Bania: Kasaundhan

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This article was written in 1916 when conditions were different. Even in 1916 its contents related only to Central India and did not claim to be true of all of India. It has been archived for its historical value as well as for the insights it gives into British colonial writing about the various communities of India. Indpaedia neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this article. Readers who wish to add fresh information can create a Part II of this article. The general rule is that if we have nothing nice to say about communities other than our own it is best to say nothing at all. Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly on their online archival encyclopædia only after its formal launch. See examples and a tutorial.

From The Tribes And Castes Of The Central Provinces Of India

By R. V. Russell

Of The Indian Civil Service

Superintendent Of Ethnography, Central Provinces

Assisted By Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, Extra Assistant Commissioner

Macmillan And Co., Limited, London, 1916.

NOTE 1: The 'Central Provinces' have since been renamed Madhya Pradesh.

NOTE 2: While reading please keep in mind that all articles in this series have been scanned from the original book. Therefore, footnotes have got inserted into the main text of the article, interrupting the flow. Readers who spot these footnotes gone astray might like to shift them to their correct place.

Bania: Kasaundhan

This subcaste numbers about 5500 persons in the Central Provinces and is returned principally from the Bilaspur, Raipur and Jubbulpore Districts. The name is derived ^ by Mr. Crooke from kdnsa, bell-metal, and dkana, wealth, and it would appear that the Kasaundhans like the Kasarwanis are an occupational group, made up of shopkeepers who dealt in metal vessels.

Like them also the Tribes and Castes, art. Kasaundhan.

Kasaundhans may have originally been constituted from the metal-working castes, and indeed they may be only a local branch of the Kasarwanis, though no information is available which would decide this point. In the United Provinces both the Kasarwanis and Kasaundhans are divided into the Purbia or eastern and Pachhaiyan or western subcastes.

Dharam Das, the great disciple of Kablr, who founded the Kablrpanthi sect in the Central Provinces, was a Kasaundhan Bania, and the Kablrpanthi Mahants or high-priests of Kawardha are of this caste. It is probable that a good many of the Kasaundhan Banias in Bilaspur and Raipur belong to the Kablrpanthi sect. The remainder are ordinary Hindus