View source for Brahman: Punjab

  {| class="wikitable"
|-
|colspan="0"|<div style="font-size:100%">
This article is an extract from <br/>

PANJAB CASTES <br/>

SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. <br/>

Being a reprint of the chapter on <br/>
The Races, Castes and Tribes of <br/>
the People in the Report on the <br/>
Census of the Panjab published <br/>
in ''' 1883 ''' by the late Sir Denzil <br/>
Ibbetson, KCSI <br/>

Lahore : <br/>

Printed  by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, <br/>

1916. <br/>
''Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees ''<br/> 
''with the contents of this article.''
</div>
|} 
[[Category:India|B]]
[[Category:Communities|B]]

==The Brahman== 
Caste No. 3

The Brahman or Levite of the Hindu 
caste system is the third most numerous caste in the Panjab, outnumbering 
all but Jats and Rajputs. I shall not attempt to discuss his origin and 
theoretical position ; much has been written and published concerning him, the 
first hundred pages of Sherring''s first volume and the whole of the second 
volume of Wilson^s Indian Caste are devoted to him alone, and Cole
brooke''s Essays contain much valuable information on the subject. The 
figures of Abstract No. 88 showing the distribution of the caste in the Panjab 
are very striking. The proportion of Brahmans to total population reaches its 
maximum in the hills of Kangra and Simla, the most Hindu portion of 
the Province, where it rises as high as from 13 to 15 per cent. Throughout 
the remainder of the Panjab the proportion steadily changes with the prevailing 
religion. It is highest in the sub-montane and Jamna tracts where the people 
are essentially Hindus ; it gradually decreases from east to west, being 
markedly smaller in the central and Sikh districts ; it is still smaller in the cis
Indus Salt-range Tract ; while in the Western Plains and beyond the Indus 
the Brahmans may be said comparatively speaking to disappear. The 
Brahmans have no territorial organisation. They accompany their clients in 
their migrations, settle with them in their new homes, and receive grants of 
land to hold or cultivate 

The function and position of the Brahman in his sacerdotal character have 
been already described in the Chapter on Religion, section 236. He concerns 
himself  but little with the spiritual guidance of the people, but he is consulted 
as to omens and auspicious names, dates, and events, and he officiates at all 
ceremonial functions. These duties however employ, except perhaps in the 
west of the Province, but a small proportion of the total number ; and the 
remainder are pure Levites, ready to be fed or receive offerings in the name of 
God, but their sacerdotal functions being pm'cly passive. These men supple
ment the offerings of their clients by practising agriculture very extensively ; 
and it may be said that wherever the Brahmans are numerous they are, ex
cepting only the educated Pandits or Padhas, land-owners and cultivators. 

They are poor husbandmen, for their pride of caste and the fact that a large 
part of their subsistence comes to Them without the necessity of toil render 
them impatient of manual labour ; and like the Rajputs they look upon the 
actual operation of ploughing as degrading, in so much that in the hills a 
Brahman who ploughs is scareely recognised as a brother by the higher classes 
of the caste. In social position the Brahman is of course pre-eminently first in 
the Hindu portion of the Panjab, though he is thought but meanly of on the 
frontier. Yet even where his position is most readily admitted he has failed to 
make himself beloved. He is grasping, quarrelsome, and overbearing, inflated 
with pride in his own descent and contempt for that of others, while he holds 
himself aloof from the clients whose pockets he preys upon, and declines to a 
associate himself with the community upou which he lives. 

A Dum, a Brahman, and a goat are of no avail in time of need Where Brahmans 
hold any considerable share of a village trouble and disputes are sure to fol
low ; and the villages have a proverb : As famine from the desert, so comes 
evil from a Brahman.So their avarice is expressed in the saying — The 
Mulla, the Bhat, the Brahman, and the Dum ; these four castes were not 
born on giving day,and their love of good living by the proverb : Dine 
with a Brahman and jog along the road with a Kirar (the Kirars being 
great talkers) . On the whole the Brahman has but little real influence over 
the Hindu peasant, and the reverence paid him is largely traditional or due 
to the conservative tendency of the women. The Brahmans of the hills have 
a social and tribal organisation almost exactly corresponding with that of 
the hill Rajputs. 

