The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume I (of IV)

R >> R.V. Russell >> The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume I (of IV)

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42

Sakta, Shakta Sect

_Sakta, Shakta Sect_.--The name of a Hindu sect, whose members worship
the female principle of energy, which is the counterpart of the god
Siva. The metaphysical ideas of Saktism are thus described by Sir
Edward Gait: [377]

"Saktism is based on the worship of the active producing principle,
Prakriti, as manifested in one or other of the goddess wives of Siva
(Durga, Kali, Parvati) the female energy or Sakti of the primordial
male, Purusha or Siva. In this cult the various forces of nature are
deified under separate personalities, which are known as the divine
mothers or Matrigan. The ritual to be observed, the sacrifices to
be offered, and the _mantras_ or magic texts to be uttered, in order
to secure the efficacy of the worship and to procure the fulfilment
of the worshipper's desire, are laid down in a series of religious
writings known as Tantras. The cult is supposed to have originated
in East Bengal or Assam about the fifth century."

Dr. Bhattacharya states [378] that the practical essence of the Sakta
cult is the worship of the female organ of generation. According to a
text of the Tantras the best form of Sakti worship is to adore a naked
woman, and it is said that some Tantrics actually perform their daily
worship in their private chapels by placing before them such a woman. A
triangular plate of brass or copper may be taken as a substitute,
and such plates are usually kept in the houses of Tantric Brahmans. In
the absence of a plate of the proper shape a triangle may be painted
on a copper dish. In public the veneration of the Saktas is paid to
the goddess Kali. She is represented as a woman with four arms. In
one hand she has a weapon, in a second the hand of the giant she has
slain, and with the two others she is encouraging her worshippers. For
earrings she has two dead bodies, she wears a necklace of skulls,
and her only clothing is a garland made of men's skulls. In the Kalika
Puran [379] the immolation of human beings is recommended, and numerous
animals are catalogued as suitable for sacrifice. At the present time
pigeons, goats, and more rarely buffaloes, are the usual victims at
the shrine of the goddess. The ceremony commences with the adoration
of the sacrificial axe; various _mantras_ are recited, and the animal
is then decapitated at one stroke. As soon as the head falls to the
ground the votaries rush forward and smear their foreheads with the
blood of the victim. It is of the utmost importance that the ceremony
should pass off without any hitch or misadventure, [380] and special
services are held to supplicate the goddess to permit of this. If in
spite of them the executioner fails to sever the head of the animal at
one stroke, it is thought that the goddess is angry and that some great
calamity will befall the family in the next year. If a death should
occur within the period, they attribute it to the miscarriage of the
sacrifice, that is to the animal not having been killed with a single
blow. If any such misfortune should happen, Dr. Bhattacharya states,
the family generally determine never to offer animal sacrifices again;
and in this way the slaughter of animals, as part of the religious
ceremony in private houses, is becoming more and more rare. If a goat
is sacrificed, the head is placed before the goddess and the flesh
cooked and served to the invited guests; but in the case of a buffalo,
as respectable Hindus do not eat the flesh of this animal, it is given
to the low-caste musicians employed for the occasion. Wine is also
offered to the goddess, and after being consecrated is sprinkled on
every kind of uncooked food brought before her. But the worshipper
and his family often drink only a few drops. The Saktas are divided
into the Dakshinacharis and Bamacharis, or followers of the right-
and left-handed paths respectively. The Dakshinacharis have largely
abandoned animal sacrifices, and many of them substitute red flowers
or red sandalwood as offerings, to represent blood. An account of
those Bamacharis who carry sexual practices to extreme lengths, has
been given in the article on Vam-Margi. The sect-mark of the Saktas is
three horizontal lines on the forehead made with a mixture of charcoal
and butter. Some of them have a single vertical line of charcoal or
sandalwood. In the Central Provinces Sakta is a general term for a
Hindu who eats meat, as opposed to the Vaishnavas and Kabirpanthis,
who abjure it. The animals eaten are goats and chickens, and they
are usually sacrificed to the goddess Devi prior to being consumed
by the worshippers.

Satnami

List of Paragraphs

1. _Origin of the sect_.
2. _Ghasi Das, founder of the Satnami sect_.
3. _The message of Ghasi Das_.
4. _Subsequent history of the Satnamis_.
5. _Social profligacy_.
6. _Divisions of the Satnamis_.
7. _Customs of the Satnamis_.
8. _Character of the Satnami movement_.

