The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume IV Part 30

3. _The Panwar dynasty of Dhar and Ujjain_.

4. _Diffusion of the Panwars over India_.

5. _The Nagpur Panwars_.

6. _Subdivisions_.

7. _Marriage customs_.

8. _Widow-marriage_.

9. _Religion_.

10. _Worship of the spirits of those dying a violent death_.

11. _Funeral rites_.

12. _Caste discipline_.

13. _Social customs_.

1. Historical notice. The Agnikula clans and the slaughter of the Kshatriyas by Parasurama

_Panwar_, [370] _Puar_, _Ponwar_, _Pramara Rajput_.--The Panwar or Pramara is one of the most ancient and famous of the Rajput clans. It was the first of the four Agnikulas, who were created from the fire-pit on the summit of Mount Abu after the Kshatriyas had been exterminated by Parasurama the Brahman. "The fire-fountain was l.u.s.trated with the waters of the Ganges; [371] expiatory rites were performed, and after a protracted debate among the G.o.ds it was resolved that Indra should initiate the work of recreation. Having formed an image of _duba_ gra.s.s he sprinkled it with the water of life and threw it into the fire-fountain. Thence on p.r.o.nouncing the _sajivan mantra_ (incantation to give life) a figure slowly emerged from the flame, bearing in the right hand a mace and exclaiming, '_Mar, Mar!_' (Slay, slay). He was called Pramar; and Abu, Dhar, and Ujjain were a.s.signed to him as a territory."

The four clans known as Agnikula, or born from the fire-pit, were the Panwar, the Chauhan, the Parihar and the Chalukya or Solanki. Mr. D.R. Bhandarkar adduces evidence in support of the opinion that all these were of foreign origin, derived from the Gujars or other Scythian or Hun tribes. [372] And it seems therefore not unlikely that the legend of the fire-pit may commemorate the reconst.i.tution of the Kshatriya aristocracy by the admission of these tribes to Hinduism after its partial extinction during their wars of invasion; the latter event having perhaps been euphemised into the slaughter of the Kshatriyas by Parasurama the Brahman. A great number of Indian castes date their origin from the traditional ma.s.sacre of the Kshatriyas by Parasurama, saying that their ancestors were Rajputs who escaped and took to various occupations; and it would appear that an event which bulks so largely in popular tradition must have some historical basis. It is noticeable also that Buddhism, which for some five centuries since the time of Asoka Maurya had been the official and princ.i.p.al religion of northern India, had recently entered on its decline. "The restoration of the Brahmanical religion to popular favour and the a.s.sociated revival of the Sanskrit language first became noticeable in the second century, were fostered by the satraps of Gujarat and Surashtra during the third, and made a success by the Gupta emperors in the fourth century. [373] The decline of Buddhism and the diffusion of Sanskrit proceeded side by side with the result that by the end of the Gupta period the force of Buddhism on Indian soil had been nearly spent; and India with certain local exceptions had again become the land of the Brahman. [374] The Gupta dynasty as an important power ended about A.D. 490 and was overthrown by the Huns, whose leader Toramana was established at Malwa in Central India prior to A.D. 500." [375] The revival of Brahmanism and the Hun supremacy were therefore nearly contemporaneous. Moreover one of the Hun leaders, Mihiragula, was a strong supporter of Brahmanism and an opponent of the Buddhists. Mr. V.A. Smith writes: "The savage invader, who worshipped as his patron deity Siva, the G.o.d of destruction, exhibited ferocious hostility against the peaceful Buddhist cult, and remorselessly overthrew the _stupas_ and monasteries, which he plundered of their treasures." [376] This warrior might therefore well be venerated by the Brahmans as the great restorer of their faith and would easily obtain divine honours. The Huns also subdued Rajputana and Central India and were dominant here for a time until their extreme cruelty and oppression led to a concerted rising of the Indian princes by whom they were defeated. The discovery of the Hun or Scythian origin of several of the existing Rajput clans fits in well with the legend. The stories told by many Indian castes of their first ancestors having been Rajputs who escaped from the ma.s.sacre of Parasurama would then have some historical value as indicating that the existing occupational grouping of castes dates from the period of the revival of the Brahman cult after a long interval of Buddhist supremacy. It is however an objection to the identification of Parasurama with the Huns that he is the sixth incarnation of Vishnu, coming before Rama and being mentioned in the Mahabharata, and thus if he was in any way historical his proper date should be long before their time. As to this it may be said that he might have been interpolated or put back in date, as the Brahmans had a strong interest in demonstrating the continuity of the Kshatriya caste from Vedic times and suppressing the Hun episode, which indeed they have succeeded in doing so well that the foreign origin of several of the most prominent Rajput clans has only been established quite recently by modern historical and archaeological research. The name Parasurama signifies 'Rama with the axe' and seems to indicate that this hero came after the original Rama. And the list of the incarnations of Vishnu is not always the same, as in one list the incarnations are nearly all of the animal type and neither Parasurama, Rama nor Krishna appear.

