There is no doubt that the Arabs are one of the finest fighting races of the world. Their ancestors were the Saracens who gained a great empire in Europe and Asia. Their hardihood and powers of endurance are brought to the highest pitch by the rigours of desert life, while owing to their lack of nervous sensibility the shock and pain of wounds affect them less than civilised troops. And in addition their religion teaches that all who die in battle against the infidel are transported straight to a paradise teeming with material and sensual delights. Arab troops are still employed in Hyderābād State. Mr. Stevens notices them as follows in his book In India: “A gang of half-a-dozen, brilliantly dishevelled, a faggot of daggers with an antique pistol or two in each belt, and a six-foot matchlock on each shoulder. They serve as irregular troops there, and it must be owned that if irregularity is what you want, no man on earth can supply it better. The Arab irregulars are brought over to serve their time and then sent back to Arabia; there is one at this moment, who is a subaltern in Hyderābād, but as soon as he crosses the British border gets a salute of nine guns; he is a Sheikh in his own country near Aden.”
The Arabs who have been long resident here have adopted the ways and manners of other Musalmāns. Their marriages are in the Nikāh form and are marked by only one[4] dinner, following the example of the Prophet, who gave a dinner at the marriage of his daughter the Lady Fātimah and Ali. In obedience to the order of the Prophet a death is followed by no signs of mourning. Arabs marry freely with other Sunni Muhammadans and have no special social or religious organisation. The battle-cry of the Arabs at Sitabaldi and Nāgpur was ‘Dīn, Dīn, Muhammad.’
Arakh.—A caste. A subcaste of Dahāit, Gond and Pāsi.
Aranya.—Name of one of the ten orders of Gosains.
Are.—A cultivating caste of the Chānda District, where they numbered 2000 persons in 1911. The caste are also found in Madras and Bombay, where they commonly return themselves under the name of Marāthi; this name is apparently used in the south as a generic term for immigrants from the north, just as in the Central Provinces people coming from northern India are called Pardeshi. Mr. (Sir H.) Stuart says[5] that Are is a synonym for Arya, and is used as an equivalent of a Marātha and sometimes in a still wider sense, apparently to designate an immigrant Aryan into the Dravidian country of the south. The Ares of the Central Provinces appear to be Kunbis who have migrated into the Telugu country. The names of their subcastes are those of the Kunbis, as Khaire, Tirelle, a form of Tirole, and Dhanoj for Dhanoje. Other subdivisions are called Kāyat and Kattri, and these seem to be the descendants of Kāyasth and Khatri ancestors. The caste admit Brāhmans, Banias, and Komtis into the community and seem to be, as shown by Mr. Stuart, a mixed group of immigrants from Mahārāshtra into the Telugu country. Some of them wear the sacred thread and others do not. Some of their family names are taken from those of animals and plants, and they bury persons who die unmarried, placing their feet towards the north like the forest tribes.
Arka.—A sept of Gonds in Chānda who worship the sāras crane.
Armachi.—(The dhaura tree.) A totemistic sept of Gonds.
Arora, Rora.—An important trading and mercantile caste of the Punjab, of which a few persons were returned from the Nimār District in 1901. Sir D. Ibbetson was of opinion that the Aroras were the Khatris of Aror, the ancient capital of Scinde, represented by the modern Rori. He described the Arora as follows:[6] “Like the Khatri and unlike the Bania he is no mere trader; but his social position is far inferior to theirs, partly no doubt because he is looked down upon simply as being a Hindu in the portions of the Province which are his special habitat. He is commonly known as a Kirār, a word almost synonymous with coward, and even more contemptuous than is the name Bania in the east of the province. The Arora is active and enterprising, industrious and thrifty.... ‘When an Arora girds up his loins he makes it only two miles from Jhang to Lāhore.’ He will turn his hand to any work, he makes a most admirable cultivator, and a large proportion of the Aroras of the lower Chenāb are purely agricultural in their avocations. He is found throughout Afghanistan and even Turkistan and is the Hindu trader of those countries; while in the western Punjab he will sew clothes, weave matting and baskets, make vessels of brass and copper and do goldsmith’s work. But he is a terrible coward, and is so branded in the proverbs of the countryside: The thieves were four and we eighty-four; the thieves came on and we ran away; and again: To meet a Rāthi armed with a hoe makes a company of nine Kirārs (Aroras) feel alone. Yet the peasant has a wholesome dread of the Kirār when in his proper place: Vex not the Jāt in his jungle, nor the Kirār at his shop, nor the boatman at his ferry; for if you do they will break your head. Again: Trust not a crow, a dog or a Kirār, even when asleep. So again: You can’t make a friend of a Kirār any more than a sati of a prostitute.”
Asāthi.—A subcaste of Bania. They are both Jains and Hindus.
Ashrām.—Name of one of the ten orders of Gosains.