5. Caste subdivisions.

The Brāhman caste has ten main territorial divisions, forming two groups, the Pānch-Gaur or five northern, and the Pānch-Drāvida or five southern. The boundary line between the two groups is supposed to be the Nerbudda River, which is also the boundary between Hindustān and the Deccan. But the Gujarāti Brāhmans belong to the southern group, though Gujarāt is north of the Nerbudda. The five northern divisions are:

(a) Sāraswat.—These belong to the Punjab and are named after the Sāraswati river of the classical period, on whose banks they are supposed to have lived.

(b) Gaur.—The home of these is the country round Delhi, but they say that the name is from the old Gaur or Lakhnauti kingdom of Bengal. If this is correct, it is difficult to understand how they came from Bengal to Delhi contrary to the usual tendency of migration. General Cunningham has suggested that Gaura was also the name of the modern Gonda District, and it is possible that the term was once used for a considerable tract in northern India as well as Bengal, since it has come to be applied to all the northern Brāhmans.[9]

(c) Kānkubja or Kanaujia.—These are named after the old town of Kanauj on the Ganges near Cawnpore, once the capital of India. The Kanaujia are the most important of the northern groups and extend from the west of Oudh to beyond Benāres and into the northern Districts of the Central Provinces. Here they are subdivided into four principal groups—the Kanaujia, Jijhotia, Sarwaria and Sanādhya, which are treated in annexed subordinate articles.

(d) Maithil.—They take their name from Mithila, the old term for Bihār or Tirhūt, and belong to this tract.

(e) Utkal.—These are the Brāhmans of Orissa.

The five groups of the Pānch-Drāvida are as follows:

(a) Maharāshtra.—These belong to the Marātha country or Bombay. They are subdivided into three main territorial groups—the Deshasth, or those of the home country, that is the Poona tract above the Western Ghāts; the Konkonasth, who belong to the Bombay Konkan or littoral; and the Karhāra, named after a place in the Satāra District.[10]

(b) Tailanga or Andhra.—The Brāhmans of the Telugu country, Hyderābād and the northern part of Madras. This territory was known as Andhra and governed by an important dynasty of the same name in early times.

(d) Karnāta.—The Brāhmans of the Carnatic, or the Canarese country. The Canarese area comprises the Mysore State, and the British Districts of Canara, Dharwar and Belgaum.

(e) Gurjara.—The Brāhmans of Gujarāt, of whom two subcastes are found in the Central Provinces. The first consists of the Khedāwāls, named after Kheda, a village in Gujarāt, who are a strictly orthodox class holding a good position in the caste. And the second are the Nāgar Brāhmans, who have been long settled in Nimār and the adjacent tracts, and act as village priests and astrologers. Their social status is somewhat lower.

There are, however, a large number of other subcastes, and the tendency to fissure in a large caste, and to the formation of small local groups which marry among themselves, is nowhere more strikingly apparent than among the Brāhmans. This is only natural, as they, more than any other caste, attach importance to strict ceremonial observance in matters of food and the daily ritual of prayer, and any group which was suspected of backsliding in respect of these on emigration to a new locality would be debarred from intermarriage with the parent caste at home. An instance of this is found among the Chhattīsgarhi Brāhmans, who have been long settled in this backward tract and cut off from communication with northern India. They are mainly of the Kanaujia division, but the Kanaujias of Oudh will neither take food nor intermarry with them, and they now constitute a separate subcaste of Kanaujias. Similarly the Mālwi Brāhmans, whose home is in Mālwa, whence they have spread to Hoshangābād and Betul, are believed to have been originally a branch of the Gaur or Kanaujia, but have now become a distinct subcaste, and have adopted many of the customs of Marātha Brāhmans. Mandla contains a colony of Sarwaria[11] Brāhmans who received grants of villages from the Gond kings and have settled down there. They are now cultivators, and some have taken to the plough, while they also permit widow-remarriage in all but the name. They are naturally cut off from intercourse with the orthodox Sarwarias and marry among themselves. The Harenia Brāhmans of Saugor are believed to have immigrated from Hariāna some generations ago and form a separate local group; and also the Laheria Brāhmans of the same District, who, like the Mandla Sarwarias, permit widows to marry. In Hoshangābād there is a small subcaste of Bawīsa or ‘Twenty-two’ Brāhmans, descended from twenty-two families from northern India, who settled here and have since married among themselves. A similar diversity of subcastes is found in other Provinces. The Brāhmans of Bengal are also mainly of the Kanaujia division, but they are divided into several local subcastes, of which the principal are Rārhi and Barendra, named after tracts in Bengal, and quite distinct from the subdivisions of the Kanaujia group in the Central Provinces.