1. Origin of the sect.

_Satnami Sect_ [381] (A worshipper of the true name of God).--A
dissenting sect founded by a Chamar reformer in the Chhattisgarh
country of the Central Provinces. It is practically confined to members
of the Chamar caste, about half of whom belong to it. In 1901 nearly
400,000 persons returned themselves as adherents of the Satnami sect,
of whom all but 2000 were Chamars. The Satnami sect of the Central
Provinces, which is here described, is practically confined to the
Chhattisgarh plain, and the handful of persons who returned themselves
as Satnamis from the northern Districts are believed to be adherents of
the older persuasion of the same name in Northern India. The Satnami
movement in Chhattisgarh was originated by one Ghasi Das, a native of
the Bilaspur District, between A.D. 1820 and 1830. But it is probable
that Ghasi Das, as suggested by Mr. Hira Lal, got his inspiration
from a follower of the older Satnami sect of northern India. This
was inaugurated by a Rajput, Jagjiwan Das of the Bara Banki District,
who died in 1761. He preached the worship of the True Name of the one
God, the cause and creator of all things, void of sensible qualities
and without beginning or end. He prohibited the use of meat, lentils
(on account of their red colour suggesting blood) of the brinjal or
eggplant, which was considered, probably on account of its shape, to
resemble flesh, and of intoxicating liquors. The creed of Ghasi Das
enunciated subsequently was nearly identical with that of Jagjiwan Das,
and was no doubt derived from it, though Ghasi Das never acknowledged
the source of his inspiration.

2. Ghasi Das, founder of the Satnami sect.

Ghasi Das was a poor farmservant in Girod, a village formerly in
Bilaspur and now in Raipur, near the Sonakan forests. On one occasion
he and his brother started on a pilgrimage to the temple at Puri,
but only got as far as Sarangarh, whence they returned ejaculating
'_Satnam, Satnam_.' From this time Ghasi Das began to adopt the life
of an ascetic, retiring all day to the forest to meditate. On a rocky
hillock about a mile from Girod is a large _tendu_ tree (_Diospyros
tomentosa_) under which it is said that he was accustomed to sit. This
is a favourite place of pilgrimage of the Chamars, and two Satnami
temples have been built near it, which contain no idols. Once these
temples were annually visited by the successors of Ghasi Das. But at
present the head of the sect only proceeds to them, like the Greeks
to Delphi, in circumstances of special difficulty. In the course
of time Ghasi Das became venerated as a saintly character, and on
some miracles, such as the curing of snake-bite, being attributed to
him, his fame rapidly spread. The Chamars began to travel from long
distances to venerate him, and those who entertained desires, such
as for the birth of a child, believed that he could fulfil them. The
pilgrims were accustomed to carry away with them the water in which he
had washed his feet, in hollow bamboos, and their relatives at home
drank this, considering it was nectar. Finally, Ghasi Das retired
to the forests for a period, and emerged with what he called a new
Gospel for the Chamars; but this really consisted of a repetition of
the tenets of Jagjiwan Das, the founder of the Satnami sect of Upper
India, with a few additions. Mr. Chisholm [382] gave a graphic account
of the retirement of Ghasi Das to the Sonakan forests for a period of
six months, and of his reappearance and proclamation of his revelation
on a fixed date before a great multitude of Chamars, who had gathered
from all parts to hear him. An inquiry conducted locally by Mr. Hira
Lal in 1903 indicates that this story is of doubtful authenticity,
though it must be remembered that Mr. Chisholm wrote only forty
years after the event, and forty more had elapsed at the time of
Mr. Hira Lal's investigation. [383] Of the Chamar Reformer himself
Mr. Chisholm writes: [384] "Ghasi Das, like the rest of his community,
was unlettered. He was a man of unusually fair complexion and rather
imposing appearance, sensitive, silent, given to seeing visions,
and deeply resenting the harsh treatment of his brotherhood by the
Hindus. He was well known to the whole community, having travelled
much among them; had the reputation of being exceptionally sagacious
and was universally respected."

