1. Origin and Traditions.
Kīr.[1]—A cultivating caste found principally in the Hoshangābād District. They numbered about 7000 persons in 1911. The Kīrs claim to have come from the Jaipur State, and this is borne out by the fact that they still retain a dialect of Mārwāri, though they have been living among the Hindi-speaking population of Hoshangābād for several generations. According to their traditions they immigrated into the Central Provinces when Rāja Mān was ruling at Jaipur. He was a contemporary of Akbar’s and died in A.D. 1615.[2] This story tallies with Colonel Sleeman’s statement that the first important influx of Hindus into the Nerbudda valley took place in the time of Akbar.[3] The Kīrs are akin to the Kirārs, and at the India Census of 1901 were amalgamated with them. Like the Kirārs they claim to be descended from the mythical Rāja Karan of Jaipur. Their story is that on a summer day Mahādeo and Pārvati created a melon-garden, and Mahādeo made a man and a woman out of a piece of kusha grass (Eragrostis cynosuroides) to tend the garden. From these the Kīrs are descended. The name may possibly be a corruption of karar, a river-bank.