Castes and Tribes of Southern India/Marātha

by Edgar Thurston

Marātha.——Marāthas are found in every district of the Madras Presidency, but are, according to the latest census returns, most numerous in the following district: —

South Canara .. .. .. .. 31,351

Salem .. .. .. .. 7,314

Tanjore .. .. .. .. .. 7,156

Bellary .. .. .. .. .. 6,311

It is recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1891, that "the term Marāthi denotes the various Marāthi non- Brāhman castes, who came to the south either as soldiers or camp followers in the armies of the Marāthi invaders; but in South Canara, in which district the caste is most numerous, it appears to be the same as Ārē, a class of Marāthi cultivators. Of the total number of 65,961, as many as 40,871 have returned Marāthi as both caste and sub-division. The number of sub-divisions returned by the rest is no less than 305, of which the majority are the names of other castes. Some of these castes are purely Dravidian, and the names have evidently been used in their occupational sense. For example, we have Bōgam, Gāndla, Mangala, etc." Mr. H. A. Stuart writes further, in the South Canara Manual, that " Marāthi, as a caste name, is somewhat open to confusion, and it is probable that many people of various castes, who speak Marāthi, are shown as being of that caste. The true Marāthi caste is said to have come from Goa, and that place is the head-quarters. The caste is divided into twelve wargs or balis, which are exogamous sub-divisions. Caste disputes are settled by headmen called Hontagaru, and allegiance is paid to the head of the Sringēri math. The favourite deity is the goddess Mahādēvi. Brāhmans, usually Karādis, officiate at their ceremonies. Marriage is both infant and adult. The dhāre form of marriage is used (see Bant). Widows may remarry, but they cannot marry again into the family of the deceased husband — a rule which is just the reverse of the Levirate. In some parts, however, the remarriage of widows is prohibited. A husband or a wife can divorce each other at will, and both parties may marry again. Marāthis are either farmers, labourers, or hunters. They eat fish and flesh (except that of cattle and animals generally regarded as unclean) and they use alcoholic liquors. They speak either the ordinary Marāthi or the Konkani dialect of it." The Marāthis of South Canara call themselves Ārē and Ārē Kshatri.

In the North Arcot Manual, Mr. Stuart records that the term Marāthi is "usually applied to the various Marātha Sūdra castes, which have come south. Their caste affix is always Rao. It is impossible to discover to what particular Sūdra division each belongs, for they do not seem to know, and take advantage of being away from their own country to assert that they are Kshatriyas — a claim which is ridiculed by other castes. In marriage they are particular to take a bride only from within the circle of their own family, so that an admixture of the original castes is thus avoided. Their language is Marāthi, but they speak Telugu or Tamil as well, and engage in many professions. Many are tailors.*^[1] Others enlist in the army, in the police, or as peons (orderlies or messengers), and some take to agriculture or trading."

Of the history of Marāthas in those districts in which they are most prevalent, an account will be found in the Manuals and Gazetteers. The last Marātha King of Tanjore, Mahārāja Sivāji, died in 1855. It is noted by Mr. M. J. Walhouse * ^[2] that "an eye-witness has recorded the stately and solemn spectacle of his funeral, when, magnificently arranged, and loaded with the costliest jewels, his body, placed in an ivory palanquin, was borne by night through the torchlit streets of his royal city amid the wail of vast multitudes lamenting the last of their ruling race. The nearest descendant, a boy of twelve, was carried thrice round the pile, and at the last circuit a pot of water was dashed to pieces on the ground. The boy then lit the pile, and loud long-sustained lament of a nation filled the air as the flames rose." Upon the death of Sivāji, the Rāj became, under the decision of the Court of Directors, extinct. His private estate was placed under the charge of the Collector of the district. In addition to three wives whom he had already married, Sivāji, three years before his death, married in a body seventeen girls. In 1907, three of the Rānis were still living in the palace at Tanjore. It is recorded †^[3] by the Marchioness of Dufferin that, when the Viceroy visited the Tanjore palace in 1886 to speak with the Rānis, he was admitted behind the purdah. "The ladies had not expected him, and were not dressed out in their best, and no one could speak any intelligible language. However, a sort of chattering went on, and they made signs towards a chair, which, being covered with crimson cloth, Dufferin thought he was to sit down on. He turned and was just about to do so, when he thought he saw a slight movement, and he fancied there might be a little dog there, when two women pulled the cloth open, and there was the principal Rāni — a little old woman who reached half way up the back of the chair, and whom the Viceroy had been within an act of squashing. He said it gave him such a turn!"

