4. Hostility between Mānbhaos and Brāhmans
The Mānbhaos are dissenters from orthodox Hinduism, and have thus naturally incurred the hostility of the Brāhmans. Mr. Kitts remarks of them:[4] “The Brāhmans hate the Mānbhaos, who have not only thrown off the Brāhmanical yoke themselves, but do much to oppose the influence of Brāhmans among the agriculturists. The Brāhmans represent them as descended from one Krishna Bhat, a Brāhman who was outcasted for keeping a beautiful Māng woman as his mistress. His four sons were called the Māng-bhaos or Māng brothers.” This is an excellent instance of the Brāhman talent for pressing etymology into their service as an argument, in which respect they resemble the Jesuits. By asserting that the Mānbhaos are descended from a Māng woman, one of the most despised castes, they attempt to dispose of these enemies of a Brāhman hegemony without further ado.
Another story about their wearing black or ashen-coloured clothes related by Colonel Mackenzie is that Krishna Bhat’s followers, refusing to believe the aspersions cast on their leader by the Brāhmans, but knowing that some one among them had been guilty of the sin imputed to him, determined to decide the matter by the ordeal of fire. Having made a fire, they cast into it their own clothes and those of their guru, each man having previously written his name on his garments. The sacred fire made short work of all the clothes except those of Krishna Bhat, which it rejected and refused to burn, thereby forcing the unwilling disciples to believe that the finger of God pointed to their revered guru as the sinner. In spite of the shock of thus discovering that their idol had feet of very human clay, they still continued to regard Krishna Bhat’s precepts as good and worthy of being followed, only stipulating that for all time Mānbhaos should wear clothes the colour of ashes, in memory of the sacred fire which had disclosed to them their guru’s sin.
Captain Mackintosh also relates that “About A.D. 1780, a Brāhman named Anand Rishi, an inhabitant of Paithan on the Godāvari, maltreated a Mānbhao, who came to ask for alms at his door. This Mānbhao, after being beaten, proceeded to his friends in the vicinity, and they collected a large number of brethren and went to the Brāhman to demand satisfaction; Anand Rishi assembled a number of Gosains and his friends, and pursued and attacked the Mānbhaos, who fled and asked Ahalya Bai, Rāni of Indore, to protect them; she endeavoured to pacify Anand Rishi by telling him that the Mānbhaos were her gurus; he said that they were Māngs, but declared that if they agreed to his proposals he would forgive them; one of them was that they were not to go to a Brāhman’s house to ask for alms, and another that if any Brāhman repeated Anand Rishi’s name and drew a line across the road when a Mānbhao was advancing, the Mānbhao, without saying a word, must return the road he came. Notwithstanding this attempt to prevent their approaching a Brāhman’s house, they continue to ask alms of the Brāhmans, and some Brāhmans make a point of supplying them with provisions.”
This story endeavours to explain a superstition still observed by the caste. This is that when a Mānbhao is proceeding along a road, if any one draws a line across the road with a stick in front of him the Mānbhao will wait without passing the line until some one else comes up and crosses it before him. In reality this is probably a primitive superstition similar to that which makes a man stop when a snake has crossed the road in front of him and efface its track before proceeding. It is said that the members of the order also carry their sticks upside down, and a saying is repeated about them:
Mānbhao hokar kāle kapre dārhi mūchi mundhāta hai,
Ulti lakri hāth men pakri woh kya Sāhib milta hai;
or, “The Mānbhao wears black clothes, shaves his face and holds his stick upside down, and thinks he will find God that way.”
This saying is attributed to Kabīr.
[1] This article is compiled from notes on the caste drawn up by Colonel Mackenzie and contributed to the Pioneer newspaper by Mrs. Horsburgh; Captain Mackintosh’s Account of the Manbhaos (India Office Tracts); and a paper by Pyāre Lāl Misra, Ethnographic clerk.
[2] Berār Census Report (1881), p. 62.
[3] Dattātreya was a celebrated Sivite devotee who has been deified as an incarnation of Siva.
[4] Berār Census Report (1881), p. 62.