[6] Major Powlett, Gazetteer of Alwar.
[7] Asiatic Studies, vol. i. p. 162.
[8] Quoted in Dowson’s Elliott’s History of India, iii. p. 103.
[9] Dowson’s Elliott, iv. pp. 60, 75, 283, quoted in Crooke’s Tribes and Castes.
[10] Census Report (1881), para. 582.
[11] Tribes and Castes of the N.W.P. art. Meo.
[12] Rājasthān, i. p. 589.
Mirāsi
Mirāsi.—A Muhammadan caste of singers, minstrels and genealogists, of which a few members are found in the Central Provinces. General Cunningham says that they are the bards and singers of the Meos or Mewātis at all their marriages and festivals.[1] Mr. Crooke is of opinion that they are undoubtedly an offshoot of the great Dom caste who are little better than sweepers.[2] The word Mirāsi is derived from the Arabic mirās, inheritance, and its signification is supposed to be that the Mirāsis are the hereditary bards and singers of the lower castes, as the Bhāt is of the Rājpūts. Mirās as a word may, however, be used of any hereditary right, as that of the village headman or Karnam, or even those of the village watchman or temple dancing-girl, all of whom may have a mirāsi right to fees or perquisites or plots of land held as remuneration for service.[3] The Mirāsis are also known as Pakhāwaji, from the pakhāwaj or timbrel which they play; as Kawwāl or one who speaks fluently, that is a professional, story-teller; and as Kalāwant or one possessed of art or skill. The Mirāsis are most numerous in the Punjab, where they number a quarter of a million. Sir D. Ibbetson says of them:[4] “The social position of the Mirāsi as of all minstrel castes is exceedingly low, but he attends at weddings and similar occasions to recite genealogies. Moreover there are grades even among Mirāsis. The outcaste tribes have their Mirāsis, who though they do not eat with their clients and merely render their professional services are considered impure by the Mirāsis of the higher castes. The Mirāsi is generally a hereditary servant like the Bhāt, and is notorious for his exactions, which he makes under the threat of lampooning the ancestors of him from whom he demands fees. The Mirāsi is almost always a Muhammadan.” They are said to have been converted to Islām in response to the request of the poet Amīr Khusru, who lived in the reign of Ala-ud-dīn Khilji (A.D. 1295). The Mirāsi has two functions, the men being musicians, storytellers and genealogists, while the women dance and sing, but only before the ladies of the zenāna. Mr. Nesfield[5] says that they are sometimes regularly entertained as jesters to help these ladies to kill time and reconcile them to their domestic prisons. As they do not dance before men they are reputed to be chaste, as no woman who is not a prostitute will dance in the presence of men, though singing and playing are not equally condemned. The implements of the Mirāsis are generally the small drum (dholak), the cymbals (majīra) and the gourd lute (kingri).[6]