The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 2. Robert Vane Russell
they have still a subcaste called Gāzulu, or a bangle-seller. In Madras they are said to be an offshoot of the great cultivating castes of Kamma and Kāpu and to be a mixed community recruited from these and other Telugu castes. Another proof of their mixed descent may be inferred from the fact that they will admit persons of other castes or the descendants of mixed marriages into the community without much scruple in Madras.112 The name of Balija seems also to have been applied to a mixed caste started by Bāsava, the founder of the Lingāyat sect of Sivites, these persons being known in Madras as Linga Balijas.
2. Marriage.
The Balijas have two main divisions, Desa or Kota, and Peta, the Desas or Kotas being those who claim descent from the old Balija kings, while the Petas are the trading Balijas, and are further subdivided into groups like the Gāzulu or bangle-sellers and the Periki or salt-sellers. The subdivisions are not strictly endogamous. Every family has a surname, and exogamous groups or gotras also exist, but these have generally been forgotten, and marriages are regulated by the surnames, the only prohibition being that persons of the same surname may not intermarry. Instances of such names are: Singiri, Gūdāri, Jadal, Sangnād and Dāsiri. In fact the rules of exogamy are so loose that an instance is known of an uncle having married his niece. Marriage is usually infant, and the ceremony lasts for five days. On the first day the bride and bridegroom are seated on a yoke in the pandal or marriage pavilion, where the relatives and guests assemble. The bridegroom puts a pair of silver rings on the bride’s toes and ties the mangal-sūtram or flat circular piece of gold round her neck. On the next three days the bridegroom and bride are made to sit on a plank or cot face to face with each other and to throw flowers and play together for two hours in the mornings and evenings. On the fourth day, at dead of night, they are seated on a cot and the jewels and gifts for the bride are presented, and she is then formally handed over to the bridegroom’s family. In Madras Mr. Thurston113 states that on the last day of the marriage ceremony a mock ploughing and sowing rite is held, and during this, the sister of the bridegroom puts a cloth over the basket containing earth, wherein seeds are to be sown by the bridegroom, and will not allow him to go on with the ceremony till she has extracted a promise that his first-born daughter shall marry her son. No bride-price is paid, and the remarriage of widows is forbidden.
3. Occupation and social status.
The Balijas bury their dead in a sitting posture. In the Central Provinces they are usually Lingāyats and especially worship Gauri, Siva’s wife. Jangams serve them as priests. They usually eat flesh and drink liquor, but in Chānda it is stated that both these practices are forbidden. In the Central Provinces they are mainly cultivators, but some of them still sell bangles and salt. Several of them are in Government service and occupy a fairly high social position.
In Madras a curious connection exists between the Kāpus and Balijas and the impure Māla caste. It is said that once upon a time the Kāpus and Balijas were flying from the Muhammadans and came to the northern Pallār river in high flood. They besought the river to go down and let them across, but it demanded the sacrifice of a first-born child. While the Kāpus and Balijas were hesitating, the Mālas who had followed them boldly sacrificed one of their children. Immediately the river divided before them and they all crossed in safety. Ever since then the Kāpus and Balijas have respected the Mālas, and the Balijas formerly even deposited the images of the goddess Gauri, of Ganesha, and of Siva’s bull with the Mālas, as the hereditary custodians of their gods.114
Bania
1. General notice.
Bania, Bāni, Vāni, Mahājan, Seth, Sāhukār.—The occupational caste of bankers, moneylenders and dealers in grain, ghī (butter), groceries and spices. The name Bania is derived from the Sanskrit vanij, a merchant. In western India the Banias are always called Vānia or Vāni. Mahājan literally means a great man, and being applied to successful Banias as an honorific title has now come to signify a banker or moneylender; Seth signifies a great merchant or capitalist, and is applied to Banias as an honorific prefix. The words Sāhu, Sao and Sāhukār mean upright or honest, and have also, curiously enough, come to signify a moneylender. The total number of Banias in the Central Provinces in 1911 was about 200,000, or rather over one per cent of the population. Of the above total two-thirds were Hindus and one-third Jains. The caste is fairly distributed over the whole Province, being most numerous in Districts with large towns and a considerable volume of trade.
Group of Mārwāri Bania women.
2. The Banias a true caste: use of the name.
There has been much difference of opinion as to whether the name Bania should be taken to signify a caste, or whether it is merely an occupational term applied to a number of distinct castes. I venture to think it is necessary and scientifically correct to take it as a caste. In Bengal the word Banian, a corruption of Bania, has probably come to be a general term meaning simply a banker, or person dealing in money. But this does not seem to be the case elsewhere. As a rule the name Bania is used only as a caste name for groups who are considered both by themselves and outsiders to belong to the Bania caste. It may occasionally be applied to members of other castes, as in the case of certain Teli-Banias who have abandoned oil-pressing for shop-keeping, but such instances are very rare; and these Telis would probably now assert that they belonged to the Bania caste. That the Banias are recognised as a distinct caste by the people is shown by the number of uncomplimentary proverbs and sayings about them, which is far larger than in the case of any other caste.115 In all these the name Bania is used and not that of any subdivision, and this indicates that none of the subdivisions are looked upon as distinctive social groups or castes. Moreover, so far as I am aware, the name Bania is applied regularly to all the groups usually classified under the caste, and there is no group which objects to the name or whose members refuse to describe themselves by it. This is by no means always the case with other important castes. The Rāthor Telis of Mandla entirely decline to answer to the name of Teli, though they are classified under that caste. In the case of the important Ahīr or grazier caste, those who sell milk instead of grazing cattle are called Gaoli, but remain members of the Ahīr caste. An Ahīr in Chhattīsgarh would be called Rāwat and in the Maratha Districts Gowāri, but might still be an Ahīr by caste. The Barai caste of betel-vine growers and sellers is in some localities called Tamboli and not Barai; elsewhere it is known only as Pansāri, though the name Pansāri is correctly an occupational term, and, where it is not applied to the Barais, means a grocer or druggist by profession and not a caste. Bania, on the other hand, over the greater part of India is applied only to persons who acknowledge themselves and are generally recognised by Hindu society to be members of the Bania caste, and there is no other name which is generally applied to any considerable section of such persons. Certain of the more important subcastes of Bania, as the Agarwāla, Oswāl and Parwār, are, it is true, frequently known by the subcaste name. But the caste name is as often as not, or even more often, affixed to it. Agarwāla, or Agarwāla Bania, are names equally applied to designate this subcaste, and similarly with the Oswāls and Parwārs; and even so the subcaste name is only applied for greater accuracy and for compliment, since these are the best subcastes; the Bania’s quarter of a town will be called Bania Mahalla, and its residents spoken of as Banias, even though they may be nearly all Agarwāls or Oswāls. Several Rājpūt clans are similarly spoken of by their clan names, as Rāthor, Panwār, and so on, without the addition of the caste name Rājpūt. Brāhman subcastes are usually mentioned by their subcaste name for greater accuracy, though in their case too it is usual to add the caste name. And there are subdivisions of other castes, such as the Jaiswār Chamārs and the Somvansi Mehras, who invariably speak of themselves only by their subcaste name, and discard the caste name altogether, being ashamed of it, but are nevertheless held to belong to their parent castes. Thus in the matter of common usage Bania conforms in all respects to the requirements of a proper caste name.
3. Their distinctive occupation.
The
See para. 19 below.