Kasar
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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.
Kasar
Kasera, Kansari, Bharewa
The professional ,. Distri- caste of makers and sellers of brass and copper vessels. In huUou ;1 ' ui 1 x origin of 191 1 the Kasars numbered 20,000 persons in the Central the caste. Provinces and Berar, and were distributed over all Districts, except in the Jubbulpore division, where they are scarcely found outside Mandla. Their place in the other Districts of this division is taken by the Tameras. In Mandla the Kasars are represented by the inferior Bharewa group. The name of the caste is derived from kdnsa, a term now applied to bell-metal. The kindred caste of Tameras take their name from tdmba, copper, but both castes work in this metal indifferently, and in Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore no distinction exists between the Kasars and Tameras, the same caste being known by both names.
A similar con- fusion exists in northern India in the use of the correspond- ing terms Kasera and Thathera." In Wardha the Kasars are no longer artificers, but only dealers, employing Panchals to make the vessels which they retail in their shops. And the same is the case with the Maratha and Deshkar sub- castes in Nagpur. The Kasars are a respectable caste, ranking next to the Sunars among the urban craftsmen. 1 This article is compiled from Mr. Deodatla Namdar, Manager, papers by Mr. Rajaram Gangadhar, Court of Wards, Chauri. TahsTldar, Arvi ; Mr. Sadasheo Jairam, 2 Crookc's Tribes and Castes, art. Sanskrit Professor, I lislop College ; and Thathera. VOL. Ill 2 B
According to a legend given by Mr. Sadasheo Jairam they trace their origin from Dharampal, the son of Sahasra Arjun or Arjun of the Thousand Arms. Arjun was the greatgrandson of Ekshvaku, who was born in the forests of Kalinga, from the union of a mare and a snake. On this account the Kasars of the Maratha country say that they all belong to the Ahihaya clan (Ahi, a snake ; and Haya, a mare). Arjun was killed by Parasurama during the slaughter of the Kshatriyas and DharampaTs mother escaped with three other pregnant women. According to another version all the four women were the wives of the king of the Somvansi Rajputs who stole the sacred cow Kamdhenu. Their four sons on growing up wished to avenge their father and prayed to the Goddess Kali for weapons.
But unfortunately in their prayer, instead of saying ban, arrow, they said van, which means pot, and hence brass pots were given to them instead of arrows. They set out to sell the pots, but got involved in a quarrel with a Raja, who killed three of them, but was defeated by the fourth, to whom he afterwards gave his daughter and half his kingdom ; and this hero became the ancestor of the Kasars. In some localities the Kasars say that Dharampal, the Rajput founder of their caste, was the ancestor of the Haihaya Rajput kings of Ratanpur ; and it is noticeable that the Thatheras of the United Provinces state that their original home was a place called Ratanpur, in the Deccan.
1 Both Ratanpur and Mandla, which are very old towns, have important brass and bell -metal industries, their bell -metal wares being especially well known on account of the brilliant polish which is imparted to them. And the story of the Kasars may well indicate, as suggested by Mr. Hlra Lai, that Ratanpur was a very early centre of the brass -working industry, from which it has spread to dther localities in this part of India. 2. internal The caste have a number of subdivisions, mainly of a structure, territorial nature.
Among these are the Maratha Kasars ; the Deshkar, who also belong to the Maratha country ; the Pardeshi or foreigners, the J hade or residents of the forest country of the Central Provinces, and the Audhia or 1 Crooke's art. Thathera.
Ajudhiabasi who are immigrants from Oudh. Another subdivision, the Bharewas, are of a distinctly lower status than the body of the caste, and have non-Aryan customs, such as the eating of pork. They make the heavy brass ornaments which the Gonds and other tribes wear on their legs, and are probably an occupational offshoot from one of these tribes. In Chanda some of the Bharewas serve as grooms and are looked down upon by the others. They have totemistic septs, named after animals and plants, some of which are Gond words ; and among them the bride goes to the bridegroom's house to be married, which is a Gond custom. The Bharewas may more properly be considered as a separate caste of lower status.
As previously stated, the Maratha and Deshkar subcastes of the Maratha country no longer make vessels, but only keep them for sale. One subcaste, the Otaris, make vessels from moulds, while the remainder cut and hammer into shape the imported sheets of brass. Lastly comes a group comprising those members of the caste who are of doubtful or illegitimate descent, and these are known either as Takle (' Thrown out ' in Marathi), Bidur, ' Bastard,' or Laondi Bachcha, ' Issue of a kept wife.' In the Maratha country the Kasars, as already seen, say that they all belong to one gotra, the Ahihaya. They have, however, collections of families distinguished by different surnames, and persons having the same surname are forbidden to marry.
