4. Mixed elements in the caste.
The early texts indicate that Brāhmans were in the habit of forming connections with the widows of Rājanyas and Vaishyas, even if they did not take possession of the wives of such men while they were still alive.[5] The sons of Angiras, one of the great ancestral sages, were Brāhmans as well as Kshatriyas. The descendants of Garga, another well-known eponymous ancestor, were Kshatriyas by birth but became Brāhmans. Visvāmitra was a Kshatriya, who, by the force of his austerities, compelled Brahma to admit him into the Brāhmanical order, so that he might be on a level with Vasishtha with whom he had quarrelled. According to a passage in the Mahābhārata all castes become Brāhmans when once they have crossed the Gomti on a pilgrimage to the hermitage of Vasishtha.[6] In more recent times there are legends of persons created Brāhmans by Hindu Rājas. Sir J. Malcolm in Central India found many low-caste female slaves in Brāhman houses, the owners of which had treated them as belonging to their own caste.[7]
It would appear also that in some cases the caste priests of different castes have become Brāhmans. Thus the Sāraswat Brāhmans of the Punjab are the priests of the Khatri caste. They have the same complicated arrangement of exogamy and hypergamy as the Khatris, and will take food from that caste. It seems not improbable that they are really descendants of Khatri priests who have become Brāhmans.[8]
Similarly such groups as the Oswāl, Srimāl and Palliwāl Brāhmans of Rājputāna, who are priests of the subcastes of Banias of the same name, may originally have been caste priests and become Brāhmans. The Nāramdeo Brāhmans, or those living on the Nerbudda River, are said to be descendants of a Brāhman father by a woman of the Naoda or Dhīmar caste; and the Golapūrab Brāhmans similarly of a Brāhman father and Ahīr mother. In many cases, such as the island of Onkar Mandhāta in the Nerbudda in Nimār, and the Mahādeo caves at Pachmarhi, the places of worship of the non-Aryan tribes have been adopted by Hinduism and the old mountain or river gods transformed into Hindu deities. At the same time it is not improbable that the tribal priests of the old shrines have been admitted into the Brāhman caste.