1 RELIGIOUS, PROFESSIONAL AND OTHER CASTES. 225
2 Chishtis of our table the whole 887 of the Dehli division and 140 of those of
3 the Lahore division returned themselves as Chishtia faqirs, and are probably
4 mere members of the order. The other figures I cannot separate. Mr. Purser
5 says that the ancestors of the Montgomery Chishtis are STip3X)sed to have come
6 from Kabul to Lahore 601) years ago, and then moved to Montgomery where
7 Baba Farid settled at Pak Pattan. Like the BoJlas they were till lately
8 wholly nomad, and like them they claim Qureshi origin ; and it is not impossi-
9 ble that some of them have returned themselves as Shekh. They take Rajput
10 girls to wife. There is a saying — " You can tell a Chishti by his squint-eye ";
11 but what the origin of it may be I know not.
12 . 519. The Bodia (Caste No. 172).— The Bodla? are a small section of the
13 '5] Wattn Rajputs of the lower and middle Satluj, who have for some generations
14 enjoyed a character for peculiar sanctity, and who now claim Qureshi origin from
15 Abu Bakr Sadiq; and 2,4.3-5 of them have entered themselves as Qureshi and
16 not as Bodla, and are included under the head Shekh. Of these 144 are
17 in Hissar, 749 in Sirsa, 339 in Firozpur, 349 in Montgomery, and 254 in
18 Bahawalpur. They still man'v Wattu. girls, though they give their
19 daughters only to Bodlas. They were till lately a wholly pastoral tribe,
20 and still hold a jdgir, the proceeds of which they now supplement by
21 cultivation. They came np from ilultan through Bahawalpur to Mont-
22 gomery, where they are described by Sir. Purser as "lazy, silly, and
23 conceited." From Montgomery they spread into Sirsa, where they occupied
24 the Bahak parganuh which they still hold. They are credited with the
25 power of curing disease by exorcism, and especially snake-bite and hydro-
26 phobia ; they are recognised saints, and can curse with great efficacy.
27 They have no relations with the other Qnreshis of the neighbourhood, and
28 their "Wattu origin is undoubted.
29 ASCETIC AND MENDICANT ORDERS,
30 520. The ascetic and mendicant orders. — I now turn to the
31 consideration of that section of the community which is commonly
32 included under the generic term of Faqir. I must first point out that our
33 figures, though representing with fair accuracy the total numbers of this
34 class, are wholly imperfect so far as the details are concerned. The divisional
35 offices included the various orders under the general term, but that was easily
36 remedied. I have had them picked out again, and have g-iven the numbers
37 to be added on this account to the figures of Table VIIIA in each case in
38 the following paragraphs. But the real reason of the failure of our figures
39 to show details is, that the great mass of these faqirs entered the name
40 of their order not under " tribe " but under " sect "; and as we were
41 forbidden to tabulate any sects except Shiah, Sunni, Wahabi, and Farazi,
42 the details were not worked out at all. If I had known how largely this
43 had been the case, I should not have tabulated separately even the few
44 orders that are shown in Table VIIIA, as the figures are utterly misleading ;
45 and for this reason I do not give details of Faqirs in my Abstract on
46 . page 280.*
47 The figures for Faqirs comprehend at least three if not four very
48 different classes of people. First come the religious orders pure and
49 simple. Many of these are of the highest respectability ; the members
50 are generally collected in monasteries or shrines where they live quiet
51 peaceful lives, keeping open house to travellers, training their neophytes