Brāhman, Sarwaria
Brāhman, Sarwaria.—This is the highest class of the Kanaujia Brāmans, who take their name from the river Sarju or Gogra in Oudh, where they have their home. They observe strict rules of ceremonial purity, and do not smoke tobacco nor plough with their own hands. An orthodox Sarwaria Brāman will not give his daughter in marriage in a village from which his family has received a girl, and sometimes will not even drink the water of that village. The Sarwarias make widows dress in white and sometimes shave their heads. In some tracts they intermarry with the Kanaujia Brāhmans, and in others take daughters in marriage but do not give their own daughters to them. In Dr. Buchanan’s time, a century ago, the Sarwaria Brāhmans would not eat rice sold in the bazār which had been cleaned in boiling water, as they considered that it had thereby become food cooked with water; and they carried their own grain to the grain-parcher to be prepared for them. When they ate either parched grain or sweetmeats from a confectioner in public they must purify the place on which they sat down with cowdung and water.[1] This may be compared with a practice observed by very strict Brāhmans even now, of adding water to the medicine which they obtain from a Government dispensary, to purify it before drinking it.
[1] Eastern India, ii. 472, quoted in Mr. Crooke’s art. Sarwaria.