1 8 PAN JAB CASTES.
2 one and the same tribe is often known as Rajput where it hasj and as Jat where
3 it has not risen to political impoi-tance.
4 339. But it is possible foi Rajputs and Jats to fall still lower. The
5 Sahnsars of Hushviii'piu- were admittedly Rajputs till only a few generations
6 agO; when they took to gi-owing vegetables, and now rank with Ai'iiins.
7 Some of the Tarkhans, Lobars, and Nais of Sirsa are known to have been Jats
8 or Rajputs who within quite recent times have taken to the hereditary
9 occupations of these castes ; and some of the Chauhans of Karnal, whose
10 fathers were born Rajputs, have taken to wea\nng and become Shekhs. So
11 too the landowning castes can rise. A branch of the Wattu Rajputs of the
12 Satluj, by an affectation of peculiar sanctity, have in the course of a few
13 generations become Bodlas, and now deny their Rajput and claim Qureshi's
14 origin ; and already the claim is commonly admitted. A clan of Ahirs in i
15 Rewari has begun to seclude their women and abandon widow marriage ; they j
16 no longer intermarry with the otlier Ahirs, and will presently be reckoned a /
17 separate caste ; and there is a Kharral family lately settled in Bahiiwalpm' who '
18 have begun to affect peculiar holiness and to many only with each other, and
19 their next step will certainly be to claim Arab descent. The process is going
20 on daily around us, and it is certain that what is now taking place is only
21 what has always taken place during the long ages of Indian history. The
22 ease with which Saiyads are manufactured is proverbial, and some of oui-
23 highest Rajput tribes are beginning in the Salt-range to claim Mughal or
24 Arab origin. On the frontier the dependence upon occupation of what there
25 most nearly corresponds with caste, as distinct from tribe, is notorious. A
26 Mdchhi is a IMachhi so long as he catches fish, and a Jat directly he lays hold
27 of a plough. There are no Rajputs because there are no Rajas ; and those
28 who are notoriously of pure Rajput descent are Jats because they till the land.
29 Among the artisan and menial tribes the process is still more common,
30 and the chapter on this section of the community abounds with instances.
31 One Cham^r takes to weaving instead of leather-working and becomes a
32 Chamar-Julaha ; presently he will be a Julaha pure and simple : another does
33 the same and becomes a Rangreta or a Biinia : a Chtihra refuses to touch
34 night-soil and becomes a Musalli or a Kutana. Within the castes the same
35 process is observable. The Chandar Chamar will not eat or marry with the
36 Jatia Chamar because the latter works in the hides of irapvu-e animal 3 ; one [P. 176]
37 section of the Kumhars will hold no communion with another becai'se the
38 latter burn sweepings as fuel ; a third section has taken to agriculture and
39 looks down upon both. In all these and- a thousand similar instances the sec-
40 tions are for all practical purposes distinct castes, though the caste nam'.', being
41 based upon and expressive of the hereditary occupation, is generally I'etained
42 where the main occupation is not changed.- Indeed I have my doubts ^vhether,
43 setting aside the absolutely degrading occupations such as scavengering, the
44 caste does not follow the occupation in the case of even each individual among
45 these artisan and menial castes much more generally than we suppose, We
46 know next to nothing abou.t their organisation, and I do not pretend to make
47 anything more than a siiggestion. But it is certain that these lower castes have
48 retained the organisation of the guild in extraordinary completeness long after
49 the organisation of the tribe or caste has almost completely died out among
50 the landowning classes whom ihey serve. And it may be, especially in towns
51 and cities, that this organisation is meant to protect the craft in the absence
52 of (he bond of common descent, and that men belonging by birth to other