15. Malpractices of lower-class Sumārs
As the bulk of the capital of the poorer classes is hoarded in the shape of gold and silver ornaments, these are regularly pledged when ready money is needed, and the Sunār often acts as a pawnbroker. In this capacity he too often degenerates into a receiver of stolen property, and Mr. Nunn suggested that his proceedings should be supervised by license. Generally, the Sunār is suspected of making an illicit profit by mixing alloy with the metal entrusted to him by his customers, and some bitter sayings are current about him. One of his customs is to filch a little gold from his mother and sister on the last day of Shrāwan (July) and make it into a luck-penny.[19] This has given rise to the saying, ‘The Sunār will not respect even his mother’s gold’; but the implication appears to be unjust. Another saying is: ‘Sona Sunār kā, abharan sansār ka,’ or, ‘The ornament is the customer’s, but the gold remains with the Sunār.’[20] Gold is usually melted in the employer’s presence, who, to guard against fraud, keeps a small piece of the metal called chāsnī or māslo, that is a sample, and when the ornament is ready sends it with the sample to an assayer or Chokshi who, by rubbing them on a touchstone, tells whether the gold in the sample and the ornament is of the same quality. Further, the employer either himself sits near the Sunār while the ornament is being made or sends one of his family to watch. In spite of these precautions the Sunār seldom fails to filch some of the gold while the spy’s attention is distracted by the prattling of the parrot, by the coquetting of a handsomely dressed young woman of the family or by some organised mishap in the inner rooms among the women of the house.[21] One of his favourite practices is to substitute copper for gold in the interior, and this he has the best chance of doing with the marriage ornaments, as many people consider it unlucky to weigh or test the quality of these.[22] The account must, however, be taken to apply only to the small artisans, and well-to-do reputable Sunārs would be above such practices.
The goldsmith’s industry has hitherto not been affected to any serious extent by the competition of imported goods, and except during periods of agricultural depression the Sunār continues to prosper.
A Persian couplet said by a lover to his mistress is, ‘Gold has no scent and in the scent of flowers there is no gold; but thou both art gold and hast scent.’
Sundi, Sundhi, Sunri or Sondhi.[23]—The liquor-distilling caste of the Uriya country. The transfer of Sambalpur and the Uriya States to Bihār and Orissa has reduced their strength in the Central Provinces to about 5000, found in the Raipur District and the Bastar and Chota Nāgpur Feudatory States. The caste is an important one in Bengal, numbering more than six lakhs of persons and being found in western Bengal and Bihār as well as in Orissa. The word Sundi is derived from the Sanskrit Shaundik, a spirit-seller. The caste has various genealogies of differing degrees of respectability, tracing their origin to cross unions between other castes born of Brāhmans, Kshatriyas, and Vaishyas. The following story is told of them in Madras.[24] In ancient times a certain Brāhman was famous for his magical attainments. The king of the country sent for him one day and asked him to cause the water in a tank to burn. The Brāhman saw no way of doing this, and returned homewards uneasy in his mind. On the way he met a distiller who asked him to explain what troubled him. When the Brāhman told his story the distiller promised to cause the water to burn on condition that the Brāhman gave him his daughter in marriage. This the Brāhman agreed to do, and the distiller, after surreptitiously pouring large quantities of liquor into the tank, set fire to it in the presence of the king. In accordance with the agreement he married the daughter of the Brāhman and the pair became the ancestors of the Sundi caste. In confirmation of the story it is alleged that up to the present day the women of the caste maintain the recollection of their Brāhman ancestors by refusing to eat fowls or the remains of their husbands’ meals. Nor will they take food from the hands of any other caste. Sir H. Risley relates the following stories current about the caste in Bengal, where its status is very low: “According to Hindu ideas, distillers and sellers of strong drink rank among the most degraded castes, and a curious story in the Vaivarta Purāna keeps alive the memory of their degradation. It is said that when Sani, the Hindu Saturn, failed to adapt an elephant’s head to the mutilated trunk of Ganesh who had been accidentally slain by Siva, Viswākarma, the celestial artificer, was sent for, and by careful dissection and manipulation he fitted the incongruous parts together, and made a man called Kedāra Sena from the slices cut off in fashioning his work. This Kedāra Sena was ordered