1 CASTE IN THE PANJAB. 13
2 almost if not altogether confined, in the east of the Province at least, to the
3 memljers of a single caste, of which the chapter on artisan and menial castes
4 furnishes so many examples. The Bharbhunja is almost always, I believe, a
5 Jhinwar; the Jarrah is almost always a Nai; bnt it would not have been safe
6 to clasps them as Jhinwar and Nai respectively, and so I have shown them
7 separately in my tables. Yet another form of quasi-caste is afforded by the
8 religious and ascetic orders oi fakirs which, in the absence of all pretence of
9 commimity of l^lood and the pm-cly voluntary nature of their association, are
10 somewhat analogous to the tr.ules-guild. These men abandon caste properly
11 so called on entering the order to which they belong ; but it would have becii
12 aT)surd to omit them altogether or to show them under ''Miscellaneous," and
13 I have therefore ranked them in my tables as castes. Many of them are sub-
14 ject to some form of authority which is exercised by the order in its coi-porate
15 capacity ; htit many of them arc absolutely free from restrictions of any kind,
16 and the word caste is not really applicable 1o these classes.
17 345. Different types included in the caste-tables. — Thus the figures of
18 mj' tables of tribes and castes include groups formed upon sevei-al very distinct
19 types. There is the true caste in the Brahminical sense of the term, the
20 Brahman, Rdjput, Banya, and so forth ; the tribe or race based upon common
21 blood, such as the Pathan, Biloch, Kiithia ; there is the colony of foreigners
22 like the Purlii and Kashmiri, or of believers in a strange creed like the Bishnoi ;
23 there is the tnie occupational caste such as the Ndi, the Chamiir, and the
24 Chuhra; there is the common trades-guild like the Darzi and the Qass^b;
25 there is the occupation pure and simple ns the Jarrah and Gharami; there is
26 the ascetic order as the Gosiiin and Nirmala; and besides these there are all
27 possible intermediate stages. Moreover, the name which is applied to a true
28 caste or race in one part of the Panj^b, in another merely signifies an occupa-
29 tion; of which fact A rain and Biloch are two notable examples, the first
30 meaning nothing more than a market-gardener in the Salt-range Tract, the
31 latter little more than a camelman in the centre of the Province, and each in
32 either case including an indefinite number of castes or tribes with nothing but
33 community of occupation to connect them.
34 346. Effect of conversion upon caste.— At the beginning of this chap-
35 ter I stated, admittedly as an exaggeration of the truth, that caste has little
36 necessary connection with the Hindu religion, and that conversion from
37 Hinduism to Islim has not necessarily the slightest effect upon it. I shall
38 now consider how far that statement has to be modified. I have attempted to
39 show in the preceding paragraphs that pride of blood, especially in the upper,
40 and shame of occupation, especially in the lower classes, are in all societies the
41 principal factors which regulate social rank; and that when Brahminism
42 developed caste, all that it did was to bind the two together, or at least to pre-
43 vent the dissolution of the tie which boimd them and which would have
44 broken down in the ordinary course of social evolution, and while thus perpe-
45 tuating the prineiple of the hereditary nature of oceupation and social status,
46 to hedge it round and strengthen it by a network of artificial rules and restric-
47 tions which constitute the only characteristic peculiar to the institution of
48 caste. This I take to constitute the only connection between Hinduism and
49 caste ; and it is obvious, that these restrictions and prejudices once engrafted
50 on the social system, mere change of creed has no necessary effect whatever
51 upon their natui-e or their operation. As a fact in the east of the Panjab con-
52 version has absolutely no effect upon the caste of the convert. The Musalman