2. The legend of Parasurama

The legend of Parasurama is not altogether opposed to this view in itself. [377] He was the son of a Brahman Muni or hermit, named Jamadagni, by a lady, Renuka, of the Kshatriya caste. He is therefore not held to have been a Brahman and neither was he a true Kshatriya. This might portray the foreign origin of the Huns. Jamadagni found his wife Renuka to be harbouring thoughts of conjugal infidelity, and commanded his sons, one by one, to slay her. The four elder ones successively refused, and being cursed by Jamadagni lost all understanding and became as idiots; but the youngest, Parasurama, at his father's bidding, struck off his mother's head with a blow of his axe. Jamadagni thereupon was very pleased and promised to give Parasurama whatever he might desire. On which Parasurama begged first for the restoration of his mother to life, with forgetfulness of his having slain her and purification from all defilement; secondly, the return of his brothers to sanity and understanding; and for himself that he should live long and be invincible in battle; and all these boons his father bestowed. Here the hermit Jamadagni might represent the Brahman priesthood, and his wife Renuka might be India, unfaithful to the Brahmans and turning towards the Buddhist heresy. The four elder sons would typify the princes of India refusing to respond to the exhortations of the Brahmans for the suppression of Buddhism, and hence themselves made blind to the true faith and their understandings darkened with Buddhist falsehood. But Parasurama, the youngest, killed his mother, that is, the Huns devastated India and slaughtered the Buddhists; in reward for this he was made invincible as the Huns were, and his mother, India, and his brothers, the indigenous princes, regained life and understanding, that is, returned to the true Brahman faith. Afterwards, the legend proceeds, the king Karrtavirya, the head of the Haihaya tribe of Kshatriyas, stole the calf of the sacred cow Kamdhenu from Jamadagni's hermitage and cut down the trees surrounding it. When Parasurama returned, his father told him what had happened, and he followed Karrtavirya and killed him in battle. But in revenge for this the sons of the king, when Parasurama was away, returned to the hermitage and slew the pious and unresisting sage Jamadagni, who called fruitlessly for succour on his valiant son. When Parasurama returned and found his father dead he vowed to extirpate the whole Kshatriya race. 'Thrice times seven did he clear the earth of the Kshatriya caste,' says the Mahabharata. If the first part of the story refers to the Hun conquest of northern India and the overthrow of the Gupta dynasty, the second may similarly portray their invasion of Rajputana. The theft of the cow and desecration of Jamadagni's hermitage by the Haihaya Rajputs would represent the apostasy of the Rajput princes to Buddhist monotheism, the consequent abandonment of the veneration of the cow and the spoliation of the Brahman shrines; while the Hun invasions of Rajputana and the accompanying slaughter of Rajputs would be Parasurama's terrible revenge.

