1 CASTE IN THE PAN JAB. 21
2 But the Biahiniuieal fjotra extends far beyoud the body of Biahmaus ; for
3 the theory of the Hindu religion is that every Hindu, whatever be his
4 caste, belongs to some one or other of them. The (jotra thus defined is used
5 onlv at marriage, on the occasion of sanknl^ut, and in similar formal cere-
6 monies; and the great majority of the Hindu peasantry do not so much
7 as know that they have a gofra at all, much less what it is. But all the
8 sti'icter Hindu castes, such as the Banyas and Khatris and Ai'oras, know and
9 recognize their gotra. Indeed the Banyas have, so far as I know, no tribal
10 di\4sions within the great sections of Agarwal, Oswal and the like, except these
11 Brahminical gotras. Thus the question suggests itself whether the univei-sal
12 cun-encv of the same set of gotras throughout the whole Brahman caste, and
13 theii- adojition by the Banyas, is not due to a wish to conform with the rale
14 of Hinduism just enunciated, rather than to any real community of descent
15 denoted by a common gotra. In any case these gotras are of singularly
16 little importance. Except to the priests and merchants and to some of the
17 stricter and more educated classes tliey mean little or nothing; while although
18 to those priests and merchants they do stand in some degree in the place of
19 tribal divisions, yet as they are in no way localised their significance is
20 almost wholly religious, and the divisions which are really important among
21 these castes are what I have called the great sections. It matters little or
22 nothing whether a Brahman, a Banya, or an Arora is of tlie Gautama or
23 of the Blmradwaj gotra ; what we reull}' want to know is whether he is
24 Gaui- or Sarsut, Agarwal or Oswiil, Uttariidhi or Dakhani. The hon-ible
25 trouble and confusion which resulted in the Census from the fact that the
26 peasantry of the eastern Panjiib call their tribes by the same word got as
27 is commonly used for the Brahminical gotra, will be noticed presently.
28 354. Tribal divisions of women. — A curious question arose in the recoi-d
29 of tribes in the Census schedules ; namely, whether a woman changed her
30 father's tribal name for that of her husband on marriage. There i.s no doubt
31 whatever that the Brahminical gotra follows that of the husband ; and the
32 more educated enumerators, knowing this, often ol>jected to record the got
33 or tribe of the wife as different from that of the husband. I asked some
34 of my friends to make enquiries as to tiie custom in various parts of the
35 Province, but in many cases the got and gotra have evidently been confused
36 in their investigations and replies. But on the whole the result seems to
37 be as follows. With Brahmans, Banyas, Khatris, Kayaths, and Aroras
38 the woman's got follows that of her husband. But this is almost certainly
39 the Brahminical gotra. In some of the cases it must be so, as the sec-
40 tions do not intermarry, and there is nothing else lo change. Among the
41 Khatris it would be interesting to know whether a Kapur woman raariying
42 a Mahra man would be considered a Kapur or a JMahra. Throughout the
43 Western Plains Hindus change the clan; but here again they almost all
44 belong to the castes mentioned altove. In the hills and the suli-montane
45 tracts the tribe is certainly changed ; for in the lower hills there is a formal
46 ceremony called got kundla or '' the tribal trencher," at which the women of
47 the tribe eat with the bride and thus admit her to the community. In the
48 eastern districts the tribe is as certainly not changed at man'iage, nor does a
49 boy change it on adoption. It is born and dies unaltered with both man and
50 woman . In Sirsa it does not change, for a man always speaks of his wife by
51 her tribal and not Ijy her personal name ; and the same custom oljtains among
52 the Dehli Gujars. On the other hand in Firozpur, which adjoins Sirsa, the