(1) Garg; (2) Goil; (3) Gâwâl; (4) Batsil; (5) Kâsil; (6) Singhal; (7) Mangal; (8) Bhaddal; (9) Tingal; (10) Airan; (11) Tairan; (12) Thingal; (13) Tittal; (14) Mittal; (15) Tundal; (16) Tâyal; (17) Gobhil; (17½) Goin.
Mr. Sherring gives the Gotras as follows:—
(1) Garga; (2) Gobhila; (3) Garwâla; (4) Batsila; (5) Kasila; (6) Sinhal; (7) Mangala; (8) Bhadala; (9) Tingala; (10) Erana; (11) Tâyal; (12) Terana; (13) Thingala; (14) Tittila; (15) Nîtal; (16) Tundala; (17) Goila and Goina; (17½) Bindal. [[17]]
Agarwâlas again have the divisions Dasa and Bîsa, the “tens” and the “twenties” like the Oswâls (q.v.). One account of their origin is that when the daughters of Râja Vâsuki, the king of the snakes, married the sons of Râja Agra Sena, they each brought a handmaid with them, and their descendants are the Dasas. The Bîsa or pure Agarwâlas do not eat, drink or intermarry with the Dasas.
Connection of the Agarwâlas and Nâgas. 2. Regarding the legend of the connection of the Agarwâlas and Nâgas Mr. Risley[14] writes:—“With the Agarwâlas, as with all castes at the present day, the section names go by the male side.
In other words a son belongs to the same gotra as his father, not to the same gotra as his mother, and kinship is no longer reckoned through females alone. Traces of an earlier matriarchal system may perhaps be discerned in the legend already referred to, which represented Râja Agar Nâth as successfully contending with Indra for the hand of the daughters of two Nâga Râjas, and obtaining from Lakshmi the special favor that his children by one of them should bear their father’s name. The memory of this Nâga princess is still held in honor. “Our mother’s house is of the race of the snake” (jât kâ nânihâl nâgbansi hai) say the Agarwâlas of Behâr; and for this reason no Agarwâla, whether Hindu or Jain, will kill or molest a snake. In Delhi Vaishnava Agarwâlas paint pictures of snakes on either side of the outside doors of their houses, and make offerings of fruit and flowers before them. Jaina Agarwâlas do not practise any form of snake-worship. Read in the light of Bachofen’s researches into archaic forms of kinship, the legend and the prohibition arising from it seem to take us back to the prehistoric time when the Nâga race still maintained a separate national existence, and had not been absorbed by the conquering Aryans; when Nâga women were eagerly sought in marriage by Aryan chiefs; and when the offspring of such unions belonged by Nâga custom to their mother’s family. In this view the boon granted by Lakshmi to Râja Agar Nâth that his children should be called after his name, marks a transition from the system of female kinship, characteristic of the Nâgas, to the new order of male parentage introduced by the Brâhmans, while the Behâr saying about the Nânihâl is merely a survival of those matriarchal ideas according to [[18]]which the snake totem of the race would necessarily descend in the female line. In the last of the six letters entitled “Orestes—Astika, Eine Griechisch—Indische Parallele” Bachofen has the following remarks on the importance of the part played by the Nâga race in the development of the Brâhmanical polity. The connection of Brâhmans with Nâga women is a significant historical fact.
Wherever a conquering race allies itself with the women of the land, indigenous manners and customs come to be respected, and their maintenance is deemed the function of the female sex. A long series of traditions corroborate it in connection with the autochthonous Nâga race. The respect paid to Nâga women, the influence which they exercised, not merely on their own people, but also in no less degree on the rulers of the country, the fame of their beauty, the praise of their wisdom—all this finds manifold expression in the tales of the Kashmîr chronicle, and in many other legends based upon the facts of real life.”
Snake-worship among Agarwâlas. 3. In connection with these speculations it may be noted that Agarwâlas have a special form of worship in honor of the Saint Astika Muni. He was the son of Jaratkâru by the sister of the great serpent Vâsuki and saved the life of the serpent Takshaka, when Janmejaya made his great sacrifice of serpents. This worship appears to be peculiar to the Agarwâlas, and is said to be performed only by Tiwâri Brâhmans. On the fourth day of the light half of Sâwan they bathe in the Ganges and make twenty-one marks on the wall of the house with red lead and butter; and an offering is presented consisting of cocoa-nuts, clothes, five kinds of dry fruits, and twenty-one pairs of cakes (pâpar), some yellow sesamum (sarson) flowers and a lamp lighted with butter. Some camphor is then burnt, and the usual ârti ceremony performed.
These things are all provided by the Agarwâla who does the worship. Astika Muni they believe to have been the preceptor (Guru) of the Nâga, and Agarwâlas call themselves Nâga Upâsaki or snake-worshippers. After this the women of the family come to the house of the officiating Brâhman. The ârti ceremony is again done by burning camphor, and the Brâhman marking their foreheads with red (rori) gives them part of the cakes as a portion of the sacred offering (prasâda). Each woman presents two pice to the Brâhman in return. This sesamum they sprinkle in their houses as a preservative against snake-bite. [[19]]
They are taught a special mantra or spell for this purpose which is said to run:—“I say that at whosoever’s birth the ceremony of Astika is performed the most poisonous snake runs away when he calls out Snake! Snake!”