Bāri
Bāri.—A caste of household servants and makers of leaf-plates, belonging to northern India. The Bāris numbered 1200 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, residing mainly in Jubbulpore and Mandla. Sir H. Risley remarks of the caste:[1] “Mr. Nesfield regards the Bāri as merely an offshoot from a semi-savage tribe known as Banmānush and Musāhār. He is said still to associate with them at times, and if the demand for leaf-plates and cups, owing to some temporary cause, such as a local fair or an unusual multitude of marriages, happens to become larger than he can at once supply, he gets them secretly made by his ruder kinsfolk and retails them at a higher rate, passing them off as his own production. The strictest Brāhmans, those at least who aspire to imitate the self-denying life of the ancient Indian hermit, never eat off any other plates than those made of leaves.” “If the above view is correct,” Sir H. Risley remarks, “the Bāris are a branch of a non-Aryan tribe who have been given a fairly respectable position in the social system in consequence of the demand for leaf-plates, which are largely used by the highest as well as the lowest castes. Instances of this sort, in which a non-Aryan or mixed group is promoted on grounds of necessity or convenience to a higher status than their antecedents would entitle them to claim, are not unknown in other castes, and must have occurred frequently in outlying parts of the country, where the Aryan settlements were scanty and imperfectly supplied with the social apparatus demanded by the theory of ceremonial purity.” There is no reason why the origin of the Bāri from the Banmānush (wild man of the woods) or Musāhār (mouse-eater), a forest tribe, as suggested by Mr. Nesfield from his observation of their mutual connection, should be questioned. The making of leaf-plates is an avocation which may be considered naturally to pertain to the tribes frequenting jungles from which the leaves are gathered; and in the Central Provinces, though in the north the Nai or barber ostensibly supplies the leaf-plates, probably buying the leaves and getting them made up by Gonds and others, in the Marātha Districts the Gond himself does so, and many Gonds make their living by this trade. The people of the Marātha country are apparently less strict than those of northern India, and do not object to eat off plates avowedly the handiwork of Gonds. The fact that the Bāri has been raised to the position of a pure caste, so that Brāhmans will take water from his hands, is one among several instances of this elevation of the rank of the serving castes for purposes of convenience. The caste themselves have the following legend of their origin: Once upon a time Parmeshwar[2] was offering rice milk to the spirits of his ancestors. In the course of this ceremony the performer has to present a gift known as Vikraya Dān, which cannot be accepted by others without loss of position. Parmeshwar offered the gift to various Brāhmans, but they all refused it. So he made a man of clay, and blew upon the image and gave it life, and the god then asked the man whom he had created to accept the gift which the Brāhmans had refused. This man, who was the first Bāri, agreed on condition that all men should drink with him and recognise his purity of caste. Parmeshwar then told him to bring water in a cup, and drank of it in the presence of all the castes. And in consequence of this all the Hindus will take water from the hands of a Bāri. They also say that their first ancestor was named Sundar on account of his personal beauty; but if so, he failed to bequeath this quality to his descendants. The proper avocation of the Bāris is, as already stated, the manufacture of the leaf-cups and plates used by all Hindus at festivals. In the Central Provinces these are made from the large leaves of the māhul creeper (Bauhinia Vahlii), or from the palās (Butea frondosa). The caste also act as personal servants, handing round water, lighting and carrying torches at marriages and other entertainments and on journeys, and performing other functions. Some of them have taken to agriculture. Their women act as maids to high-caste Hindu ladies, and as they are always about the zenāna, are liable to lose their virtue. A curious custom prevails in Mārwār on the birth of an heir to the throne. An impression of the child’s foot is taken by a Bāri on cloth covered with saffron, and is exhibited to the native chiefs, who make him rich presents.[3] The Bāris have the reputation of great fidelity to their employers, and a saying about them is, ‘The Bāri will die fighting for his master.’
[1] Tribes and Castes of Bengal, art. Bāri.
[2] Vishnu.
[3] Sherring, Tribes and Castes, i. pp. 403, 404.