Castes and Tribes of Southern India/Dhangar

by Edgar Thurston

Dhangar.— Dhangar, or Donigar, is recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as a Marāthi caste of shepherds and cattle-breeders. I gather, from a note * ^[1]on the Dhangars of the Kanara district in the Bombay Presidency, that "the word Dhangar is generally derived from the Sanskrit dhenu, a cow. Their home speech is Marāthi, but they can speak Kanarese. They keep a special breed of cows and buffaloes, known as Dhangar mhasis and Dhangar gāis which are the largest cattle in Kanara. Many of Shivāji's infantry were Sātāra Dhangars."

1. * Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, XV, Part I, 1883.