1 242 PANJAB CASTES.
2 due, not to the fact that a larger proportion of the popiilation of these parts is
3 engagetl in commerce, bnt to the peculiar versatility of the Arora of the south-
4 western Panjab, who is a trader first indeed, but after that anything and every-
5 thing. Tliroughont the Eastern Plains the proportion is very uniform,
6 naturally lising highest in the districts which include large cities. Through-
7 out the hills and suhmoiitaue districts the proportion is singularly low, for
8 these tracts include none of the commercial centres of the Panjab, and the
9 needs of the peo^de are simple and easily supplied. In the central districts
10 and the Salt-range Tract the proportion is large, probably because the Khatris
11 like the Ai-oras by no means confine themselves to commerce as an occu-
12 pation.
13 532. The Banya (Caste No. 14).— The word Banya is derived from the
14 Sanskrit 5a»/;'yrt or trade ; and the Banya, as the name implies, lives solely
15 for and by commerce. He holds a considerable area of land in the cast of
16 the Province ; but it is very rarely indeed that he follows any other than
17 mercantile pursuits. The commercial enterprises and intelligence of the class
18 is great, and the dealings of some of the great Banya houses of Dehli, Bikaner,
19 and Marwiir are of the most extensive nature. But the Banya of the village,
20 who represents the great mass of the caste, is a poor creature, notwithstanding
21 the title of 3Iahajan or " great folk," which is confined by usage to the caste
22 to which he belongs. He spends his life in his shop, and the results are
23 apparent in his inferior physique and utter want of manliness. He is
24 looked down upon by the peasantry as a cowardly money grubber ; but at the
25 same time his social standing is from one point of view curiously higher than
26 theirs, for he is, what they are not, a strii^t Hindu, he is generally admitted
27 to be of pure Vaisya descent, he wears the jo neo or sacred thread, his periods
28 of purification are longer than theirs, he does not practise widow-marriage,
29 and he will not eat or drink at their hands ; and religious ceremonial and the
30 degrees of caste proper are so interwoven with the social fabric that the
31 resulting position of the Banya in the grades of rustic society is of a cm'iously
32 mixed nature. The Banya is hardly used by the proverbial wisdom of the
33 countryside S " He who has a Banya for a friend is not in want of an
34 " enemy; " and, " Pii-st beat a Banya, then a thief." And indeed the Banya
35 has too strong a hold over the husbandman for there to be much love lost
36 between them. Yet the money-lenders of the villages at least have been
37 branded with a far worse name than they deserve. They perform functions
38 of the most cardinal importance in the village oeconomy, and it is surprising
39 how much reasonableness and honesty there is in their dealings with the
40 people so long as they can keep their business transactions out of a court of
41 justice.
42 The Banya class forms the main commercial element of the population [P. 293]
43 of Northern and North-Western India up to the meridian of Lahore, and
44 of Riijputana. Indeed the origin and stronghold of at any rate those sections
45 of the caste which are most numerously represented in the Panjiib is North-
46 Western Eajputana, and it is curious that while sjireading so far to the east
47 of Bikaner, they should have obtained so little hold to the west of that
48 country. In the Panjab they are practically found in any gi-eat numbers
49 only in the Dehli and Hissar divisions, Ambala, and in the Central States
50 of the Eastern Plains, and Firozpur ; thougii curiously enough there appearg
51 to be a considerable colony of them in Gurdiispiir and Sialkot. But thg
52 word Banya is generically used for " shop-keeper " all over the Panjab, n^^