A classified index to the Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Tanjore palace was published by Mr. A. C. Burnell in 1880. In the introduction thereto, he states that "the library was first brought to the notice of European scholars by H.S.H. Count Noer, Prince Frederic of Schleswig-Holstein, who brought an account of it to the late Professor Goldstucker. But its full importance was not known till I was deputed, in 1871, to examine it by the then Governor of Madras, Lord Napier and Ettrick. The manuscripts are the result of perhaps 300 years' collections; firstly, by the Nāyaks of Tanjore; secondly, after about 1675, by the Mahratha princes. Some of the palm-leaf manuscripts belong to the earlier period, but the greater part were collected in the last and present centuries. All the Nāgari Manuscripts belong to the Mahratha times, and a large number of these were collected at Benares by the Rāja Serfojee (Carabhoji) about fifty years ago."

In the Marātha Darbar Hall of the Tanjore palace are large pictures, of little artistic merit, of all the Marātha kings, and the palace also contains a fine statue of Sarabhōji by Chantrey. The small but splendid series of Marātha arms from this palace constitutes one of the most valuable assets of the Madras Museum. "The armoury," Mr. Walhouse writes,*^[4] " consisted of great heaps of old weapons of all conceivable descriptions, lying piled upon the floor of the Sangita Mahāl (music-hall), which had long been occupied by many tons of rusty arms and weapons, in confused heaps, coated and caked together with thick rust. Hundreds of swords, straight, curved and ripple-edged, many beautifully damascened and inlaid with hunting or battle scenes in gold; many broad blades with long inscriptions in Marāthi or Kanarese characters, and some so finely tempered as to bend and quiver like whalebone. There were long gauntlet-hilts, brass or steel, in endless devices, hilts inlaid with gold, and hilts and guards of the most tasteful and elaborate steel -work. There were long-bladed swords and executioners' swords, two-handed, thick-backed, and immensely heavy. Daggers, knives, and poniards by scores, of all imaginable and almost unimaginable shapes, double and triple-bladed; some with pistols or spring-blades concealed in their handles, and the hilts of many of the kuttars of the most beautiful and elaborate pierced steel- work, in endless devices, rivalling the best medieval European metal-work. There was a profusion of long narrow thin-bladed knives, mostly with bone or ivory handles very prettily carved, ending in parrot-heads and the like, or the whole handle forming a bird or monster, with legs and wings pressed close to the body, all exquisitely carved. The use of these seemed problematical; some said they were used to cut fruit, others that they had been poisoned and struck about the roofs and walls of the women's quarters, to serve the purpose of spikes or broken glass! A curious point was the extraordinary number of old European blades, often graven with letters and symbols of Christian meaning, attached to hilts and handles most distinctly Hindu, adorned with figures of gods and idolatrous emblems. There was an extraordinary number of long straight cut-and-thrust blades termed Phirangis, which Mr. Sinclair, in his interesting list of Dakhani weapons,*^[5] says means the Portuguese, or else made in imitation of such imported swords. A kuttar, with a handsome steel hilt, disclosed the well-known name ANDREA FERARA (sic.). Sir Walter Elliot has informed me that, when a notorious freebooter was captured in the Southern Marâthâ country many years ago, his sword was found to be an 'Andrea Ferrara.' Mr. Sinclair adds that both Grant Duff and Meadows Taylor have mentioned that Râja Sivâji's favourite sword Bhavâni was a Genoa blade †^[6] . . . . Eventually the whole array (of arms) was removed to Trichinapalli and deposited in the Arsenal there, and,after a Committee of officers had sat upon the multifarious collection, and solemnly reported the ancient arms unfit for use in modern warfare, the Government, after selecting the best for the Museum, ordered the residue to be broken up and sold as old iron. This was in 1863."

