1 CASTE IN THE PANJAB. 31
2 Panjab than in most other parts of Northern India, and indeed it may be
3 said that the statistics which display it arc almost the most valnable results
4 of a Panjab Census. The remaining parts of the chapter will be devoted to
5 an examination of the figures for each caste, and a description of the caste so
6 far as my knowledge enables me to describe it. The crndeness and imper-
7 fection of this portion of the work are to me a source of great regret. It is
8 not only that our knowledge is as nothing compared with our ignorance of
9 the subject ; that is unavoidable. But I have to feel that of the information
10 that I have collected only a portion has been utilised, while even that portion
11 has been hastily put on record without any attempt to arrange or digest the
12 material. I had intended to make some attempt at classification of the
13 various castes based in some measure upon what appeared to be their ethnic
14 affinities, and to examine carefully the question of the probable origin of each
15 with the help of the whole of my material ; and indeed 1 have carried out
16 this intention to some extent with regard to the Biloch and Pathan tribes,
17 the sections on which were wiittcn before orders regarding the early com-
18 pletion of the report were received. But as regards the remaining castes and
19 tribes the time allowed me was too short to permit of any such treatment
20 of the subject ; and I was compelled to arrange the castes roughly in classes,
21 and to content myself with stating the leading facts regarding each. The
22 chapter has been written backwards, beginning from the end, and I have not
23 been able even to read over again what I had written before sending it to
24 press. As I proceeded with the work faults in the classification became only
25 too apparent, new lights were thrown upon what had gone before, and new
26 facts were brought to light. There was no time to re-wTite what had once
27 been written, and all that I could do was to add the new to the old. Thus I
28 shall often be found to repeat myself, the sequence of ideas will often appear
29 to be broken and irregulai\ and even conflicting statements may have escaped
30 my notice. But the present chapter must be taken as only a rough preli-
31 minary outline of the subject. Detailed tables of tribes and clans are now in
32 course of preparation which will embody all the sub-divisions of castes entered
33 in the schedules of the present Census. Maps showing the distribution of the
34 landowning castes and tribes have been prepared for each district and state
35 and though it would have been impossible without great delay and expense to
36 reproduce them with the present Report, I hope that the material thus
37 collected will be more fully utilised on some future occasion. One apparent
38 omission in my treatment of the subject calls for a word of explanation. I
39 had prepared tables comparing the caste figures of the present with those of
40 the last Census. But I found that the classification followed in 186S had so
41 evidently varied fi-om district to district that the figures were devoid of any
42 - determinate meaning, and it would have been sheer waste of time to attempt
43 any such comparison. To take one instance only, I find that in the Census
44 of 1868, of 205,00(1 Musalman Jats returned for the Multan division,
45 P. 188] 159,000 are in Muzaffargarh, 29,000 in Montgomery, 17,000 in J hang, and
46 only 63 in Multan. In Dera Ismail Khan and Shahpur this column is
47 actually blank.
48 364.' Scheme adopted for the record of castes and tribes— Unless I have utterly failed
49 to express the fact>, a perusal of the foregoing paragraphs will have made it clear that we have
50 three main units of social and ethnic classification to deal with in the Panjab ; the caste or race, the
51 trihe proper, and what I have for want of a better word called the section of the caste. Now these
52 three units are of very diilerent value in different parts of the Province and among various classes
53 of the community. In the east caste is of primarv- importance ; among the landowning com-
54 munities of the west it is little more than a tradition of ancient origin. Among the agricultural