In the northern Districts they have the usual collection of exogamous septs, usually named after villages. The marriages of first cousins are generally forbidden, 3. Social as well as of members of the same sept. Divorce and the customs - remarriage of widows are permitted. Devi or Bhawani is the principal deity of the caste, as of so many Hindus. At her festival of Mando Amawas or the day of the new moon of Phagun (February), every Kasar must return to the community of which he is a member and celebrate the feast with them. And in default of this he will be expelled from caste until the next Amawas of Phagun comes round. They close their shops and worship the implements of their trade on this day and also on the Pola day. The Kasars, as already stated, rank next to the Sunars among the artisan castes, and the Audhia Sunars, who make ornaments of bell- Hon
metal, form a connecting link between the two groups. The social status of the Kasars varies in different localities. In some places Brahmans take water from them but not in others. Some Kasars now invest boys with the sacred thread at their weddings, and thereafter it is regularly worn. 4. Occupa- The caste make eating and drinking vessels, ornaments and ornamental figures from brass, copper and bell-metal. Brass is the metal most in favour for utensils, and it is usually imported in sheets from Bombay, but in places it is manufactured from a mixture of three parts of copper and two of zinc.
This is consideied the best brass, though it is not so hard as the inferior kinds, in which the proportion of zinc is increased. Ornaments of a grey colour, intended to resemble silver, are made from a mixture of four parts of copper with five of zinc. Bell-metal is an alloy of copper and tin, and in Chanda is made of four parts of copper to one part tin or tinfoil, the tin being the more expensive metal.
Bells of fairly good size and excellent tone are moulded from this amalgam, and plates or saucers in which anything acid in the way of food is to be kept are also made of it, since acids do not corrode this metal as they do brass and copper. But bell-metal vessels are fragile and some- times break when dropped. They cannot also be heated in the fire to clean them, and therefore cannot be lent to persons outside the family ; while brass vessels may be lent to friends of other castes, and on being received back pollution is removed by heating them in the fire or placing hot ashes in them. Brahmans make a small fire of grass for this purpose and pass the vessels through the flame.
Copper cooking-pots are commonly used by Muhammadans but not by Hindus, as they have to be coated with tin ; the Hindus consider that tin is an inferior metal whose application to copper degrades the latter. Pots made of brass with a copper rim are called ' Ganga Jamni ' after the confluence of the dark water of the Jumna with the muddy stream of the Ganges, whose union they are supposed to symbolise. Small figures of the deities or idols are also made of brass, but some Kasars will not attempt this work, because they are afraid of the displeasure of the god in case the figure should not be well or symmetrically shaped.
Kasar: Deccan
This article is an extract from THE CASTES AND TRIBES OF H. E. H. THE NIZAM'S DOMINIONS BY SYED SIRAJ UL HASSAN Of Merton College, Oxford, Trinity College, Dublin, and Middle Temple, London. One of the Judges of H. E. H. the Nizam's High Court of Judicature : Lately Director of Public Instruction. BOMBAY THE TlMES PRESS 1920 Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees |
Kasar — the bangle selling and brazier caste of the Maratha Dis- triclB, supposed to have been originally recruited from among the middle classes of society. They have no endogamous divisions, while their exogamous sections are mostly of the Maratha type. A man may not marry a woman belonging to his own section. No other section is a bar to marriage. He may marry two sisters, provided that the elder is married first, but two brothers cannot marry two sisters. All Kasars marry their daughters as infants between the ages of five and twelve and social stigma attaches to the parents of a girl who is not provided with a husband before she has attained the age of puberty. The marriage ceremony conforms to that in use among the Maratha Kunbis, Antarpat being deemed to be the binding and essential portion of it. Polygamy is permitted to the extent that a man may take a second wife if his first wife is barren. A widow is allowed to marry again by the pat form, similar to that in vogue among the Maratha Kunbis. This must take place on a night of the waning moon. Only widows must attend the ceremony, married woman deeming it unlucky to be present. Divorce is recognised and divorced wives are allowed to marry again by the same form as widows. By religion, most of the Kasars are Vaishnavas, but they also worship Khandoba and Bhavani of Tuljapur. Their tutelary goddess is said to be Kali. Brahmans are employed on ceremonial and religious occasions. They burn their dead, throw the ashes and bones into a holy river and perform Sradha in the orthodox fashion. Their social rank is a little below that of the Marathcis. The bulk of the caste are engaged in their characteristic occupation. They purchase bangles from Kacharis or in the bazaars and put them on the wrists of women of all classes, among whom they are in great request. Their women and children help them in their work. The
Kasars also, manufacture utensils of brass and copper and sell them in retail or wholesale. A few have teiken to agriculture of late years.
The following statement shows the number and distribution of the Kasars in 1911.
The figures include the number of Bogars.
