Further, the Dakshina Rārhi Kāyasths affect the greatest veneration for the Brāhmans and profess to believe in the legend that traces their descent from the five menial servants who accompanied the five Brāhmans invited by king Adisur. The Uttara Rārhi Kāyasths or those of northern Burdwān, on the other hand, do not profess the same veneration for Brāhmans as the southerners, and deny the authenticity of the legend. It was this class which held some of the highest offices under the Muhammadan rulers of Bengal, and several leading zamīndārs or landholders at present belong to it.[31] It was probably in this capacity of village accountant that the Kāyasth incurred the traditional hostility of one or two of the lower castes which still subsists in legend.[32] The influence which the patwāri possesses at present, even under the most vigorous and careful supervision and with the liability to severe punishment for any abuse of his position, is a sufficient indication of what his power must have been when supervision and control were almost nominal. On this point Sir Henry Maine remarks in his description of the village community: “There is always a village accountant, an important personage among an unlettered population; so important indeed, and so conspicuous that, according to the reports current in India, the earliest English functionaries engaged in settlements of land were occasionally led, by their assumption that there must be a single proprietor somewhere, to mistake the accountant for the owner of the village, and to record him as such in the official register.[33] In Bihār Sir H. Risley shows that Kāyasths have obtained proprietary right in a large area.

6. The success of the Kāyasths and their present position.

It may be hoped that the leading members of the Kāyasth caste will not take offence, because in the discussion of the origin of their caste, one of the most interesting problems of Indian ethnology, it has been necessary to put forward a hypothesis other than that which they hold themselves. It would be as unreasonable for a Kāyasth to feel aggrieved at the suggestion that centuries ago their ancestors were to some extent the offspring of mixed unions as for an Englishman to be insulted by the statement that the English are of mixed descent from Saxons, Danes and Normans. If the Kāyasths formerly had a comparatively humble status in Hindu society, then it is the more creditable to the whole community that they should have succeeded in raising themselves by their native industry and ability without adventitious advantages to the high position in which by general admission the caste now stands. At present the Kāyasths are certainly the highest caste after Brāhman, Rājpūt and Bania, and probably in Hindustān, Bengal and the Central Provinces they may be accounted as practically equal to Rājpūts and Banias. Of the Bengal Kāyasths Dr. Bhattachārya wrote:[34] “They generally prove equal to any position in which they are placed. They have been successful not only as clerks but in the very highest executive and judicial offices that have yet been thrown open to the natives of this country. The names of the Kāyastha judges, Dwārka Nāth Mitra, Ramesh Chandra Mitra and Chandra Mādhava Ghose are well known and respected by all. In the executive services the Kāyasths have attained the same kind of success. One of them, Mr. R. C. Dutt, is now the Commissioner of one of the most important divisions of Bengal. Another, named Kālika Dās Datta, has been for several years employed as Prime Minister of the Kuch Bihār State, giving signal proofs of his ability as an administrator by the success with which he has been managing the affairs of the principality in his charge.” In the Central Provinces, too, Kāyasth gentlemen hold the most important positions in the administrative, judicial and public works departments, as well as being strongly represented in the Provincial and subordinate executive services. And in many Districts Kāyasths form the backbone of the ministerial staff of the public offices, a class whose patient laboriousness and devotion to duty, with only the most remote prospects of advancement to encourage them to persevere, deserve high commendation.

7. Subcastes.

The northern India Kāyasths are divided into the following twelve subcastes, which are mainly of a territorial character:

(a) The Srivāstab subcaste take their name from the old town of Sravāsti, now Sahet-Mahet, in the north of the United Provinces. They are by far the most numerous subcaste both there and here. In these Provinces nearly all the Kāyasths are Srivāstabs except a few Saksenas. They are divided into two sections, Khare and Dūsre, which correspond to the Bīsa and Dasa groups of the Banias. The Khare are those of pure descent, and the Dūsre the offspring of remarried widows or other irregular alliances.

(b) The Saksena are named from the old town of Sankisa, in the Farukhābād District. They also have the Khare and Dūsre groups, and a third section called Kharua, which is said to mean pure, and is perhaps the most aristocratic. A number of Saksena Kāyasths are resident in Seoni District, where their ancestors were settled by Bakht Buland, the Gond Rāja of Deogarh in Chhīndwāra. These constituted hitherto a separate endogamous group, marrying among themselves, but since the opening of the railway negotiations have been initiated with the Saksenas of northern India, with the result that intermarriage is to be resumed between the two sections.