[5] Eugenia jambolana.
[6] Calotropis gigantea.
[7] Bauhinia racemosa.
[8] Poona Gazetteer, part i. p. 425.
Rangrez
Rangrez.—The Muhammadan caste of dyers. The caste is found generally in the northern Districts, and in 1901 its members were included with the Chhīpas, from whom, however, they should be distinguished as having a different religion and also because they practise a separate branch of the dyeing industry. The strength of the caste in the Central Provinces does not exceed a few hundred persons. The Rangrez is nominally a Muhammadan of the Sunni sect, but the community forms an endogamous group after the Hindu fashion, marrying only among themselves. Good-class Muhammadans will neither intermarry with nor even take food from members of the Rangrez community. In Sohāgpur town of Hoshangābād this is divided into two branches, the Kherālawālas or immigrants from Kherāla in Mālwa and the local Rangrezes. These two groups will take food together but will not intermarry. Kherālawāla women commonly wear a skirt like Hindu women and not Muhammadan pyjamas. In Jubbulpore the Rangrez community employ Brāhmans to conduct their marriage and other ceremonies. Long association with Hindus has as usual caused the Rangrez to conform to their religious practices and the caste might almost be described as a Hindu community with Muhammadan customs. The bulk of them no doubt were originally converted Hindus, but as their ancestors probably immigrated from northern India their present leaning to that religion would perhaps be not so much an obstinate retention of pre-Islamic ritual as a subsequent lapse following on another change of environment. In northern India Mr. Crooke records them as being governed mainly by Muhammadan rules. There[1] they hold themselves to be the descendants of one Khwāja Bali, a very pious man, about whom the following verse is current:
Khwāja Bali Rangrez
Range Khuda ki sez:
‘Khwāja Bali dyes the bed of God.’ The name is derived from rang, colour, and rez, rekhtān, to pour. In Bihār, Sir G. Grierson states[2] the word Rangrez is often confounded with ‘Angrezi’ or ‘English’; and the English are sometimes nicknamed facetiously Rangrez or ‘dyers,’ The saying, ‘Were I a dyer I would dye my own beard first,’ in reference to the Muhammadan custom of dyeing the beard, has the meaning of ‘Charity begins at home,’[3]