, to fall back upon each other for somebody to quarrel with, the tribal ties are strong. But as a rule a Jat is a man who does what seems right in his own eyes and sometimes what seems wrong also, and will not be said nay by any man. I do not mean, however, that he is turbulent; as a rule he is very far from being so. He is independent and he is self-willed; but he is reasonable, peaceably inclined if left alone, and not difficult to manage. He is usually content to cultivate his fields and pay his revenue in peace and quietness if people will let him do so; though when he does go wrong he takes to anything from gambling to murder, with perhaps a preference for stealing other people's wives and cattle. As usual the proverbial wisdom of the villages describes him very fairly though perhaps somewhat too severely: 'The soil, fodder, clothes, hemp, gra.s.s-fibre, and silk, these six are best beaten; and the seventh is the Jat.' 'A Jat, a Bhat, a caterpillar, and a widow woman; these four are best hungry. If they eat their fill they do harm.' 'The Jat, like a wound, is better when bound.' In agriculture the Jat is pre-eminent. The market-gardening castes, the Arain, the Mali, the Saini are perhaps more skilful cultivators on a small scale; but they cannot rival the Jat as landowners and yeoman cultivators. The Jat calls himself zamindar or 'husbandman' as often as Jat, and his women and children alike work with him in the fields: 'The Jat's baby has a plough-handle for a plaything.' 'The Jat stood on his corn heap and said to the king's elephant-drivers, Will you sell those little donkeys?' Socially the Jat occupies a position which is shared by the Ror, the Gujar, and the Ahir, all four eating and smoking together. He is, of course, far below the Rajput, from the simple fact that he practises widow-marriage. The Jat father is made to say in the rhyming proverbs of the countryside, 'Come, my daughter, and be married; if this husband dies there are plenty more.' But among the widow-marrying castes he stands first. The Bania with his sacred thread, his strict Hinduism, and his twice-born standing, looks down on the Jat as a Sudra. But the Jat looks down upon the Bania as a cowardly, spiritless money-grubber, and society in general agrees with the Jat. The Khatri, who is far superior to the Bania in manliness and vigour, probably takes precedence of the Jat. But among the races or tribes of purely Hindu origin, I think that the Jat stands next after the Brahman, the Rajput, and the Khatri."

5. Social status of the Jats.

The above account clearly indicates the social position of the Jat. His is the highest caste except the aristocracy consisting of the Brahmans and Rajputs, the Khatris who are derived from the Rajputs, and the Banias who are recognised as ranking not much below the Rajputs. The derivation of some of the Rajput clans from the Jats seems highly probable, and is confirmed by other instances of aristocratic selection in such castes as the Marathas and Kunbis, the Raj-Gonds and Gonds, and so on. If, however, the Rajputs are a Jat aristocracy, it is clear that the Jats were not the Sudras, who are described as wholly debased and impure in the Hindu cla.s.sics; and the present application of the term Sudra to them is a misnomer arising from modern errors in cla.s.sification by the Hindus themselves. The Jats, if Sir D. Ibbetson's account be accepted, must have been the main body of the invading host, whether Aryan or Scythian, of whom the Rajputs were the leaders. They settled on the land and formed village communities, and the status of the Jat at present appears to be that of a member of the village community and part-holder of its land. A slightly undue importance may perhaps have been given in the above pa.s.sage to the practice of widow-marriage as determining the position of a great caste like the Jats. Some Rajputs, Kayasths and Banias permit widow-marriage, and considerable sections of all these castes, and Brahmans also, permit the practice of keeping widows, which, though not called a marriage, does not differ very widely from it. The Jat probably finds his women too valuable as a.s.sistants in cultivation to make a pretence at the abolition of widow-marriage in order to improve his social status as some other castes do. The Jat, of course, ranks as what is commonly called a pure caste, in that Brahmans take water to drink from him. But his status does not depend on this, because Brahmans take water from such menials as barbers, Kahars or bearers, Baris or household servants, and so on, who rank far below the Jat, and also from the Malis and other gardening castes who are appreciably below him. The Jat is equal to the Gujar and Ahir so far as social purity is concerned, but still above them, because they are graziers and vagrants, while he is a settled cultivator. It is from this fact that his status is perhaps mainly derived; and his leading characteristics, his independence, self-sufficiency, doggedness, and industry, are those generally recognised as typical of the peasant proprietor. But the Jat, in the Punjab at any rate, has also a higher status than the princ.i.p.al cultivating castes of other provinces, the Kurmi and the Kunbi. And this may perhaps be explained by his purer foreign descent, and also by the fact that both as Jat and as Sikh his caste has been a military and dominant one in history and has furnished princes and heads of states.