3. The message of Ghasi Das.

The seven precepts of Ghasi Das included abstinence from liquor, meat
and certain red vegetables, such as lentils chillies and tomatoes,
because they have the colour of blood, the abolition of idol worship,
the prohibition of the employment of cows for cultivation, and of
ploughing after midday or taking food to the fields, and the worship
of the name of one solitary and supreme God. The use of _taroi_ [385]
is said to have been forbidden on account of its fancied resemblance to
the horn of the buffalo, and of the brinjal [386] from its likeness to
the scrotum of the same animal. The prohibition against ploughing after
the midday meal was probably promulgated out of compassion for animals
and was already in force among the Gonds of Bastar. This precept is
still observed by many Satnamis, and in case of necessity they will
continue ploughing from early morning until the late afternoon without
taking food, in order not to violate it. The injunction against the
use of the cow for ploughing was probably a sop to the Brahmans,
the name of Gondwana having been historically associated with this
practice to its disgrace among Hindus. [387] The Satnamis were
bidden to cast all idols from their homes, but they were permitted
to reverence the sun, as representing the deity, every morning and
evening, with the ejaculation 'Lord, protect me.' Caste was abolished
and all men were to be socially equal except the family of Ghasi Das,
in which the priesthood of the cult was to remain hereditary.

4. Subsequent history of the Satnamis.

The creed enunciated by their prophet was of a creditable
simplicity and purity, of too elevated a nature for the Chamars
of Chhattisgarh. The crude myths which are now associated with the
story of Ghasi Das and the obscenity which distinguishes the ritual
of the sect furnish a good instance of the way in which a religion,
originally of a high order of morality, will be rapidly degraded to
their own level when adopted by a people who are incapable of living
up to it. It is related that one day his son brought Ghasi Das a fish
to eat. He was about to consume it when the fish spoke and forbade
him to do so. Ghasi Das then refrained, but his wife and two sons
insisted on eating the fish and shortly afterwards they died. [388]
Overcome with grief Ghasi Das tried to commit suicide by throwing
himself down from a tree in the forest, but the boughs of the tree
bent with him and he could not fall. Finally the deity appeared,
bringing his two sons, and commended Ghasi Das for his piety, at the
same time bidding him go and proclaim the Satnami doctrine to the
world. Ghasi Das thereupon went and dug up the body of his wife,
who arose saying '_Satnam._' Ghasi Das lived till he was eighty
years old and died in 1850, the number of his disciples being then
more than a quarter of a million. He was succeeded in the office of
high priest by his eldest son Balak Das. This man soon outraged the
feelings of the Hindus by assuming the sacred thread and parading
it ostentatiously on public occasions. So bitter was the hostility
aroused by him, that he was finally assassinated at night by a party
of Rajputs at the rest-house of Amabandha as he was travelling to
Raipur. The murder was committed in 1860 and its perpetrators were
never discovered. Balak Das had fallen in love with the daughter of
a Chitari (painter) and married her, proclaiming a revelation to the
effect that the next Chamar Guru should be the offspring of a Chitari
girl. Accordingly his son by her, Sahib Das, succeeded to the office,
but the real power remained in the hands of Agar Das, brother of Balak
Das, who married his Chitari widow. By her Agar Das had a son Ajab
Das; but he also had another son Agarman Das by a legitimate wife,
and both claimed the succession. They became joint high priests,
and the property has been partitioned between them. The chief _guru_
formerly obtained a large income by the contributions of the Chamars on
his tours, as he received a rupee from each household in the villages
which he visited on tour. He had a deputy, known as Bhandar, in many
villages, who brought the commission of social offences to his notice,
when fines were imposed. He built a house in the village of Bhandar
of the Raipur District, having golden pinnacles, and also owned the
village. But he has been extravagant and become involved in debt, and
both house and village have been foreclosed by his creditor, though
it is believed that a wealthy disciple has repurchased the house for
him. The golden pinnacles were recently stolen. The contributions
have also greatly fallen off.

Formerly an annual fair was held at Bhandar to which all the
Satnamis went and drank the water in which the _guru_ had dipped
his big toe. Each man gave him not less than a rupee and sometimes
as much as fifty rupees. But the fair is no longer held and now the
Satnamis only give the _guru_ a cocoanut when he goes on tour. The
Satnamis also have a fair in Ratanpur, a sacred place of the Hindus,
where they assemble and bathe in a tank of their own, as they are
not allowed to bathe in the Hindu tanks.