The quotations from Mr. Barnes given at pages 175* and  
179t bear upon the subject. They too are divided into grades, each grade  
marrying from the one below and giving their daughters to the one above, 
while the lower classes will marry Kayath or Banya, and in Kulu even Kanet 
women. The mixed class of Pahari Mahajans is described below under mer
cantile castes. In the hills of Hazara on the banks of the Jahlam these 
Mahajans, who are also called Dhakochi, seem to include the whole Brahman 
caste. In the Peshawar division 185 persons are returned as Brahman- Maha
jans, and these I have classed as Brahmans. It is probable that some of the 
Pahari Mahajans also are really Brahmans. The Hill Brahmans universally 
eat meat, from which the Brahmans of the plains, except perhaps in the ex
treme west, scrupulously abstain. Of the total number of Brahmans only 
about 7,000 are returned as Sikh, the denial of the superiority claimed by the 
higher castes which distinguished the teaching of Guru Govind not being 
acceptable to the Brahman. The Sikhs employ Hindu Brahmans as their 
parohits or family priests in exactly the same way as do the Hindus and Jains. 
There are also 3,500 Musalman Brahmans, chiefly in the Dehli district. 
These men are known as Huseni Brahmans, and are said to receive oblations 
in the name of the Hindu gods from Hindus and in the name of Allah from 
Musalmans. 

==The divisions of the Brahmans==

The Brahminicial gotras have already been described 
in section 353. The Brahman caste or class is divided into ten great sections, all based upon 
geographical distribution, which differs in customs and standing and do not intermarry. They 
again are divided into two groups each containing live sections, as follows ; — 

A. — The Jive Dravidas (south of the Vindhyas). 

1. The Maharashtra (of the Mahratta country). 

2. The Tailanga or Audhra (of the Telugu country) . 

3. The Dravida (of the Tamil or Dravida country). 

4. The Karnata (of the Caruatic). 

5. The Gurjara or Gujarati (of Gujarat in Sindh) 

B. — The Jive Gaurs {north of the Vindhyas). 

6. The Gaur (of Gaur, probably not Bengal, see below). 

7. The Saraswat or Sarsnt (of the Panjab, beyond the Saruswati). 

8. The Kanyakubja (of Kanaup. 

9. The Maithila (of the Mithila country). 

10. The Utkala (of Orissa). 



==The Gaur Brahman==
There has been much dispute about tbc position of the Gaur from 
Which  this section is named. Their traditional place of origin is Hariana, and their present 
home is the portion of the North-West Provices lying west of Aligarh and Mathra. and the part 
of the Panjab defined above ; and they are separated from Bengal by other sections of the caste. 
General Cunningbam suggests that Gaur is the old name of Gonda, while Sir George Campbell 
would make it another foim of the word Ghaggar. The Gaur Brahmans are far more strict in all 
caste observances than the Sarsnt Brabmaus, fiom wboae hands they will not eat broad, and upon 
whom they look down. 

==The Sarsut Brahman==
is the Brahman of the Panjab Proper, and takes his name from the 
Saruswati which lies near his eastern boundary. He is said to be less grasping and quarrel some 
Than  the Gaur, and he is certainly much less rigid in his observance of caste rules, eating and smok
ing with mobt of the stricter Hiudu castes, such as Bauyas, Khatris, Suds, and Kayatbs. He 
gats flesh in the hills, and perhaps in some parts of the plains also. 

==The Gujarati and Dakaut Brahmans== 

These men are scattered in small numbers all over 
the Province. Tb.e Gujarati lirahmans probably belong 1o the Gurjara section already mentioned. 
The Dakaut or Dakotra Brahmans are fortune-tellers and astrologers, and came from Northern 
Rajputana. They belong to the Panj Gaur group, of which they are sometimes, in Rajputana 
which is their home, reckoned as a separate section. The following description is taken Rrom my 
Karnal Report : — 

Offerings to Brahmans are divided into bar graha for the days of the week, and two 
gvahin for Rahu and Ket, the two demons who cause eclipses by attacking the sun and moon. 
These parts of a jin (Raksbas), who, when sitting at dinner with the gods and jins, 
drank of the nectar of the gods instead of the wine of the jins. The sun and moon told of him 
aul Bhagwan cut him into two parts, of which Rahu, including the stomach and therefore the 
nectar, is the more worthy. When anybody wishes to offer to Brahmans from llness or other 
cause, he consults a Brahman who casts his horoscope and directs which offering of the seven 
yraA'is should be made. The gi-ahins Ave most commonly offered during an eclipse, that to 
Rabu being given at the begiuning, and that to Ket at the end of the transit. The Gaur 
Brahmans will not take any black offerings, such as a buffalo or goat, iron, sesame {tib or urad, 
black blankets or clothes, salt, &c., nor oil, second-hand clothes, green clothes, nov gatnaja, 
which is seven grains mixed with a piece of iron in them ; these belonging to the grahe whose 
offerings are forbidden to them. An exception, however, is made in favour of a black cow. 

