(a) Sāraswat.—These belong to the Punjab and are named after the Sāraswati river of the classical period, on whose banks they are supposed to have lived.
(b) Gaur.—The home of these is the country round Delhi, but they say that the name is from the old Gaur or Lakhnauti kingdom of Bengal. If this is correct, it is difficult to understand how they came from Bengal to Delhi contrary to the usual tendency of migration. General Cunningham has suggested that Gaura was also the name of the modern Gonda District, and it is possible that the term was once used for a considerable tract in northern India as well as Bengal, since it has come to be applied to all the northern Brāhmans.[9]
(c) Kānkubja or Kanaujia.—These are named after the old town of Kanauj on the Ganges near Cawnpore, once the capital of India. The Kanaujia are the most important of the northern groups and extend from the west of Oudh to beyond Benāres and into the northern Districts of the Central Provinces. Here they are subdivided into four principal groups—the Kanaujia, Jijhotia, Sarwaria and Sanādhya, which are treated in annexed subordinate articles.
(d) Maithil.—They take their name from Mithila, the old term for Bihār or Tirhūt, and belong to this tract.
(e) Utkal.—These are the Brāhmans of Orissa.
The five groups of the Pānch-Drāvida are as follows:
(a) Maharāshtra.—These belong to the Marātha country or Bombay. They are subdivided into three main territorial groups—the Deshasth, or those of the home country, that is the Poona tract above the Western Ghāts; the Konkonasth, who belong to the Bombay Konkan or littoral; and the Karhāra, named after a place in the Satāra District.[10]
(b) Tailanga or Andhra.—The Brāhmans of the Telugu country, Hyderābād and the northern part of Madras. This territory was known as Andhra and governed by an important dynasty of the same name in early times.
(c) Drāvida.—The Brāhmans of the Tamil country or the south of Madras.
(d) Karnāta.—The Brāhmans of the Carnatic, or the Canarese country. The Canarese area comprises the Mysore State, and the British Districts of Canara, Dharwar and Belgaum.