6. Brahmanical legend of origin.

The Jats themselves relate the following Brahmanical legend of their origin. On one occasion when Himachal or Daksha Raja, the father-in-law of Mahadeo, was performing a great sacrifice, he invited all the G.o.ds to be present except his son-in-law Mahadeo (Siva). The latter's wife Parvati was, however, very anxious to go, so she asked Mahadeo to let her attend, even though she had not been invited. Mahadeo was unwilling to do this, but finally consented. But Daksha treated Parvati with great want of respect at the sacrifice, so she came home and told Mahadeo about him. When Mahadeo heard this he was filled with wrath, and untying his matted hair (jata) dashed it on the ground, when two powerful beings arose from it. He sent them to destroy Daksha's sacrifice and they went and destroyed it, and from these were descended the race of the Jats, and they take their name from the matted locks (jata) of the lord Mahadeo. Another saying of the caste is that "The ancestor of the Rajputs was Kashyap [186] and of the Jats Siva. In the beginning these were the only two races of India."

7. The Jats in the Central Provinces.

No detailed description of the Jats need be attempted here, but some information which has been obtained on their customs in this Province may be recorded. They entered the Hoshangabad District, Sir C. Elliot states, [187] in the eighteenth century, and came originally from Bharatpur (Bhurtpur), but halted in Marwar on the way. "They are the best cultivators in the District after the Pardeshi Kurmis, and though they confine themselves to ordinary crops they are very laborious, and the tilth of their fields is pleasant to look on." For the purposes of marriage the caste is divided into exogamous sections in the usual manner. The bulk of the section-names cannot be explained, being probably corrupted forms of the names of villages, but it is noticeable that several pairs of them are considered to be related so that their members cannot intermarry. Thus no marriages can take place between the Golia and Gwalwa, the Choyala and Sarana, the Bhukar and Bhari, and the Lathial and Lalar sections, as each pair is considered to be descended from a common ancestor.

8. Marriage customs.

A man may not take a wife either from his own section or that of his mother or his grandmother, nor from those of the husbands of his father's sisters. For a Jat wedding a square enclosure is marked out with pegs, and a thread is wound seven times round the pegs touching the ground, and covered over with rice or wheat so that it may not be burnt. The enclosure is known as Chaonri, and inside it the hom or fire sacrifice is performed with b.u.t.ter, barley, sesamum, sugar and saffron placed on the top of a heap of wheat-flour. After the sacrifice the bride and bridegroom walk seven times round the Chaonri with their right hands inwards. After this tufts of cotton are thrown over the bodies of the bridegroom and bride and they have to pick it off each other, the one who finishes first being considered the winner. This is apparently a symbolical imitation of the agricultural operation of cotton-picking. The remarriage of widows is permitted, the ceremony being usually performed on a Sat.u.r.day. A bachelor who is to marry a widow must first walk seven times round a pipal tree. Contrary to the usual custom, a widow is forbidden to espouse her deceased husband's younger brother or any of his relations within three degrees of consanguinity.

9. Funeral rites.

The dead are burnt, with the exception of children under seven whose bodies are buried. After the death of a married man his widow walks round his body seven times with her left hand inwards, or in the reverse direction to the perambulation of the Chaonri at marriage. This ceremony is therefore, as it were, a sort of undoing of the marriage. The women wear lac or ivory bangles, and the widow breaks a few of these when the corpse of her husband is lifted up to be carried outside the house. She breaks the remaining ones on the twelfth day after the death and throws them on the chulha or earthen hearth.

10. The Paida ceremony.

An important occasion for display among the Jats is known as the Paida ceremony. This is sometimes performed by wealthy families when the head of the household or his wife dies or a daughter is married. They get a long pole of teakwood and plant it in the ground so that it stands some forty feet high. Before being raised the pole is worshipped with offerings of milk; a cart-wheel is tied to the upper end and it is then pulled erect with ropes, and if any difficulty is experienced the celebrant believes himself to be in fault and gives away some cows in charity. On the axle of the cart-wheel is secured a bra.s.s pot called kaseri, containing wheat and money, with a cloth tied over the mouth. The pole is left standing for three days, and during this time the celebrant feasts the Bhats or genealogists of the caste and all the caste-fellows from his own and the surrounding villages. If the occasion of the ceremony be a death, male and female calves are taken and their marriage is performed; oil and turmeric are rubbed on their bodies, and they are led seven times round the high pole. The heifer is then given to a Brahman, and the male, being first branded on one flank with a figure of a trident and on the other with a representation of the sun and moon, is set at liberty for life, and no Hindu will injure it. This last practice is, however, falling into desuetude, owing to the injury which such animals inflict on the crops. A Jat who performs the Paida ceremony obtains great consideration in the community, and his opinion is given weight in caste disputes. A similar liberality is observed in other ways by wealthy men; thus one rich proprietor in Hoshangabad, whose son was to be married, gave a feast to all the residents of every village through which the wedding procession pa.s.sed on its way to the bride's house. Another presented each of his wedding guests with new cloth to the value of ten or twelve rupees, and as in the case of a prominent family the number of guests may be a thousand or more, the cost of such liberality can be easily realised. Similarly Colonel Tod states that on the occasion of their weddings the Jats of Bikaner even blocked up the highways to obtain visitors, whose numbers formed the measure of the liberality and munificence of the donor of the fete. Indeed, the desire for the social distinction which accrues to generous hosts on such occasions has proved to be the undoing of many a once notable family.