It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Bellary district, that "in 1790 Lord Cornwallis, then Governor-General of India, entered into an alliance with the Marāthas and the Nizam to reduce Tipu to order, and it was agreed that whatever territories should be acquired by them from Tipu should be equally divided between them. Certain specified poligars, among whom were the chiefs of Bellary, Rayadrug and Harpanahalli, were, however, to be left in possession of their districts. Tipu was reduced to submission in 1792, and by the treaty of that year he ceded half his territories to the allies. ‡^[7] Sandūr was allotted to the Marāhas, and a part of the Bellary district to the Nizam." The present Marātha chief of the little hill-locked Sandūr State is a minor, whose name and titles are Rāja Venkata Rao Rao Sahib Hindu Rao Ghōrpade Sēnāpati Māmalikat Madar. Of the eleven thousand inhabitants of the State, the various castes of Marāthas number over a thousand. "Three families of them are Brāhmans, who came to Sandūr as officials with Siddoji Rao when he took the State from the Jaramali poligar. Except for two short intervals, Siddoji's descendants have held the State ever since. The others are grouped into three local divisions, namely, Khāsgi, Kumbi, and Lēkāvali. The first of these consists of only some eight families, and constitutes the aristocracy of the State. Some of them came to Sandūr from the Marātha country with Siva Rao and other rulers of the State, and they take the chief seats at Darbars and on other public occasions, and are permitted to dine and intermarry with the Rāja's family. They wear the sacred thread of the Kshatriyas, belong to the orthodox Brāhmanical gōtras, have Brāhmans as their purōhits, observe many of the Brāhmanical ceremonies, burn their dead, forbid widow re-marriage, and keep their womankind gosha. On the other hand, they do not object to drinking alcohol or to smoking, and they eat meat, though not beef. Their family god is the same as that of the Rāja's family, namely, Martānda Manimallari, and they worship him in the temple in his honour which is in the Rāja's palace, and make pilgrimages to his shrine at Jejūri near Poona. [It is noted by Monier-Williams *^[8] that 'a deification, Khando-ba (also called Khande-Rao), was a personage who lived in the neighbourhood of the hill Jejūri, thirty miles from Poona. He is probably a deification of some powerful Rāja or aboriginal chieftain, who made himself useful to the Brāhmans. He is now regarded as an incarnation of Siva in his form Mallāri. The legend is that the god Siva descended in this form to destroy a powerful demon named Mallāsura, who lived on the hill, and was a terror to the neighbourhood. Pārvatī descended at the same time to become Khando-bā's wife. His worship is very popular among the people of low caste in the Marātha country. Sheep are sacrificed at the principal temple on the Jejuri hill, and a bad custom prevails of dedicating young girls to the god's service. Khando-ba is some-times represented with his wife on horseback, attended by a dog. A sect existed in Sankara's time, who worshipped Mallāri as lord of dogs.'] At the marriages of the Khāsgis, an unusual custom, called Vīra Pūja, or the worship of warriors, is observed. Before the ceremony, the men form themselves into two parties, each under a leader, and march to the banks of the Narihalla river, engaging in mock combat as they go. At the river an offering is made to Siva in his form as the warrior Martānda, and his blessing is invoked. The goddess Gangā is also worshipped, and then both parties march back, indulging on the way in more pretended fighting. The second division of the Marāthas, the Kunbis, are generally agriculturists, though some are servants to the first division. They cannot intermarry with the Khāsgis, or dine with them except in separate rows, and their womanfolk are not gosha; but they have Brāhmanical gōtras and Brāhman purōhits. Some of them use the Rāja's name of Ghōrpade, but this is only because they are servants in his household. The third division, the Lēkāvalis, are said to be the offspring of irregular unions among other Marāthas, and are many of them servants in the Rāja's palace. Whence they are also called Manimakkalu. They all call themselves Ghōrpades, and members of the Rāja's (the Kansika) gōtra. They thus cannot intermarry among themselves, but occasionally their girls are married to Kunbis. Their women are in no way gōsha." * ^[9]

The cranial type of the Marāthas is, as shown by the following table, like that of the Canarese, mesaticephalic or sub-brachycephalic: —

---	---	Cephalic Av.	Index Max.
Canarese	5O Holeyas	79.1	87.4
Marāthi	30 Rangāris	79.8	92.2
Canarese	50 Vakkaligas	81.7	93.8
Marāthi	30 Suka Sālēs	81.8	88.2
Marāthi	30 Sukun Sālēs	82.2	84.4

1. • The Rangāris are Marātha dyers and tailors.
2. * Ind. Ant., VII, 1878,
3. † Our Viceregal Life in India, 1884-88.
4. * Loc. cit.
5. * Ind. Ant., II, 1874.
6. † The word Genoa occurs on several blades in the Madras Museum collection.
7. ‡ The bas-relief of the statue of Lord Cornwallis in the Connemara Public Library, Madras, represents him receiving Tipu's two youthful sons as hostages.
8. * Brāhmanism and Hinduism.
9. • Gazetteer of the Bellary district.