3. The Panwar dynasty of Dhar and Ujjain

The Kings of Malwa or Ujjain who reigned at Dhar and flourished from the ninth to the twelfth centuries were of the Panwar clan. The seventh and ninth kings of this dynasty rendered it famous. [378]

"Raja Munja, the seventh king (974-995), renowned for his learning and eloquence, was not only a patron of poets, but was himself a poet of no small reputation, the anthologies including various works from his pen. He penetrated in a career of conquest as far as the G.o.davari, but was finally defeated and executed there by the Chalukya king. His nephew, the famous Bhoja, ascended the throne of Dhara about A.D. 1018 and reigned gloriously for more than forty years. Like his uncle he cultivated with equal a.s.siduity the arts of peace and war. Though his fights with neighbouring powers, including one of the Muhammadan armies of Mahmud of Ghazni, are now forgotten, his fame as an enlightened patron of learning and a skilled author remains undimmed, and his name has become proverbial as that of the model king according to the Hindu standard. Works on astronomy, architecture, the art of poetry and other subjects are attributed to him. About A.D. 1060 Bhoja was attacked and defeated by the confederate kings of Gujarat and Chedi, and the Panwar kingdom was reduced to a petty local dynasty until the thirteenth century. It was finally superseded by the chiefs of the Tomara and Chauhan clans, who in their turn succ.u.mbed to the Muhammadans in 1401." The city of Ujjain was at this time a centre of Indian intellectual life. Some celebrated astronomers made it their home, and it was adopted as the basis of the Hindu meridional system like Greenwich in England. The capital of the state was changed from Ujjain to Dhar or Dharanagra by the Raja Bhoja already mentioned; [379] and the name of Dhar is better remembered in connection with the Panwars than Ujjain.

A saying about it quoted by Colonel Tod was:

Jahan Puar tahan Dhar hai; Aur Dhar jahan Puar; Dhar bina Puar nahin; Aur nahin Puar bina Dhar:

or, "Where the Panwar is there is Dhar, and Dhar is where the Panwar is; without the Panwars Dhar cannot stand, nor the Panwars without Dhar." It is related that in consequence of one of his merchants having been held to ransom by the ruler of Dhar, the Bhatti Raja of Jaisalmer made a vow to subdue the town. But as he found the undertaking too great for him, in order to fulfil his vow he had a model of the city made in clay and was about to break it up. But there were Panwars in his army, and they stood out to defend their mock capital, repeating as their reason the above lines; and in resisting the Raja were cut to pieces to the number of a hundred and twenty. [380] There is little reason to doubt that the incident, if historical, was produced by the belief in sympathetic magic; the Panwars really thought that by destroying its image the Raja could effect injury to the capital itself, [381] just as many primitive races believe that if they make a doll as a model of an enemy and stick pins into or otherwise injure it, the man himself is similarly affected. A kindred belief prevails concerning certain mythical old kings of the Golden Age of India, of whom it is said that to destroy their opponents all they had to do was to collect a bundle of juari stalks and cut off the heads, when the heads of their enemies flew off in unison.

The Panwars were held to have ruled from nine castles over the Marusthali or 'Region of death,' the name given to the great desert of Rajputana, which extends from Sind to the Aravalli mountains and from the great salt lake to the flat skirting the Garah. The princ.i.p.al of these castles were Abu, Nundore, Umarkot, Arore, and Lodorva. [382]

And, 'The world is the Pramara's,' was another saying expressive of the resplendent position of Dharanagra or Ujjain at this epoch. The siege and capture of the town by the Muhammadans and consequent expulsion of the Panwars are still a well-remembered tradition, and certain castes of the Central Provinces, as the Bhoyars and Korkus, say that their ancestors formed part of the garrison and fled to the Satpura hills after the fall of Dharanagra. Mr. Crooke [383]

states that the expulsion of the Panwars from Ujjain under their leader Mitra Sen is ascribed to the attack of the Muhammadans under Shahab-ud-din Ghori about A.D. 1190.