to fetch a drink of water for Bhagavati, weary and athirst. Finding on the river’s bank a shell full of water he presented it to her, without noticing that a few grains of rice left in it by a parrot had fermented and formed an intoxicating liquid. Bhagavati, as soon as she had drunk, became aware of the fact, and in her anger condemned the offender to the vile and servile occupation of making spirituous liquors for mankind.” Like other castes in Sambalpur the Sundis have two subcastes, the Jhārua and the Utkal or Uriya, of whom the Jhāruas probably immigrated from Orissa at an earlier period and adopted some of the customs of the indigenous tribes; for this reason they are looked down on by the more orthodox Utkalis. The caste say that they belong to the Nāgas or snake gotra, because they consider themselves to be descended from Bāsuki, the serpent with a thousand heads who formed a canopy for Vishnu. They also have bargas or family titles, but these at present exercise no influence on marriage. The Sundis have in fact outgrown the system of exogamy and regulate their marriages by a table of prohibited degrees in the ordinary manner, the unions of sapindas or persons who observe mourning together at a death being prohibited. The prohibition does not extend to cognatic relationship, but a man must not marry into the family of his paternal aunt. The fact that the old bargas or exogamous groups are still in existence is interesting, and an intermediate step in the process of their abandonment may be recognised in the fact that some of them are subdivided. Thus the Sāhu (lord) group has split into the Gaj Sāhu (lord of the elephant), Dhavila Sāhu (white lord), and Amila Sāhu sub-groups, and it need not be doubted that this was a convenient method adopted for splitting up the Sāhu group when it became so large as to include persons so distantly connected with each other that the prohibition of marriage between them was obviously ridiculous. As the number of Sundis in the Central Provinces is now insignificant no detailed description of their customs need be given, but one or two interesting points may be noted. Their method of observing the pitripaksh or worship of ancestors is as follows: A human figure is made of kusha grass and placed under a miniature straw hut. A lamp is kept burning before it for ten days, and every day a twig for cleaning the teeth is placed before it, and it is supplied with fried rice in the morning and rice, pulse and vegetables in the evening. On the tenth day the priest comes, and after bathing the figure seven times, places boiled rice before it for the last meal, and then sets fire to the hut and burns it, while repeating sacred verses. On the eleventh day after a death, when presents for the use of the deceased are made to a priest as his representative, the priest lies down in the new bed which is given to him, and the members of the family rub his feet and attend on him as if he were the dead man. He is also given a present sufficient to purchase food for him for a year. The Sundis worship Surādevi or the goddess of wine, whom they consider as their mother, and they refuse to drink liquor, saying that this would be to enjoy their own mother. They worship the still and all articles used in distillation at the rice-harvest and when the new mango crop appears. Large numbers of them have taken to cultivation.
[1] This article is partly based on an article by Mr. Raghunāth Prasād, E.A.C., formerly Deputy Superintendent of Census, with extracts from the late Mr. Nunn’s Monograph on the Gold and Silver Industries, and on information furnished by Krishna Rao, Revenue Inspector, Mandla.
[2] Tribes and Castes of Bengal, art. Sunār.
[3] Bombay Gazetteer, vol. xvii. p. 134.
[4] See articles on Kunbi and Kurmi.
[5] Monograph on the Gold and Silverware of the Central Provinces (Mr. H. Nunn, I.C.S.), 1904. The tola is a rupee’s weight, or two-fifths of an ounce.
[6] Journal of Indian Art, July 1909, p. 172.
[7] From a monograph on rural customs in Saugor, by Major W.D. Sutherland, I.M.S.
[8] Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion, i. p. 98.
[9] 2 King Henry IV. Act IV. Sc. 4.
[10] Religion of the Semites, note B., p. 453.
[11] Bombay Gazetteer, Poona, App. D., Ornaments.
[12] Religion of the Semites, Lecture III.
[13] 2 lbs.
[14] From a paper on Caste Panchāyats, by the Rev. Failbus, C.M.S. Mission, Mandla.
[15] Rājendra Lāl Mitra, Indo-Aryans vol. i. p. 231.
[16] Introduction to the History of Religion, 3rd ed. p. 172.
[17] Monograph, loc. cit.
[18] This account is taken from Buchanan’s Eastern India, vol. ii. p. 100.
[19] Bombay Gazetteer, vol. xii. p. 71.
[20] Temple and Fallon’s Hindustāni Proverbs.
[21] Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarāt, pp. 199, 200.
[22] Pandīan’s Indian Village Folk, p. 41.
[23] This article is compiled from a paper by Mr. D. Mitra, pleader, Sambalpur.
[24] Madras Census Report, 1891, p. 301.