The Gujarati or Bias Brahmans who came from Gujarat in Sindh are in some respects rp  
the highest class of all Brahmans ; they are always fed first ; and they bless a Gaur when they 
meet him, while they will not eat ordinary bread from his hands. They are fed on the 12th 
day after death, and the Gaurs will not eat on the 13th day if this has not been done. But 
they take inauspicious offerings. To them appertain especially the Rahu offerings made at an 
eclipse. They will not take oil, sesame, goats, or green or dirty clothes ; but will take old clothes 
if washed, buffaloes, and satnaja. They also take a special offering to Rahu made by a sick 
person, who puts gold in gln, looks at his face in it, and gives it to a Gujrati, or who weighs 
himself against satnaja and makes an off'ering of the grain. A buffalo which has been possessed 
'• by a devil to that degree that he has got on to the top of a house (no difficult feat in a village) 
or a foal dropped in the month of Sawan, or buffalo calf in Mag, are given to the Gujarati as 
being unlucky. No Gaur would take them. At every harvest the Gujarati takes a small allow
ance {seori) of grain from the thrashing floor, just as does the Gaur. 

The Dakauts came from Agroha in the Dakhau. Raja Jasrat, father of Ramchandar, 
bad excited the anger of Saturday by worshipping all the other graham  but him. Saturday 
accordingly rained fire on Jasrat's city of Ajudhia. Jasrat wished to propitiate him, but the 
Brahmans feared to take the offering for dread of the consequences ; so Jasrat made from the 
dirt of his body one Daka Rishi who took the offerings, and was the ancestor of Dakauts by a 
Sndra woman. The other Brahmans, however, disowned him ; so Jasrat consoled him by pro
mising that all Brahmans should in future consult his cbiUlren. The promise has been fulfilled. 
The Dakauts are pre-eminent as astrologers and soothsayers, and are consulted by every class 
on all subjects but the dates of weddings and the names of children, on wlnch the Gaurs advise. 
They are the scape-goats of the Hindu religion; and their fate is to receive all the unlucky 
off'erings which no other Brahman will take, such as black things and dirty clothes. Especially 
they take the offerings of Wednesday, Saturday, and ket. They are so unlucky that no Brah
man will accept their offerings ; and if they wish to make them they have to give them to their 
own sister's sons. No Hindu of any caste will eat any sort of food at their bands, and at 
weddings they sit with tho lower castes ; though of course they only eat food cooked by a 
Brahman. In old days they possessed the power of prophecy up to 10-30 A.M.; but this has 
now failed them. They and the Gujuratis are always at enmity, because, as they take many 
of the same offerings, their interests clash.

The Pushkarna Brahmans take their name from the sacred lake of Pushkar or Pokhar 
near Ajmer. One section of them is said to have been origmally Beldars or Ods who were raised 
To  Brahminical rank as a reward frr excavating the tank. They still worehip the pickaxe. 
They are the hereditary Brahinars of the Rajputara Ehatlas, and are mere strict in caste matters 
than the Sarsrit. They are found in some rmnthers in the western districts of the Panjab. 

==The Mahabrahman or Acharj==
This is the Brahman who performs the funeral ceremonies. 
After the cremation he is seated on the dead man's bedstead and the soth lift him up, hedstead 
and all, and make obeisance to him. He then receives the hedstead and all  the wearing apparel 
of the dead man. He rides on a donkey, and is considered so impure thai in many villages he is 
not allowed to come inside the gate. 

==The Muhial, Moyal or Mial Brahmans==
This is a sub-section of the Sarsut section, who are 
said to be so named from the seven Muhins or clans of which they consist. They are almost 
confined to the sub-montane Salt-range Tract. They say that certain of their ancestors rose to 
high position under the Mughals, since when they have abandoned all performance of priestly 
functions or claim to a sacerdotal character, and cultivate laud, but especially take service in the 
army or as clerks. They object to be called Brahn ans, as the enlistment of Erahmans is said to 
be forbidden in our army. This is their own account ; but in Haznra proper the Muhials perform 
priestly functions and receive alms and oblations just like other Brahnmns. Another story derives 
their name from a place called Mava, ' now deserted.' 

==Dharukra Brahman==
are Gaur Brahmans of the Dehli Territory who have taken to widow
marriage, and with whom other Brahmans will not intermarry. They are much the same as the 
Dasa or Doghla Brahmans.

==Chamarwa and Gurra Brahmans==
These are the Brahmans who minister to the Chamars, 
Aheris, and other outcastes. They are not recognized as Brahmans by the other classes ; and 
though they wear the sacred thread it is perhaps possible that their claim to Brahman origin is 
unfounded. Yet on the whole it seems most probable that they are true Brahmans by descent, but 
have fallen from their high position. They are often called Chamarwa Sddhs.