The Peoples of India

by J. D. Anderson

Plate IV

Banjara women
(Mirzapur district)

(5) Castes of the national type. This somewhat daring title we owe to the great authority of Sir H. Risley. As one instance, he mentions the Newārs, a Mongoloid people, who were once the ruling race in Nepāl, till the Gurkha invasion in 1769, and have now become a caste. Other instances might be found on the north-eastern frontier. But the people Sir Herbert Risley had in mind when he invented this term was undoubtedly the remarkable Marātha race, once the most daring warriors and freebooters in India, and now the rivals of the Bengalis in intellectual ability, and probably more than their equals in political sagacity. Sir Rāmkrishna Gopāl Bhandārkar is our authority for the statement that the Rattas were a tribe who held political supremacy in the Deccan from the earliest days. In time they became Mahā-rattas, "Great Rattas," and the land in which they lived was called Mahārattha, which, by a common linguistic habit of mankind, was Sanskritised into Mahā-rāshtra. Their marriage customs show marked traces of totemistic institutions. An extremely interesting account of the present condition of this warlike and enterprising race will be found at pp. 289, 290 of the Bombay Census Report for 1911. It neither supports nor discourages Sir H. Risley's ingenious theory of the Scythic origin of the Marāthas, which is at least a theory which recognises the respect in which our ancestors held their martial prowess and talents[3].

(6) Castes formed by migration. These are new castes which serve to enforce the warning against a too ready acceptance of the definition of caste as a "horizontal" division of humanity. It is a method of forming new communities of Hindus which is very easily intelligible to us, seeing that our own race is split into sections only differing from castes in not being strictly endogamous, such as Anglo-Indians, Australians, New Zealanders, and so forth. Members leave home and settle among strangers. They are assumed to have formed foreign habits, eaten strange food, worshipped alien gods, and have a difficulty—an expensive difficulty—in finding wives in the parent caste. After a time they marry only among themselves, become a sub-caste, and are often known by some territorial name, Bārendra, Rārhi, or what not. Such seemingly are the remarkable Nāmbudri Brāhmans of Malabar, and the Rārhi Brāhmans of Bengal. Sometimes change of habitat brings about loss of rank, sometimes promotion. These are matters on which the Census Reports now being published are full of interesting details. But they are matters which are not easily summarised. No doubt Mr Gait's Report on the combined results of Census operations in India will show the progress of castes of this type during the last ten years.

(7) Castes formed by changes of custom. This is a fruitful cause of new divisions of Hindu society. It is, for the moment, more than usually operative, owing to the spread of education, and often represents a difference of social opinion which corresponds, more or less closely, to Conservative and Radical ideas among ourselves. It evidently was always a cause of fissiparous tendencies. The most notable instance is the distinction between Jāts and Rājputs, both apparently sprung from the same stock, but separated socially, amongst other causes, by the fact that the former practise and the latter abjure infant marriages.

This is a very rapid and highly summarised account of the races and castes of India. There are many obvious omissions. Nothing has been said of the Sikhs, little or nothing about the numerous races of the north-eastern frontier. But enough has been said to give a fair general impression of what the physical characters of the Indian peoples are, and what kind of institution caste is in its practical working. More might have been said about totemistic clans, but on this subject those who would pursue their studies further have only to turn to Dr J. G. Frazer's work on the subject. In the next chapter, I have to borrow my materials from Sir G. A. Grierson, and show how the peoples of India are divided by differences of language. On the whole, those linguistic divisions correspond with remarkable accuracy to the orographical and climatic structure of the country and the racial divisions which we owe to the learning and ingenuity of Sir H. H. Risley. Where there are great open plains, watered and fertilised by mighty rivers, we get large populations speaking the great literary languages of India. In the rugged recesses of the mountains we find small communities, divided from one another by physical obstacles which have produced rigid local patriotisms and enmities, and a wonderful variety of savage speeches. The linguist has usually worked independently of the ethnologist, and has come to his own unprejudiced conclusions. It is interesting to find how closely the results of their separate enquiries agree.

Postscript.

Sir H. H. Risley's theory as to the Scythian origin of the Marāthas has not passed unquestioned, and those who wish to see a brief and clear account of the latest theories on the subject should read Mr Crooke's paper on "Rājputs and Marāthas" in Vol. XL. (January—June, 1910) of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Mr Crooke, who gives copious references to the latest literature on the subject, holds that "the theory that a Hun or Scythian element is to be traced in the population of the Deccan is inconsistent with the facts of tribal history, so far as they can now be ascertained." Mr Crooke thinks that the anthropometrical facts can be explained otherwise than by Saka invasion and an infusion of Scythian blood. "The presence of a brachycephalic strain," he says, "in Southern and Western India need not necessarily imply a Mongoloid invasion from Central Asia. The western coast was always open to the entry of foreign races. Intercourse with the Persian Gulf existed from a very early period, and Mongoloid Akkads or the short-headed races from Baluchistan may have made their way along the coast or by sea into Southern and Western India. But it is more probable that this strain reached India in prehistoric times, and that the present population is the result of the secular intermingling of various race types, rather than of events within the historical period." Mr Crooke's view is supported by the recently issued Census Report of the Bombay Presidency, which says, "the term Marātha is derived by some from two Sanskrit words, mahā, 'great,' and rathi, 'a warrior.'" According to Sir Rāmkrishna Gopāl Bhandārkar it is derived from Rattas, a tribe which held political supremacy in the Deccan from the remotest time. "The Rattas called themselves Mahā Rattas or Great Rattas, and thus the country in which they lived came to be called Mahārāttha, the Sanskrit of which is Mahā-rāshtra."

Indigenous names are frequently Sanskritised, much as we turn French chaussée into "causeway." Sometimes the change is so complete that the original cannot be identified. In some cases the alteration is easily recognised. In Northern Bengal, for instance, is the river Ti-stā, a name which belongs to a large group of Tibeto-Burman river names beginning with Ti-, or Di-, such as Ti-pai, Di-bru, Di-kho, Di-sāng, etc., etc. Hindus say the name Ti-stā is either a corruption of Sanskrit Tri-srotas, "having three streams," or of Tṛṣṇā, "thirst." Etymology and legend, in fact, give but doubtful guidance to the ethnologist, and the best hope of acquiring some real knowledge of Rājput and Marātha origins lies in the possible discovery of coins and inscriptions in the absence of direct historical records.