Brāhman, Utkal
Brāhman, Utkal.—These are the Brāhmans of Orissa and one of the Pānch-Gaur divisions. They are divided into two groups, the Dākshinatya or southern and the Jajpuria or northern clan. The Utkal Brāhmans, who first settled in Sambalpur, are known as Jharia or jungly, and form a separate subcaste, marrying among themselves, as the later immigrants refuse to intermarry with them. Another group of Orissa Brāhmans have taken to cultivation, and are known as Halia, from hal, a plough. They grow the betel-vine, and in Orissa the areca and cocoanuts, besides doing ordinary cultivation. They have entirely lost their sacerdotal character, but glory in their occupation, and affect to despise the Bed or Veda Brāhmans, who live upon alms.[1] A third class of Orissa Brāhmans are the Pandas, who serve as priests and cooks in the public temples and also in private houses, and travel about India touting for pilgrims to visit the temple at Jagannāth. Dr. Bhattachārya describes the procedure of the temple-touts as follows:[2]
“Their tours are so organised that during their campaigning season, which commences in November and is finished by the car-festival at the beginning of the rains, very few villages of the adjoining Provinces escape their visits and taxation. Their appearance causes a disturbance in every household. Those who have already visited ‘The Lord of the World’ at Puri are called upon to pay an instalment towards the debt contracted by them while at the sacred shrine, which, though paid many times over, is never completely satisfied. That, however, is a small matter compared with the misery and distraction caused by the ‘Jagannāth mania,’ which is excited by the preachings and pictures of the Panda. A fresh batch of old ladies become determined to visit the shrine, and neither the waitings and protestations of the children nor the prospect of a long and toilsome journey can dissuade them. The arrangements of the family are for the time being altogether upset, and the grief of those left behind is heightened by the fact that they look upon the pilgrims as going to meet almost certain death....”
This vivid statement of the objections to the habit of pilgrimage from a Brāhman writer is very interesting. Since the opening of the railway to Puri the danger and expense as well as the period of absence have been greatly reduced; but the pilgrimages are still responsible for a large mortality, as cholera frequently breaks out among the vast assembly at the temple, and the pilgrims, hastily returning to all parts of India, carry the disease with them, and cause epidemics in many localities. All castes now eat the rice cooked at the temple of Jagannāth together without defilement, and friendships are cemented by eating a little of this rice together as a sacred bond.
[1] Stirling’s description of Orissa in As. Res. vol. xv. p. 199, quoted in Hindu Castes and Sects.
[2] Hindu Castes and Sects, p. 63.