1 218 PANJAB CASTES.
2 associate himself with the community upon which he lives. " A Dum, a
3 " Brahman, and a goat are of no avail in time of need." Where Brdhmans
4 hold any considerable share of a village trouble and disputes are sm-e to fol-
5 low ; and the villages have a proverb : '' As famine fi-om the desert, so comes
6 " evil from a Brahman." So their avarice is expressed in the saying—" The
7 " MuUa, the Bhat, the Brahman, and the Diim ; these four castes were not
8 " born on giving day," and their love of good living by the proverb : " Dine
9 " with a Brahman and jog along the road with a Kir^r " (the Kirars being
10 great talkers) . On the whole the Brahman has but little real influence over
11 the Hindu peasant, and the reverence paid him is largely traditional or due
12 to the conservative tendency of the women. The Brahmans of the hdls have
13 a social and tribal organisation almost exactly corresponding with that of
14 the hill Rajputs- The quotations from IMr. Barnes given at pages 175* and
15 179t bear upon the subject. They too are divided into grades, each grade
16 marrying from the one below and giving their daughters to the one above,
17 while the lower classes will marry Kayath or Banya, and in Kulu even Kanet
18 women. The mixed class of Pahari Mahajans is described below under mer-
19 cantile castes. In the hills of Hazara on the banks of the Jahlam these
20 Mahajans, who are also called Dhakochi, seem to include the whole Brahman
21 caste. In the Peshawar division 185 persons are returned as Brahman- Maha-
22 jans, and these I have classed as Brahmans. It is probable that some of the
23 Pahari Mahajans also are really Brahmans. The Hill Brahmans universally
24 eat meat, from which the Brahmans of the plains, except perhaps in the ex-
25 treme west, scrupulously abstain. Of the total number of Brahmans only
26 about 7,000 are returned as Sikh, the denial of the superiority claimed by the
27 higher castes which distinguished the teaching of Guru Govind not being
28 acceptable to the Brahman. The Sikhs employ Hindu Brahmans as their
29 paroJiits or family priests in exactly the same way as do the Hindus and Jains.
30 There are also 3,500 Musalman Brahmans, chiefly in the Dehli district.
31 These men are known as Huseni Brahmans, and are said to receive oblations
32 in the name of the Hindu gods from Hindus and in the name of Allah from
33 Musalmans.
34 513. The divisions of the Brahmans. — The Uraliui'micial gotraa have already been described
35 in section 363. The Brahmau caste or class is divided into ten great sections, all based upon
36 geographical distribution, which differs in customs and standing and do not intermarry. They
37 again are divided into two groups each containing five sections, as follows : —
38 A. — The Jive Dravidas (south of the Findhyat).
39 1. The Maharashtra (of the Mahratta country).
40 2. The Tailanga or Andlira (of the Telugu country) .
41 3. The Dravida (of the Tamil or Dravida country).
42 4. The Karuata (of the Carnatic).
43 5. The Gurjara or Gujarati (of Gujarat in Sindh)
44 -B. — The five Gaurs (north of the Vindhyas).
45 6. The Gaur (of Gaur, probably not Bengal, see below).
46 7. The Saraswat or Sarsiit (of the Panjab, beyond the Saruswati).
47 8. The Kanyakubja (of Kanauj).
48 9. The Maithila (of the Mithila country).
49 10. The Utkala (of Orissa).
50 Of these great divisions the Panjab Brahmans belong for the most part to the Gaur in the
51 Jamna and south-eastern districts and the eastern hills, and to the Sarsiit in the remainder of the
52 Province. The figures are given below in Abstract No. 89, a few districts in which only sncall
53 numbers are shown being omitted. It may be said that a line drawn north-east and south-west
54 through Simla aud Patiala roughly divides the Gaur from the Sarsiit. I append a description of
55 some of the principal divisions of the Brahmans to be met with in the Panjab, aud must refer
56 the reader for fuller details to the authorities quoted in the beginning of section 512.