The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume III Part 23

1. General notice.

Jhadi Telenga. [190]--A small caste in the Bastar State who appear to be a mixture of Gonds and the lower Telugu castes, the name meaning 'The jungly Telugus.' Those living in the open country are called Mandar Telengas. In the census of 1901 these Telengas were wrongly cla.s.sified under the Balji or Balija caste. They numbered about 5000 persons. The caste have three divisions according to their comparative purity of descent, which are named Purait, Surait and Pohni. The son of a Purait by a woman of different caste will be a Surait, and the son of a Surait by such a woman will be a Pohni. Such alliances are now, however, infrequent, and most of the Telengas in Bastar belong to the Purait or legitimate group. A Pohni will take cooked food from the two higher groups and a Surait from a Purait. The last will take water from the two lower groups, but not food.

2. Exogamous divisions.

For the purposes of marriage the caste is divided into the usual exogamous septs, and these are further arranged in two groups. The first group contains the following septs: Kudmulwadu, from kudmul, a preparation of rice; Kolmulwadu, from kolmul, a treasure-pit; Lingawadu, from the linga emblem; and Nagulwadu, a ploughman. The second group contains the following septs: Kodamajjiwadu, a hunter and trapper of animals; Wargaiwadu, one who makes ropes from wood-fibre; Paspulwadu, one who prepares turmeric; Pankiwadu, one who distributes cooked food; Bhandariwadu, a rich man; and one or two others. The rule is that no man or woman of a sept belonging to the first group should marry in any other sept of that group, but always from some sept of the other. This, therefore, appears to be a relic of the cla.s.sificatory system of marriage, which obtains among the Australian aborigines. The rule is now, however, sometimes violated. The caste say that their ancestors came from Warangal with the ruling family of Bastar.

3. Admission of outsiders.

They will admit Brahmans, Rajputs and Halbas into the community. If a man of any of these castes has a child by a Telenga woman, this child will be considered to belong to the same group of the Jhadi Telengas as its mother. If a man of lower caste, such as Rawat, Dhakar, Jangam, k.u.mhar or Kalar has such a child it will be admitted into the next lower group than that to which the mother belonged. Thus the child of a Purait woman by one of these castes will become a Surait. A Telenga woman having a child by a Gond, Sunar, Lohar or Mehra man is put out of caste.

4. Marriage.

A girl cannot be properly married unless the ceremony is performed before she arrives at p.u.b.erty. After this she can only be married by an abridged rite, which consists of rubbing her with oil and turmeric, investing her with gla.s.s bangles and a new cloth, and giving a feast to the caste. In such a case the bridegroom first goes through a sham marriage with the branch of a mahua tree. The boy's father looks out for a girl, and the most suitable match is considered to be his sister's daughter. Before giving away his daughter he must ask his wife's brother and his own sister whether they want her for one of their sons. When setting out to make a proposal they take the omens from a bird called Usi. The best omen is to hear this bird's call on both sides of them as they go into the jungle. When asking for the girl the envoys say to her father, 'You have got rice and pulse; give them to us for our friend's son.' The wedding should be held on a Monday or Thursday, and the bridegroom should arrive at the bride's village on a Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday. The sacred post in the centre of the marriage-shed must be of the mahua [191] tree, which is no doubt held sacred by these people, as by the Gonds, because spirituous liquor is made from its fruit. A widow must mourn her husband for a month, and can then marry again. But she may not marry her late husband's brother, nor his first cousin, nor any member of her father's sept. Divorce is allowed, but no man will divorce his wife unless she leaves him of her own accord or is known to be intriguing with a man of lower caste.

