The Pahari Mahajans
(Created page with " {| 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...") |
Revision as of 13:51, 2 May 2014
This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. Being a reprint of the chapter on Lahore: Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1916. Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees |
Pahari Mahajans
Caste No. 112)==
As I have just remarked, the Banyas and Bohras returned for the Hill States should probably be included with these people. They appear to be a mixed caste sprung from the intermarriage of immigrants from the plains belonging to the Banya and Knyath castes and are generally either traders or clerks. But the term is in the hills really occupational rather than the name of any caste ; and it appears that a Brahman shop-keeper would be called a Mahajan, while a Mahajan clerk would be called a Kayath. Thus Mr. Barnes says that the Kayath of the hills, unlike his namesake of the plains, belongs to the '* Vaisya or connnercial class and wears the janeo or sacred thread,^' and Major Wace writes of Hazara : The Hill Brahmans or Mahajans keep shops, cultivate, or take service, as well as act as priests.^ The true Banya of Hindustan, who is found in the hills only as a foreigner, will not intermarry with these Pahari Mahajans.
SeeThe Sud