5. Social profligacy.

Formerly, when a Satnami Chamar was married, a ceremony called Satlok
took place within three years of the wedding, or after the birth of
the first son, which Mr. Durga Prasad Pande describes as follows:
it was considered to be the initiatory rite of a Satnami, so that
prior to its performance he and his wife were not proper members
of the sect. When the occasion was considered ripe, a committee of
men in the village would propose the holding of the ceremony to the
bridegroom; the elderly members of his family would also exert their
influence upon him, because it was believed that if they died prior to
its performance their disembodied spirits would continue a comfortless
existence about the scene of their mortal habitation, but if afterwards
that they would go straight to heaven. When the rite was to be held
a feast was given, the villagers sitting round a lighted lamp placed
on a water-pot in the centre of the sacred _chauk_ or square made
with lines of wheat-flour; and from evening until midnight they would
sing and dance. In the meantime the newly married wife would be lying
alone in a room in the house. At midnight her husband went in to her
and asked her whom he should revere as his _guru_ or preceptor. She
named a man and the husband went out and bowed to him and he then
went in to the woman and lay with her. The process would be repeated,
the woman naming different men until she was exhausted. Sometimes,
if the head priest of the sect was present, he would nominate the
favoured men, who were known as _gurus_. Next morning the married
couple were seated together in the courtyard, and the head priest or
his representative tied a _kanthi_ or necklace of wooden beads round
their necks, repeating an initiatory text. [389] This silly doggerel,
as shown in the footnote, is a good criterion of the intellectual
capacity of the Satnamis. It is also said that during his annual
progresses it was the custom for the chief priest to be allowed
access to any of the wives of the Satnamis whom he might select,
and that this was considered rather an honour than otherwise by the
husband. But the Satnamis have now become ashamed of such practices,
and, except in a few isolated localities, they have been abandoned.

6. Divisions of the Satnamis.

Ghasi Das or his disciples seem to have felt the want of a more ancient
and dignified origin for the sect than one dating only from living
memory. They therefore say that it is a branch of that founded by Rohi
Das, a Chamar disciple of the great liberal and Vaishnavite reformer
Ramanand, who flourished at the end of the fourteenth century. The
Satnamis commonly call themselves Rohidasi as a synonym for their name,
but there is no evidence that Rohi Das ever came to Chhattisgarh,
and there is practically no doubt, as already pointed out, that Ghasi
Das simply appropriated the doctrine of the Satnami sect of northern
India. One of the precepts of Ghasi Das was the prohibition of the
use of tobacco, and this has led to a split in the sect, as many of
his disciples found the rule too hard for them. They returned to their
_chongis_ or leaf-pipes, and are hence called Chungias; they say that
in his later years Ghasi Das withdrew the prohibition. The Chungias
have also taken to idolatry, and their villages contain stones covered
with vermilion, the representations of the village deities, which the
true Satnamis eschew. They are considered lower than the Satnamis,
and intermarriage between the two sections is largely, though not
entirely, prohibited. A Chungia can always become a Satnami if he
ceases to smoke by breaking a cocoanut in the presence of his _guru_
or preceptor or giving him a present. Among the Satnamis there is
also a particularly select class who follow the straitest sect of
the creed and are called _Jaharia_ from _jahar_, an essence. These
never sleep on a bed but always on the ground, and are said to wear
coarse uncoloured clothes and to eat no food but pulse or rice.

7. Customs of the Satnamis.

The social customs of the Satnamis resemble generally those of other
Chamars. They will admit into the community all except members of
"the impure castes, as Dhobis (washermen), Ghasias (grass-cutters) and
Mehtars (sweepers), whom they regard as inferior to themselves. Their
weddings must be celebrated only during the months of Magh (January),
Phagun (February), the light half of Chait (March) and Baisakh
(April). No betrothal ceremony can take place during the months
of Shrawan (August) and Pus (January). They always bury the dead,
laying the body with the face downwards, and spread clothes in the
grave above and below it, so that it may be warm and comfortable
during the last long sleep. They observe mourning for three days and
have their heads shaved on the third day with the exception of the
upper lip, which is never touched by the razor. The Satnamis as well
as the Kabirpanthis in Chhattisgarh abstain from spirituous liquor,
and ordinary Hindus who do not do so are known as Saktaha or Sakta
(a follower of Devi) in contradistinction to them. A Satnami is put
out of caste if he is beaten by a man of another caste, however high,
and if he is touched by a sweeper, Ghasia or Mahar. Their women wear
nose-rings, simply to show their contempt for the Hindu social order,
as this ornament was formerly forbidden to the lower castes. Under
native dynasties any violation of a rule of this kind would have been
severely punished by the executive Government, but in British India
the Chamar women can indulge their whim with impunity. It was also
a rule of the sect not to accept cooked food from the hands of any
other caste, whether Hindu or Muhammadan, but this has fallen into
abeyance since the famines. Another method by which the Satnamis
show their contempt for the Hindu religion is by throwing milk and
curds at each other in sport and trampling it under foot. This is
a parody of the Hindu celebration of the Janam-Ashtami or Krishna's
birthday, when vessels of milk and curds are broken over the heads of
the worshippers and caught and eaten by all castes indiscriminately
in token of amity. They will get into railway carriages and push up
purposely against the Hindus, saying that they have paid for their
tickets and have an equal right to a place. Then the Hindus are
defiled and have to bathe in order to become clean.