11. Customs at birth.

If a woman is barren, she is taken to the meeting of the boundaries of three villages and bathed there. On the birth of a boy a bra.s.s dish is hammered to announce the event, but on that of a girl only a winnowing-fan. The navel-string is buried in the lying-in room. When the newborn child is a few days old, it is taken out of doors and made to bow to the sun. When a man proposes to adopt a son the caste-fellows are invited, and in their presence the boy is seated in his lap, while music is played and songs are sung by the women. Each of the guests then comes up and presents the boy with a cocoanut, while sugar is distributed and a feast is afterwards given.

12. Religion.

The favourite deity of the caste is Siva or Mahadeo, whom they consider to be their ultimate ancestor. On the festival of Shivratri (Siva's night) they observe a total fast, and pa.s.s the whole day and night singing songs in honour of the G.o.d, while offerings of bel [188] leaves, flowers, rice and sandalwood are made on the following morning. In Hoshangabad the caste have two minor deities, Ramji Deo and Bairam Deo, who are presumably the spirits of defunct warriors. These are worshipped on the eleventh day of every month, and many Jats wear an impression of their images on a piece of gold or silver round the neck. On the Dasahra festival the caste worship their swords and horses in memory of their soldier ancestors, and they revere their implements of husbandry on the Akshaya Tritiya of Baisakh (June), the commencement of the agricultural year, while each cultivator does the same on the days that he completes the sowing of his rain crops and winter crops.

13. Social customs.

The caste employ Brahmans for the performance of their ceremonies, and also as their gurus or spiritual preceptors. They eat flesh and drink liquor in the Central Provinces, but in Hoshangabad they do not consume either birds or fish; and when they eat mutton or the flesh of the wild pig, they do this only outside the house, in order not to offend their women, who will not eat flesh. In Hoshangabad the Jats, like other immigrants from Marwar, commonly wear their hair long and keep the face unshaven, and this gives them rather a wild and farouche appearance among the neatly shorn Hindus of the Nerbudda Valley. [189] They are of light complexion, the difference in shade between the Jats and ordinary residents in the locality being apparent to the casual observer. Their women are fond of the hollow anklets known as bora, which contain small b.a.l.l.s or pebbles, and tinkle as they walk. Girls are tattooed before marriage, and while the operation is being carried out the women of the caste collect and sing songs to divert the sufferer's attention from the pain. The men have pagris or turbans made of many little strings of twisted cloth, which come down over the ears. If a man kills a cow or a squirrel, he must stay outside the village for five weeks and n.o.body looks upon his face. After this he should go and bathe in the Ganges, but if he is too poor the Nerbudda may be subst.i.tuted for it with the permission of the caste committee. The penalty for killing a cat is almost as severe, but to slay a dog involves no sin. If a man who has committed a murder escapes conviction but his guilt is known to the caste, it is absolutely inc.u.mbent on him to go and bathe in the Ganges and be purified there, having his head and face shaved. After this he may be readmitted to caste intercourse. The caste observe some curious rules or taboos: they never drink the milk of a black cow; their women do not have their noses bored for nose-rings, but if a woman loses several children she will have the nose bored of the next one which is born; women never wear gla.s.s bangles, but have them made of ivory or lac and clay; they never wear the bazuband or armlet with bars crossed on hinges which can be pulled in or out, but instead of it the kara or rigid bangle; and the caste never keep a basil plant in the house for worship, though they may revere it outside the house. As the basil is the emblem of Vishnu, and the Jats consider themselves to be descended from Siva, they would naturally not be inclined to pay any special respect to the plant.

14. Occupation.

The Jats are good cultivators, and at the thirty years' settlement (1865) several members of the caste held considerable estates; but a number of these have now been lost, owing probably to extravagance of living. In Saugor the Jats are commonly employed as masons or navvies.

JHADI TELENGA

List of Paragraphs

1. General notice.

2. Exogamous divisions.

3. Admission of outsiders.

4. Marriage.

5. Religion.

6. Names.

7. Magical devices.

8. Occupation.