2. General Customs
The Prabhus wear the sacred thread. In Bombay boys receive it a short time before their marriage without the ceremonies which form part of the regular Brāhman investiture. On the fifth day after the birth of a child, the sword and also pens, paper and ink are worshipped, the sword being the symbol of their Kshatriya origin and the pens, paper and ink of their present occupation of clerks.[4] The funeral ceremonies, Mr. Enthoven writes, are performed during the first thirteen days after death. Oblations of rice are offered every day, in consequence of which the soul of the dead attains a spiritual body, limb by limb, till on the thirteenth day it is enabled to start on its journey. In twelve months the journey ends, and a shrāddh ceremony is performed on an extensive scale on the anniversary of the death. Most of the Prabhus are in Government service and others are landowners. In the Bombay Presidency[5] they had at first almost a monopoly of Government service as English writers, and the term Prabhu was commonly employed to denote a clerk of any caste who could write English. Both men and women of the caste are generally of a fair complexion, resembling the Marātha Brāhmans. The taste of the women in dress is proverbial, and when a Sunār, Sutār or Kasār woman has dressed herself in her best for some family festival, she will ask her friends, ‘Prabhuin disto,’ or ‘Do I look like a Prabhu?’
[1] Pamphlet published in connection with the Ethnographic Survey.
[2] A Prabhu Marriage, p. 3 et seq.
[3] A Prabhu Marriage, pp. 26–27.
[4] Bombay Ethnographic Survey, art. Prabhu.
[5] Bombay Gazetteer, ix. p. 68, footnotes.