1 n PANJAB CASTES.
2 • from their fellows iu a land of strangers binds them tog-ether in closer union.
3 The Purbi is a Purl^i to the people of the Panjah, and nothing more ; and in
4 many cases this looseness of classification spreads to the people themselves, and
5 they begin to class themselves as Purbi and forget their original divisions.
6 Examples may be found even nearer home. The Hindu is a small class on
7 the frontier, and he is geneiically classed as Kirar without regard to his caste.
8 The men of the B^ar are strangers in the Pan jab, and they are commonly
9 known as Bagri irrespective of whether they are Jats or Rajputs. Many more
10 instances of similar confusion might be given. Even community of creed,
11 where the uumliers concerned are small, constitutes a bond which cannot be
12 distinguished from that of caste. The resident Sikhs on the Peshawar
13 frontier are a caste for all practical purposes ; while the case of the Bishnois of
14 Hariana who are chiefly recruited from two very different castes is still more
15 striking.
16 344. The trades-guild type of caste.— The second type which I have
17 included togetlier with castes proper and the western tribes in my caste tables,
18 is almost precisely the trades-guild of Europe in the middle ages. And it
19 again owes its existence very largely to the prevalence of Mahomedan ideas.
20 ' It is found chiefly in the larger cities, and is almost ahvavs known by a
21 ■ Persian or Arabic name. The class of Darzis or tailors is a good example of
22 what I mean. Here the caste organisation, the regulations of the fraternity,
23 and the government by common council or jpanclidyat are as complete as
24 among the true castes. Bitt there is no longer even the fiction of common
25 origin, and the only bond which unites the members of the guild is that of
26 common occupation— a bond which is severed when the occupation is aban-
27 doned and renewed when it is resumed. I have already said that I am not at
28 all sure whether this is not the case with the artisan castes in general in a far
29 greater degree than is commonly supposed. It appears to me that in the ease
30 of the menial and artisan classes the real caste is what 1 have; already noticed,
31 and shall presently desL-ribe more parlicidarly, under the name of the section ; [p. i78
32 and that the caste name is often merely a generic term used to include all who
33 follow the same occupation. If the numerous agricultural tr'l)es of the Indus
34 who are included under the generic term Jat oliserved caste distinctions and
35 refused to eat together and intermarry, we should have a state of things corre-
36 sponding exactly with what we find throughout the Province among the
37 industrial classes, where each so-called caste com])rises under a common
38 occupational term a number of sections of different geographical origin and of
39 different habits, who refuse to hold communion with one another, and are for
40 all practical purposes separate castes. But even here the distinction is often
41 based upon minor differences in the occupation or in the mode of following it ;
42 and community of origin in the remote past is often, though Ijy no means
43 always, admitted. And even if my suggestion be well-founded, there is still
44 this cardinal distinction, that in the case of the caste or section of the caste the
45 basis of the organisation is hereditary, and the stranger is admitted voluntarilv
46 and deliberately ; whereas in the case of the guild there is no pretence to com'-
47 munity of blood, and anybody following the craft is admitted alma-^t as a
48 matter of right. To this class probably belon,;- the Mnllah, the Qassab, the
49 Sabzi-farosh, the Mashqi when not a Jhinwar, the Nungar, and many of
50 those quasi-castes of whom I have to say that I cannot tell whether the name
51 signifies anything more than the occupation of the people included under it.
52 Somewhat similar to these are the followers of divers occupations which are