5. Religion.

Each sept has a deity of its own who is usually some local G.o.d symbolised by a wooden post or a stone. Instances of these are Kondraj of Santoshpur represented by a wooden pillar carved into circular form at the top; Chikat Raj of Bij.a.pur by two bamboos six feet in length leaning against a wall; Kaunam Raj of Gongla by a stone image, and at fairs by a bamboo with peac.o.c.k's feathers tied at the top. They offer incense, rice and a fowl to their ancestors in their own houses in Chait (March) at the new year, and at the festival of the new rice in Bhadon (August). At the sowing festival they go out hunting, and those who return empty-handed think they will have ill-luck. Each tenant also worships the earth-G.o.ddess, whose image is then decorated with flowers and vermilion. He brings a goat, and rice is placed before it at her shrine. If the animal eats the sacrifice is held to be accepted, but if not it is returned to the owner, and it is thought that some misfortune will befall him. The heads of all the goats offered are taken by the priest and the bodies returned to the worshippers to be consumed at a feast. Each village has also its tutelary G.o.d, having a hut to himself. Inside this a post of mahua wood is fixed in the ground and roughly squared, and a peg is driven into it at the top. The G.o.d is represented by another bamboo peg about two inches long, which is first worshipped in front of the post and then suspended from it in a receptacle. In each village the smallpox G.o.ddess is also present in the form of a stone, either with or without a hut over it. A Jangam or devotee of the Lingayat sect is usually the caste priest, and at a funeral he follows the corpse ringing his bell. If a man is put out of caste through getting maggots in a wound or being beaten by a shoe, he must be purified by the Jangam. The latter rubs some ashes on his own body and places them in the offender's mouth, and gives him to drink some water from his own lota in place of water from a sacred river. For this the offender pays a fee of five rupees and a calf to the Jangam and must also give a feast to the caste. The dead are either buried or burnt, the head being placed to the east. The eldest son has his head and face shaved on the death of the father of the family, and the youngest on that of the mother.

6. Names.

A child is named on the seventh or eighth day after birth by the old women. If it is much given to crying they consider the name unsuitable and change it, repeating those of deceased relatives. When the child stops crying at the mention of a particular name, they consider that the relative mentioned has been born again in the child and name it after him. Often the name of the sept is combined with the personal name as Lingam-Lachha, Lingam-Kachchi, Panki-Samaya, Panki-Ganglu, Panki-Buchcham, Nagul-Sama, Nagul-Mutta.

7. Magical devices

When a man wishes to destroy an enemy he makes an image of him with earth and offers a pig and goat to the family G.o.d, praying for the enemy's destruction. Then the operator takes a frog or a tree-lizard which has been kept ready and breaks all its limbs, thinking that the limbs of his enemy will similarly be broken and that the man will die. Or he takes some grains of kossa, a small millet, and proceeds to a saj [192] or mahua tree. A pigeon is offered to the tree and to the family G.o.d, and both are asked to destroy the foe. The man then ascends the tree, and muttering incantations throws the grains in the direction of his enemy thinking that they will enter his body and destroy him. To counteract these devices a man who thinks himself bewitched calls in the aid of a wizard, who sucks out of his body the grains or other evil things which have been caused to enter it as shown above. Occasionally a man will promise a human sacrifice to his G.o.d. For this he must get some hair or a piece of cloth belonging to somebody else and wash it in water in the name of the G.o.d, who may then kill the owner of the hair or cloth and thus obtain the sacrifice. Or the sacrificer may pick a quarrel and a.s.sault the other person so as to draw blood from him. He picks up a drop or two of the blood and offers it to the deity with the same end in view.

8. Occupation.

The caste are cultivators and farmservants, and are, as a rule, very poor, living from hand to mouth. They practise shifting cultivation and are too lazy to grow the more valuable crops. They eat grain twice a day during the four months from October to January only, and at other times eke out their scanty provision with edible roots and leaves, and hunt and fish in the forest like the Muria and Maria Gonds.

JOGI

[Bibliography: Sir E. Maclagan's Punjab Census Report (1891); Mr. Crooke's Tribes and Castes, articles Jogi, Kanphata and Aghorpanthi; Mr. Kitts' Berar Census Report (1881); Professor Oman's Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India (London: T. Fisher Unwin).]

