Rāvulo

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

This article is an excerpt from Castes and Tribes of Southern India By Edgar Thurston, C.I.E., Superintendent, Madras Government Museum; Correspondant Étranger, Société d’Anthropologie de Paris; Socio Corrispondante, Societa,Romana di Anthropologia. Assisted by K. Rangachari, M.A., of the Madras Government Museum. Government Press, Madras 1909.

Rāvulo

It is recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, that “there are three castes of temple servants among the Oriyas, the Rāvulos, the Mālis and the Mūnis. The Rāvulos blow conches (shells of Turbinella rapa) in the Saivite temples and at Brāhmans’ weddings, sell flowers, and regard themselves as superior to the other two. The Mālis do service in Saivite or Vaishnavite temples and sell flowers, but the Mūnis are employed only in the temples of the village goddesses. Among the Rāvulos, infant marriage is compulsory, but widow marriage is allowed, and also divorce in certain cases. A curious account is given of the punishment sometimes inflicted by the caste panchāyat (council) on a man who ill-treats and deserts his wife. He is made to sit under one of the bamboo coops with which fish are caught, and his wife sits on the top of it. Five pots of water are then poured over the pair of them in imitation of the caste custom of pouring five pots of water over a dead body before it is taken to the burning-ground, the ceremony taking place in the part of the house where a corpse would be washed.

The wife then throws away a ladle, and breaks a cooking-pot just as she would have done had her husband really been dead, and further breaks her bangles and tears off her necklace, just as would have been done if she was really a widow. Having thus signified that her husband is dead to her, she goes straight off to her parents’ house, and is free to marry again. Some Rāvulos wear the sacred thread. They employ Brāhmans as priests for religious and ceremonial purposes. They eat fish and meat, though not beef or fowls, but do not drink alcohol. Nowadays many of them are earth-workers, cart-drivers, bricklayers, carpenters and day labourers.”

It is further noted, in the Census Report, that Māli is “an Oriya caste of vegetable growers and sellers, and cultivators. Also a caste belonging to Bengal and Orissa, the people of which are garland makers and temple servants. The statistics confuse the two.” In an account of the Rāvulos, as given to me, Rāvulos, Mūnis, and Mālis are not three castes, but one caste. The Mūnis are said to worship, among others, Mūnis or Rishis, Sakti, Siva, and Ganēsa. A Mūni, named Sārala Doss, was the author of the most popular Oriya version of the Mahābhārata, and he is known as Sūdra Mūni, the Sūdra saint.

Rāvulo occurs further as a title of Kurumos who officiate as priests in Siva temples in Ganjam, and Mūni as a title of the Sipiti temple servants.