8. Character of the Satnami movement.

Several points in the above description point to the conclusion that
the Satnami movement is in essence a social revolt on the part of the
despised Chamars or tanners. The fundamental tenet of the gospel of
Ghasi Das, as in the case of so many other dissenting sects, appears
to have been the abolition of caste, and with it of the authority of
the Brahmans; and this it was which provoked the bitter hostility of
the priestly order. It has been seen that Ghasi Das himself had been
deeply impressed by the misery and debasement of the Chamar community;
how his successor Balak Das was murdered for the assumption of the
sacred thread; and how in other ways the Satnamis try to show their
contempt for the social order which brands them as helot outcastes. A
large proportion of the Satnami Chamars are owners or tenants of land,
and this fact may be surmised to have intensified their feeling of
revolt against the degraded position to which they were relegated by
the Hindus. Though slovenly cultivators and with little energy or
forethought, the Chamars have the utmost fondness for land and an
ardent ambition to obtain a holding, however small. The possession
of land is a hall-mark of respectability in India, as elsewhere, and
the low castes were formerly incapable of holding it; and it may be
surmised that the Chamar feels himself to be raised by his tenant-right
above the hereditary condition of village drudge and menial. But for
the restraining influence of the British power, the Satnami movement
might by now have developed in Chhattisgarh into a social war. Over
most of India the term Hindu is contrasted with Muhammadan, but in
Chhattisgarh to call a man a Hindu conveys primarily that he is not a
Chamar, or Chamara according to the contemptuous abbreviation in common
use. A bitter and permanent antagonism exists between the two classes,
and this the Chamar cultivators carry into their relations with their
Hindu landlords by refusing to pay rent. The records of the criminal
courts contain many cases arising from collisions between Chamars
and Hindus, several of which have resulted in riot and murder. Faults
no doubt exist on both sides, and Mr. Hemingway, Settlement Officer,
quotes an instance of a Hindu proprietor who made his Chamar tenants
cart timber and bricks to Rajim, many miles from his village, to
build a house for him during the season of cultivation, their fields
consequently remaining untilled. But if a proprietor once arouses the
hostility of his Chamar tenants he may as well abandon his village for
all the profit he is likely to obtain from it. Generally the Chamars
are to blame, as pointed out by Mr. Blenkinsop who knows them well,
and many of them are dangerous criminals, restrained only by their
cowardice from the worst outrages against person and property. It
may be noted in conclusion that the spread of Christianity among the
Chamars is in one respect a replica of the Satnami movement, because
by becoming a Christian the Chamar hopes also to throw off the social
bondage of Hinduism. A missionary gentleman told the writer that one
of the converted Chamars, on being directed to perform some menial
duty of the village, replied: 'No, I have become a Christian and am
one of the Sahibs; I shall do no more _bigar_ (forced labour).'

Sikh Religion

List of Paragraphs

1. _Foundation of Sikhism--Baba Nanak._
2. _The earlier Gurus_.
3. _Guru Govind Singh_.
4. _Sikh initiation and rules_.
5. _Character of the Nanakpanthis and Sikh sects._
6. _The Akalis._
7. _The Sikh Council or Guru-Mata. Their communal meal._

1. Foundation of Sikhism--Baba Nanak.

_Sikh, Akali_.--The Sikh religion and the history of the Sikhs have
been fully described by several writers, and all that is intended in
this article is a brief outline of the main tenets of the sect for the
benefit of those to whom the more important works of reference may not
be available. The Central Provinces contained only 2337 Sikhs in 1911,
of whom the majority were soldiers and the remainder probably timber
or other merchants or members of the subordinate engineering service
in which Punjabis are largely employed. The following account is taken
from Sir Denzil Ibbetson's _Census Report of the Punjab_ for 1881: