The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume IV of IV

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

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6. Other customs

The Pankas are strict vegetarians and do not drink liquor. A Kabirha
Panka is put out of caste for eating flesh meat. Both men and women
generally wear white clothes, and men have the garland of beads round
the neck. The dead are buried, being laid on the back with the head
pointing to the north. After a funeral the mourners bathe and then
break a cocoanut over the grave and distribute it among themselves. On
the tenth day they go again and break a cocoanut and each man buries
a little piece of it in the earth over the grave. A little cup made
of flour containing a lamp is placed on the grave for three days
afterwards, and some food and water are put in a leaf cup outside the
house for the same period. During these days the family do not cook
for themselves but are supplied with food by their friends. After
childbirth a mother is supposed not to eat food during the time that
the midwife attends on her, on account of the impurity caused by this
woman's presence in the room.

7. Occupation

The caste are generally weavers, producing coarse country cloth, and a
number of them serve as village watchmen, while others are cultivators
and labourers. They will not grow _san_-hemp nor breed tasar silk
cocoons. They are somewhat poorly esteemed by their neighbours, who say
of them, 'Where a Panka can get a little boiled rice and a pumpkin,
he will stay for ever,' meaning that he is satisfied with this and
will not work to get more. Another saying is, 'The Panka felt brave
and thought he would go to war; but he set out to fight a frog and was
beaten'; and another, 'Every man tells one lie a day; but the Ahir
tells sixteen, the Chamar twenty, and the lies of the Panka cannot
be counted.' Such gibes, however, do not really mean much. Owing to
the abstinence of the Pankas from flesh and liquor they rank above
the Gandas and other impure castes. In Bilaspur they are generally
held to be quiet and industrious. [368] In Chhattisgarh the Pankas
are considered above the average in intelligence and sometimes act
as spokesmen for the village people and as advisers to zamindars and
village proprietors. Some of them become religious mendicants and
act as _gurus_ or preceptors to Kabirpanthis. [369]

Panwar Rajput

List of Paragraphs

1. _Historical notice. The Agnikula clans and the slaughter of
the Kshatriyas by Parasurama_.
2. _The legend of Parasurama_.
3. _The Panwar dynasty of Dhar and Ujjain_.
4. _Diffusion of the Panwars over India_.
5. _The Nagpur Panwars_.
6. _Subdivisions_.
7. _Marriage customs_.
8. _Widow-marriage_.
9. _Religion_.
10. _Worship of the spirits of those dying a violent death_.
11. _Funeral rites_.
12. _Caste discipline_.
13. _Social customs_.

1. Historical notice. The Agnikula clans and the slaughter of the
Kshatriyas by Parasurama

_Panwar_, [370] _Puar_, _Ponwar_, _Pramara Rajput_.--The Panwar or
Pramara is one of the most ancient and famous of the Rajput clans. It
was the first of the four Agnikulas, who were created from the fire-pit
on the summit of Mount Abu after the Kshatriyas had been exterminated
by Parasurama the Brahman. "The fire-fountain was lustrated with
the waters of the Ganges; [371] expiatory rites were performed,
and after a protracted debate among the gods it was resolved that
Indra should initiate the work of recreation. Having formed an image
of _duba_ grass he sprinkled it with the water of life and threw it
into the fire-fountain. Thence on pronouncing the _sajivan mantra_
(incantation to give life) a figure slowly emerged from the flame,
bearing in the right hand a mace and exclaiming, '_Mar, Mar!_' (Slay,
slay). He was called Pramar; and Abu, Dhar, and Ujjain were assigned
to him as a territory."

The four clans known as Agnikula, or born from the fire-pit,
were the Panwar, the Chauhan, the Parihar and the Chalukya or
Solanki. Mr. D.R. Bhandarkar adduces evidence in support of the
opinion that all these were of foreign origin, derived from the
Gujars or other Scythian or Hun tribes. [372] And it seems therefore
not unlikely that the legend of the fire-pit may commemorate the
reconstitution of the Kshatriya aristocracy by the admission of these
tribes to Hinduism after its partial extinction during their wars of
invasion; the latter event having perhaps been euphemised into the
slaughter of the Kshatriyas by Parasurama the Brahman. A great number
of Indian castes date their origin from the traditional massacre
of the Kshatriyas by Parasurama, saying that their ancestors were
Rajputs who escaped and took to various occupations; and it would
appear that an event which bulks so largely in popular tradition
must have some historical basis. It is noticeable also that Buddhism,
which for some five centuries since the time of Asoka Maurya had been
the official and principal religion of northern India, had recently
entered on its decline. "The restoration of the Brahmanical religion
to popular favour and the associated revival of the Sanskrit language
first became noticeable in the second century, were fostered by the
satraps of Gujarat and Surashtra during the third, and made a success
by the Gupta emperors in the fourth century. [373] The decline of
Buddhism and the diffusion of Sanskrit proceeded side by side with
the result that by the end of the Gupta period the force of Buddhism
on Indian soil had been nearly spent; and India with certain local
exceptions had again become the land of the Brahman. [374] The Gupta
dynasty as an important power ended about A.D. 490 and was overthrown
by the Huns, whose leader Toramana was established at Malwa in Central
India prior to A.D. 500." [375] The revival of Brahmanism and the Hun
supremacy were therefore nearly contemporaneous. Moreover one of the
Hun leaders, Mihiragula, was a strong supporter of Brahmanism and an
opponent of the Buddhists. Mr. V.A. Smith writes: "The savage invader,
who worshipped as his patron deity Siva, the god of destruction,
exhibited ferocious hostility against the peaceful Buddhist cult,
and remorselessly overthrew the _stupas_ and monasteries, which he
plundered of their treasures." [376] This warrior might therefore
well be venerated by the Brahmans as the great restorer of their
faith and would easily obtain divine honours. The Huns also subdued
Rajputana and Central India and were dominant here for a time until
their extreme cruelty and oppression led to a concerted rising of the
Indian princes by whom they were defeated. The discovery of the Hun
or Scythian origin of several of the existing Rajput clans fits in
well with the legend. The stories told by many Indian castes of their
first ancestors having been Rajputs who escaped from the massacre
of Parasurama would then have some historical value as indicating
that the existing occupational grouping of castes dates from the
period of the revival of the Brahman cult after a long interval of
Buddhist supremacy. It is however an objection to the identification
of Parasurama with the Huns that he is the sixth incarnation of
Vishnu, coming before Rama and being mentioned in the Mahabharata,
and thus if he was in any way historical his proper date should be
long before their time. As to this it may be said that he might have
been interpolated or put back in date, as the Brahmans had a strong
interest in demonstrating the continuity of the Kshatriya caste from
Vedic times and suppressing the Hun episode, which indeed they have
succeeded in doing so well that the foreign origin of several of the
most prominent Rajput clans has only been established quite recently
by modern historical and archaeological research. The name Parasurama
signifies 'Rama with the axe' and seems to indicate that this hero came
after the original Rama. And the list of the incarnations of Vishnu
is not always the same, as in one list the incarnations are nearly
all of the animal type and neither Parasurama, Rama nor Krishna appear.

2. The legend of Parasurama

The legend of Parasurama is not altogether opposed to this view
in itself. [377] He was the son of a Brahman Muni or hermit,
named Jamadagni, by a lady, Renuka, of the Kshatriya caste. He is
therefore not held to have been a Brahman and neither was he a true
Kshatriya. This might portray the foreign origin of the Huns. Jamadagni
found his wife Renuka to be harbouring thoughts of conjugal infidelity,
and commanded his sons, one by one, to slay her. The four elder
ones successively refused, and being cursed by Jamadagni lost all
understanding and became as idiots; but the youngest, Parasurama,
at his father's bidding, struck off his mother's head with a blow of
his axe. Jamadagni thereupon was very pleased and promised to give
Parasurama whatever he might desire. On which Parasurama begged first
for the restoration of his mother to life, with forgetfulness of his
having slain her and purification from all defilement; secondly, the
return of his brothers to sanity and understanding; and for himself
that he should live long and be invincible in battle; and all these
boons his father bestowed. Here the hermit Jamadagni might represent
the Brahman priesthood, and his wife Renuka might be India, unfaithful
to the Brahmans and turning towards the Buddhist heresy. The four
elder sons would typify the princes of India refusing to respond to
the exhortations of the Brahmans for the suppression of Buddhism, and
hence themselves made blind to the true faith and their understandings
darkened with Buddhist falsehood. But Parasurama, the youngest,
killed his mother, that is, the Huns devastated India and slaughtered
the Buddhists; in reward for this he was made invincible as the Huns
were, and his mother, India, and his brothers, the indigenous princes,
regained life and understanding, that is, returned to the true Brahman
faith. Afterwards, the legend proceeds, the king Karrtavirya, the head
of the Haihaya tribe of Kshatriyas, stole the calf of the sacred cow
Kamdhenu from Jamadagni's hermitage and cut down the trees surrounding
it. When Parasurama returned, his father told him what had happened,
and he followed Karrtavirya and killed him in battle. But in revenge
for this the sons of the king, when Parasurama was away, returned to
the hermitage and slew the pious and unresisting sage Jamadagni, who
called fruitlessly for succour on his valiant son. When Parasurama
returned and found his father dead he vowed to extirpate the whole
Kshatriya race. 'Thrice times seven did he clear the earth of the
Kshatriya caste,' says the Mahabharata. If the first part of the story
refers to the Hun conquest of northern India and the overthrow of
the Gupta dynasty, the second may similarly portray their invasion
of Rajputana. The theft of the cow and desecration of Jamadagni's
hermitage by the Haihaya Rajputs would represent the apostasy of the
Rajput princes to Buddhist monotheism, the consequent abandonment of
the veneration of the cow and the spoliation of the Brahman shrines;
while the Hun invasions of Rajputana and the accompanying slaughter
of Rajputs would be Parasurama's terrible revenge.

3. The Panwar dynasty of Dhar and Ujjain

The Kings of Malwa or Ujjain who reigned at Dhar and flourished from
the ninth to the twelfth centuries were of the Panwar clan. The
seventh and ninth kings of this dynasty rendered it famous. [378]
"Raja Munja, the seventh king (974-995), renowned for his learning
and eloquence, was not only a patron of poets, but was himself a poet
of no small reputation, the anthologies including various works from
his pen. He penetrated in a career of conquest as far as the Godavari,
but was finally defeated and executed there by the Chalukya king. His
nephew, the famous Bhoja, ascended the throne of Dhara about A.D. 1018
and reigned gloriously for more than forty years. Like his uncle he
cultivated with equal assiduity the arts of peace and war. Though his
fights with neighbouring powers, including one of the Muhammadan armies
of Mahmud of Ghazni, are now forgotten, his fame as an enlightened
patron of learning and a skilled author remains undimmed, and his
name has become proverbial as that of the model king according to the
Hindu standard. Works on astronomy, architecture, the art of poetry
and other subjects are attributed to him. About A.D. 1060 Bhoja was
attacked and defeated by the confederate kings of Gujarat and Chedi,
and the Panwar kingdom was reduced to a petty local dynasty until
the thirteenth century. It was finally superseded by the chiefs of
the Tomara and Chauhan clans, who in their turn succumbed to the
Muhammadans in 1401." The city of Ujjain was at this time a centre of
Indian intellectual life. Some celebrated astronomers made it their
home, and it was adopted as the basis of the Hindu meridional system
like Greenwich in England. The capital of the state was changed from
Ujjain to Dhar or Dharanagra by the Raja Bhoja already mentioned;
[379] and the name of Dhar is better remembered in connection with
the Panwars than Ujjain.

A saying about it quoted by Colonel Tod was:

Jahan Puar tahan Dhar hai;
Aur Dhar jahan Puar;
Dhar bina Puar nahin;
Aur nahin Puar bina Dhar:

or, "Where the Panwar is there is Dhar, and Dhar is where the Panwar
is; without the Panwars Dhar cannot stand, nor the Panwars without
Dhar." It is related that in consequence of one of his merchants having
been held to ransom by the ruler of Dhar, the Bhatti Raja of Jaisalmer
made a vow to subdue the town. But as he found the undertaking too
great for him, in order to fulfil his vow he had a model of the city
made in clay and was about to break it up. But there were Panwars in
his army, and they stood out to defend their mock capital, repeating as
their reason the above lines; and in resisting the Raja were cut to
pieces to the number of a hundred and twenty. [380] There is little
reason to doubt that the incident, if historical, was produced by
the belief in sympathetic magic; the Panwars really thought that
by destroying its image the Raja could effect injury to the capital
itself, [381] just as many primitive races believe that if they make
a doll as a model of an enemy and stick pins into or otherwise injure
it, the man himself is similarly affected. A kindred belief prevails
concerning certain mythical old kings of the Golden Age of India,
of whom it is said that to destroy their opponents all they had to
do was to collect a bundle of juari stalks and cut off the heads,
when the heads of their enemies flew off in unison.

The Panwars were held to have ruled from nine castles over the
Marusthali or 'Region of death,' the name given to the great desert of
Rajputana, which extends from Sind to the Aravalli mountains and from
the great salt lake to the flat skirting the Garah. The principal of
these castles were Abu, Nundore, Umarkot, Arore, and Lodorva. [382]
And, 'The world is the Pramara's,' was another saying expressive of
the resplendent position of Dharanagra or Ujjain at this epoch. The
siege and capture of the town by the Muhammadans and consequent
expulsion of the Panwars are still a well-remembered tradition, and
certain castes of the Central Provinces, as the Bhoyars and Korkus,
say that their ancestors formed part of the garrison and fled to
the Satpura hills after the fall of Dharanagra. Mr. Crooke [383]
states that the expulsion of the Panwars from Ujjain under their
leader Mitra Sen is ascribed to the attack of the Muhammadans under
Shahab-ud-din Ghori about A.D. 1190.

4. Diffusion of the Panwars over India

After this they spread to various places in northern India, and to
the Central Provinces and Bombay. The modern state of Dhar is or was
recently still held by a Panwar family, who had attained high rank
under the Marathas and received it as a grant from the Peshwa. Malcolm
considered them to be the descendants of Rajput emigrants to the
Deccan. He wrote of them: [384] "In the early period of Maratha
history the family of Puar appears to have been one of the most
distinguished. They were of the Rajput tribe, numbers of which had
been settled in Malwa at a remote era; from whence this branch had
migrated to the Deccan. Sivaji Puar, the first of the family that can
be traced in the latter country, was a landholder; and his grandsons,
Sambaji and Kaloji, were military commanders in the service of the
celebrated Sivaji. Anand Rao Puar was vested with authority to collect
the Maratha share of the revenue of Malwa and Gujarat in 1734, and he
soon afterwards settled at Dhar, which province, with the adjoining
districts and the tributes of some neighbouring Rajput chiefs, was
assigned for the support of himself and his adherents. It is a curious
coincidence that the success of the Marathas should, by making Dhar
the capital of Anand Rao and his descendants, restore the sovereignty
of a race who had seven centuries before been expelled from the
government of that city and territory. But the present family, though
of the same tribe (Puar), claim no descent from the ancient Hindu
princes of Malwa. They have, like all the Kshatriya tribes who became
incorporated with the Marathas, adopted even in their modes of thinking
the habits of that people. The heads of the family, with feelings more
suited to chiefs of that nation than Rajput princes, have purchased
the office of patel or headman in some villages in the Deccan; and
their descendants continue to attach value to their ancient, though
humble, rights of village officers in that quarter. Notwithstanding
that these usages and the connections they formed have amalgamated
this family with the Marathas, they still claim, both on account
of their high birth and of being officers of the Raja of Satara
(not of the Peshwa), rank and precedence over the houses of Sindhia
and Holkar; and these claims, even when their fortunes were at the
lowest ebb, were always admitted as far as related to points of form
and ceremony." The great Maratha house of Nimbhalkar is believed to
have originated from ancestors of the Panwar Rajput clan. While one
branch of the Panwars went to the Deccan after the fall of Dhar and
marrying with the people there became a leading military family of the
Marathas, the destiny of another group who migrated to northern India
was less distinguished. Here they split into two, and the inferior
section is described by Mr. Crooke as follows: [385] "The Khidmatia,
Barwar or Chobdar are said to be an inferior branch of the Panwars,
descended from a low-caste woman. No high-caste Hindu eats food or
drinks water touched by them." According to the Ain-i-Akbari [386]
a thousand men of the sept guarded the environs of the palace of
Akbar, and Abul Fazl says of them: "The caste to which they belong
was notorious for highway robbery, and former rulers were not able to
keep them in check. The effective orders of His Majesty have led them
to honesty; they are now famous for their trustworthiness. They were
formerly called _Mawis_. Their chief has received the title of Khidmat
Rao. Being near the person of His Majesty he lives in affluence. His
men are called Khidmatias." Thus another body of Panwars went north
and sold their swords to the Mughal Emperor, who formed them into a
bodyguard. Their case is exactly analogous to that of the Scotch and
Swiss Guards of the French kings. In both cases the monarch preferred
to entrust the care of his person to foreigners, on whose fidelity he
could the better rely, as their only means of support and advancement
lay in his personal favour, and they had no local sympathies which
could be used as a lever to undermine their loyalty. Buchanan states
that a Panwar dynasty ruled for a considerable period over the
territory of Shahabad in Bengal. And Jagdeo Panwar was the trusted
minister of Sidhraj, the great Solanki Raja of Gujarat. The story
of the adventures of Jagdeo and his wife when they set out together
to seek their fortune is an interesting episode in the Rasmala. In
the Punjab the Panwars are found settled up the whole course of the
Sutlej and along the lower Indus, and have also spread up the Bias
into Jalandhar and Gurdaspur. [387]

5. The Nagpur Panwars

While the above extracts have been given to show how the Panwars
migrated from Dhar to different parts of India in search of fortune,
this article is mainly concerned with a branch of the clan who
came to Nagpur, and subsequently settled in the rice country of the
Wainganga Valley. At the end of the eleventh century Nagpur appears
to have been held by a Panwar ruler as an appanage of the kingdom of
Malwa. [388] It has already been seen how the kings of Malwa penetrated
to Berar and the Godavari, and Nagpur may well also have fallen to
them. Mr. Muhammad Yusuf quotes an inscription as existing at Bhandak
in Chanda of the year A.D. 1326, in which it is mentioned that the
Panwar of Dhar repaired a statue of Jag Narayan in that place. [389]
Nothing more is heard of them in Nagpur, and their rule probably came
to an end with the subversion of the kingdom of Malwa in the thirteenth
century. But there remain in Nagpur and in the districts of Bhandara,
Balaghat and Seoni to the north and east of it a large number of
Panwars, who have now developed into an agricultural caste. It may be
surmised that the ancestors of these people settled in the country
at the time when Nagpur was held by their clan, and a second influx
may have taken place after the fall of Dhar. According to their own
account, they first came to Nagardhan, an older town than Nagpur,
and once the headquarters of the locality. One of their legends is
that the men who first came had no wives, and were therefore allowed
to take widows of other castes into their houses. It seems reasonable
to suppose that something of this kind happened, though they probably
did not restrict themselves to widows. The existing family names of
the caste show that it is of mixed ancestry, but the original Rajput
strain is still perfectly apparent in their fair complexions, high
foreheads and in many cases grey eyes. The Panwars have still the
habit of keeping women of lower castes to a greater degree than the
ordinary, and this has been found to be a trait of other castes of
mixed origin, and they are sometimes known as Dhakar, a name having
the sense of illegitimacy. Though they have lived for centuries among
a Marathi-speaking people, the Panwars retain a dialect of their own,
the basis of which is Bagheli or eastern Hindi. When the Marathas
established themselves at Nagpur in the eighteenth century some of the
Panwars took military service under them and accompanied a general
of the Bhonsla ruling family on an expedition to Cuttack. In return
for this they were rewarded with grants of the waste and forest lands
in the valley of the Wainganga river, and here they developed great
skill in the construction of tanks and the irrigation of rice land,
and are the best agricultural caste in this part of the country. Their
customs have many points of interest, and, as is natural, they have
abandoned many of the caste observances of the Rajputs. It is to
this group of Panwars [390] settled in the Maratha rice country of
the Wainganga Valley that the remainder of this article is devoted.

6. Subdivisions

They number about 150,000 persons, and include many village proprietors
and substantial cultivators. The quotations already given have shown
how this virile clan of Rajputs travelled to the north, south and
east from their own country in search of a livelihood. Everywhere
they made their mark so that they live in history, but they paid no
regard to the purity of their Rajput blood and took to themselves
wives from the women of the country as they could get them. The
Panwars of the Wainganga Valley have developed into a caste marrying
among themselves. They have no subcastes but thirty-six exogamous
sections. Some of these have the names of Rajput clans, while others
are derived from villages, titles or names of offices, or from
other castes. Among the titular names are Chaudhri (headman), Patlia
(patel or chief officer of a village) and Sonwania (one who purifies
offenders among the Gonds and other tribes). Among the names of other
castes are Bopcha or Korku, Bhoyar (a caste of cultivators), Pardhi
(hunter), Kohli (a local cultivating caste) and Sahria (from the Saonr
tribe). These names indicate how freely they have intermarried. It is
noticeable that the Bhoyars and Korkus of Betul both say that their
ancestors were Panwars of Dhar, and the occurrence of both names
among the Panwars of Balaghat may indicate that these castes also
have some Panwar blood. Three names, Rahmat (kind), Turukh or Turk,
and Farid (a well-known saint), are of Muhammadan origin, and indicate
intermarriage in that quarter.

7. Marriage customs

Girls are usually, but not necessarily, wedded before
adolescence. Occasionally a Panwar boy who cannot afford a regular
marriage will enter his prospective father-in-law's house and serve him
for a year or more, when he will obtain a daughter in marriage. And
sometimes a girl will contract a liking for some man or boy of the
caste and will go to his house, leaving her home. In such cases the
parents accept the accomplished fact, and the couple are married. If
the boy's parents refuse their consent they are temporarily put
out of caste, and subsequently the neighbours will not pay them the
customary visits on the occasions of family joys and griefs. Even if
a girl has lived with a man of another caste, as long as she has not
borne a child, she may be re-admitted to the community on payment of
such penalty as the elders may determine. If her own parents will not
take her back, a man of the same _gotra_ or section is appointed as
her guardian and she can be married from his house.