4. Diffusion of the Panwars over India

After this they spread to various places in northern India, and to the Central Provinces and Bombay. The modern state of Dhar is or was recently still held by a Panwar family, who had attained high rank under the Marathas and received it as a grant from the Peshwa. Malcolm considered them to be the descendants of Rajput emigrants to the Deccan. He wrote of them: [384] "In the early period of Maratha history the family of Puar appears to have been one of the most distinguished. They were of the Rajput tribe, numbers of which had been settled in Malwa at a remote era; from whence this branch had migrated to the Deccan. Sivaji Puar, the first of the family that can be traced in the latter country, was a landholder; and his grandsons, Sambaji and Kaloji, were military commanders in the service of the celebrated Sivaji. Anand Rao Puar was vested with authority to collect the Maratha share of the revenue of Malwa and Gujarat in 1734, and he soon afterwards settled at Dhar, which province, with the adjoining districts and the tributes of some neighbouring Rajput chiefs, was a.s.signed for the support of himself and his adherents. It is a curious coincidence that the success of the Marathas should, by making Dhar the capital of Anand Rao 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 (Puar), claim no descent from the ancient Hindu princes of Malwa. They have, like all the Kshatriya tribes who became incorporated with the Marathas, 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 Rajput 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 Marathas, they still claim, both on account of their high birth and of being officers of the Raja of Satara (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 Maratha house of Nimbhalkar is believed to have originated from ancestors of the Panwar Rajput clan. While one branch of the Panwars went to the Deccan after the fall of Dhar and marrying with the people there became a leading military family of the Marathas, 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 Khidmatia, Barwar or Chobdar are said to be an inferior branch of the Panwars, descended from a low-caste woman. No high-caste Hindu eats food or drinks water touched by them." According to the Ain-i-Akbari [386]

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 _Mawis_. Their chief has received the t.i.tle of Khidmat Rao. Being near the person of His Majesty he lives in affluence. His men are called Khidmatias." Thus another body of Panwars went north and sold their swords to the Mughal Emperor, who formed them into a bodyguard. Their case is exactly a.n.a.logous 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 Panwar dynasty ruled for a considerable period over the territory of Shahabad in Bengal. And Jagdeo Panwar was the trusted minister of Sidhraj, the great Solanki Raja of Gujarat. 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 Rasmala. In the Punjab the Panwars are found settled up the whole course of the Sutlej and along the lower Indus, and have also spread up the Bias into Jalandhar and Gurdaspur. [387]

5. The Nagpur Panwars

While the above extracts have been given to show how the Panwars migrated from Dhar to different parts of India in search of fortune, this article is mainly concerned with a branch of the clan who came to Nagpur, and subsequently settled in the rice country of the Wainganga Valley. At the end of the eleventh century Nagpur appears to have been held by a Panwar ruler as an appanage of the kingdom of Malwa. [388] It has already been seen how the kings of Malwa penetrated to Berar and the G.o.davari, and Nagpur may well also have fallen to them. Mr. Muhammad Yusuf quotes an inscription as existing at Bhandak in Chanda of the year A.D. 1326, in which it is mentioned that the Panwar of Dhar repaired a statue of Jag Narayan in that place. [389]

Nothing more is heard of them in Nagpur, and their rule probably came to an end with the subversion of the kingdom of Malwa in the thirteenth century. But there remain in Nagpur and in the districts of Bhandara, Balaghat and Seoni to the north and east of it a large number of Panwars, 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 Nagpur was held by their clan, and a second influx may have taken place after the fall of Dhar. According to their own account, they first came to Nagardhan, an older town than Nagpur, 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 Rajput strain is still perfectly apparent in their fair complexions, high foreheads and in many cases grey eyes. The Panwars 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 Dhakar, a name having the sense of illegitimacy. Though they have lived for centuries among a Marathi-speaking people, the Panwars retain a dialect of their own, the basis of which is Bagheli or eastern Hindi. When the Marathas established themselves at Nagpur in the eighteenth century some of the Panwars 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 Rajputs. It is to this group of Panwars [390] settled in the Maratha rice country of the Wainganga Valley that the remainder of this article is devoted.

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 Rajputs 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 Rajput blood and took to themselves wives from the women of the country as they could get them. The Panwars 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 Rajput clans, while others are derived from villages, t.i.tles or names of offices, or from other castes. Among the t.i.tular names are Chaudhri (headman), Patlia (patel or chief officer of a village) and Sonwania (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), Pardhi (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 Betul both say that their ancestors were Panwars of Dhar, and the occurrence of both names among the Panwars of Balaghat may indicate that these castes also have some Panwar blood. Three names, Rahmat (kind), Turukh or Turk, and Farid (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 Panwar 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 Panwar 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 a.s.sembles, 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 Yusuf of the songs sung on this occasion:

Five years old to-day is Baja 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. [391]

O! 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?