Brahman: Sanadhya, Sanaurhia

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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 It has been archived for its historical value as well as for the insights it gives into British colonial writing about the various communities of India.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.

Brahman: Sanadhya, Sanaurhia

The Sanadhyas are considered in the Central Provinces to be a branch of the Kanaujia division. Their home is in the Ganges-Jumna Doab and Rohilkhand, between the Gaur Brahmans to the north- west and the Kanaujias to the east. Mr. Crooke states that in some localities the Sanadhyas intermarry with both the Kanaujia and Gaur divisions. But formerly both Kanaujias and Gaurs practised hypergamy with the Sanadhyas, taking daughters from them in marriage but not giving their daughters to them.

This fact indicates the inferiority of the Sanadhya group, but marriage is now becoming reciprocal. In Bengal the Sanadhyas account for their inferiority to the other Kanaujias by saying that their ancestors on one occasion at the bidding of a Raja partook of a sacrificial feast with all their clothes on, instead of only their loin- cloths according to the rule among Brahmans, and were hence degraded. The Sanadhyas themselves have two divisions, the Sdrhe-tln ghar and Dasghar, or Three-and-a- half houses and Ten houses, of whom the former are superior, and practise hypergamy with the latter. Further, it is said that the Three-and-a-half group were once made to inter- marry with the degraded Kataha or Maha-Brahmans, who are funeral priests.

This further indicates the inferior status of the Sanadhyas. The Sanaurhia criminal caste of pickpockets are supposed to be made up of a nucleus of Sanadhya Brahmans with recruits from all other castes, but this is not certain. In the Central Provinces a number of Sanadhyas took to carrying grain and merchandise on pack -bullocks, and are hence known as Belwar. They form a separate subcaste, ranking below the other Sanadhyas and marrying among themselves. Mr. Crooke notes that at their weddings the Sanadhyas worship a potter's wheel. Some make an image of it on the wall of the house, while ' Tribes and Castes, art. Sanadhya. 2 Crooke, ibidem, paras. 3 and 6.

others go to the potter's house and worship his wheel there. In the Central Provinces after the wedding they get a bed newly made with netvdr tape and seat the bride and bridegroom on it, and put a large plate at their feet, in which presents are placed. The Sanadhyas differ from the Kanaujias in that they smoke tobacco but do not eat meat, while the Kanaujias eat meat but do not smoke. They greet each other with the word Dandawat, adding Maharaj to an equal or superior.