List of Paragraphs

1. The Yoga philosophy.

2. Abstraction of the senses or autohypnotism.

3. Breathing through either nostril.

4. Self-torture of the Jogis.

5. Resort to them for oracles.

6. Divisions of the order.

7. Hair and clothes.

8. Burial.

9. Festivals.

10. Caste subdivisions.

11. Begging.

12. Other occupations.

13. Swindling practices.

14. Proverbs about Jogis.

1. The Yoga philosophy.

Jogi, Yogi.--The well-known order of religious mendicants and devotees of Siva. The Jogi or Yogi, properly so called, is a follower of the Yoga system of philosophy founded by Patanjali, the main characteristics of which are a belief in the power of man over nature by means of austerities and the occult influences of the will. The idea is that one who has obtained complete control over himself, and entirely subdued all fleshly desires, acquires such potency of mind and will that he can influence the forces of nature at his pleasure. The Yoga philosophy has indeed so much sub-stratum of truth that a man who has complete control of himself has the strongest will, and hence the most power to influence others, and an exaggerated idea of this power is no doubt fostered by the display of mesmeric control and similar phenomena. The fact that the influence which can be exerted over other human beings through their minds in no way extends to the physical phenomena of inanimate nature is obvious to us, but was by no means so to the uneducated Hindus, who have no clear conceptions of the terms mental and physical, animate and inanimate, nor of the ideas connoted by them. To them all nature was animate, and all its phenomena the results of the actions of sentient beings, and hence it was not difficult for them to suppose that men could influence the proceedings of such beings. And it is a matter of common knowledge that savage peoples believe their magicians to be capable of producing rain and fine weather, and even of controlling the course of the sun. [193] The Hindu sacred books indeed contain numerous instances of ascetics who by their austerities acquired such powers as to compel the highest G.o.ds themselves to obedience.

2. Abstraction of the senses or autohypnotism.

The term Yoga is held to mean unity or communion with G.o.d, and the Yogi by virtue of his painful discipline and mental and physical exercises considered himself divine. "The adept acquires the knowledge of everything past and future, remote or hidden; he divines the thoughts of others, gains the strength of an elephant, the courage of a lion, and the swiftness of the wind; flies into the air, floats in the water, and dives into the earth, contemplates all worlds at one glance and performs many strange things." [194]

The following excellent instance of the pretensions of the Yogis is given by Professor Oman: [195] "Wolff went also with Mr. Wilson to see one of the celebrated Yogis who was lying in the sun in the street, the nails of whose hands were grown into his cheeks and a bird's nest upon his head. Wolff asked him, 'How can one obtain the knowledge of G.o.d?' He replied, 'Do not ask me questions; you may look at me, for I am G.o.d.'

"It is certainly not easy at the present day," Professor Oman states, [196] "for the western mind to enter into the spirit of the so-called Yoga philosophy; but the student of religious opinions is aware that in the early centuries of our era the Gnostics, Manichaeans and Neo-Platonists derived their peculiar tenets and practices from the Yoga-vidya of India, and that at a later date the Sufi philosophy of Persia drew its most remarkable ideas from the same source. [197]

The great historian of the Roman Empire refers to the subject in the following pa.s.sage: "The Fakirs of India and the monks of the Oriental Church, were alike persuaded that in total abstraction of the faculties of the mind and body, the pure spirit may ascend to the enjoyment and vision of the Deity. The opinion and practice of the monasteries of Mount Athos will be best represented in the words of an abbot, who flourished in the eleventh century: 'When thou art alone in thy cell,' says the ascetic teacher, 'Shut thy door, and seat thyself in a corner, raise thy mind above all things vain and transitory, recline thy beard and chin on thy breast, turn thine eyes and thy thoughts towards the middle of the belly, the region of the navel, and search the place of the heart, the seat of the soul. At first all will be dark and comfortless; but if you persevere day and night, you will feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the heart, than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal light.' This light, the production of a distempered fancy, the creature of an empty stomach and an empty brain, was adored by the Quietists as the pure and perfect essence of G.o.d Himself." [198]