manvar surname caste in gujarat manvar surname caste in gujarat

In all there were about eighty such divisions. Jun 12, 2022 . There was considerable elaboration in urban areas of what Ghurye long ago called the community aspect of caste (1932: 179) and frequently, this led to juxtaposition rather than hierarchy between caste divisions of the same order. The Levas, Anavils and Khedawals provide examples of castes whose internal organization had a strong emphasis on the principle of hierarchy and a weak emphasis on that of division. But the hypergamous tendency was so powerful that each such endogamous unit could not be perfectly endogamous even at the height of its integration. A first-order division could be further divided into two or more second-order divisions. The division had an elaborate internal hierarchy, with wealthy and powerful landlords and tax-farmers at the top and small landholders, tenants and labourers at the bottom. While certain first-order divisions were found mainly in towns, the population of certain other first-order divisions was dispersed in villages as well as in towns, the population of the rural and the urban sections differing from one division to another. manvar surname caste in gujarat. The three trading castes of Vania, Lohana and Bhatia were mainly urban. Inclusion of a lower-order division in a higher-order one and distinction between various divisions in a certain order was not as unambiguous. The main aim of this paper is to discuss, on the basis of data derived mainly from Gujarat, these and other problems connected with the horizontal dimension of caste. To take one sensitive area of purity/pollution behaviour, the concern for observance of rules of commensality has greatly declined not only in urban but also in rural areas. As soon as there is any change in . For example, there were Khedawal Brahmans but not Khedawal Vanias, and Lad Vanias but no Lad Brahmans. In the case of some of them the small population was so dispersed that a division such as that of barbers, blacksmiths, or carpenters, would be represented by only one or two households in each village and by a significant number of households in towns. There was apparently a close relation between a castes internal organization and the size and spatial distribution of its population. The two categories of castes have been deeply conscious of these differences between them and have been talking freely about them. Most of the second-order divisions were further divided into third-order divisions. Nowadays, in urban areas in particular, very few people think of making separate seating arrangements for members of different castes at wedding and such other feasts. That the sociological study of urban areas in India has not received as much attention as that of rural areas is well known, and the studies made so far have paid little attention to caste in urban areas. Most of the other eighty or so second-order divisions among Brahmans, however, seem to be subdivided the way the Vania second-order divisions were subdivided into third-order and fourth-order divisions. Let us now return to a consideration of the first-order divisions with subdivisions going down to the third or the fourth order. Tirgaar, Tirbanda. This was about 22% of all the recorded Mehta's in USA. This category has the following 18 subcategories, out of 18 total. Indian textiles especially of Gujarat have been praised in several accounts by explorers and historians, from Megasthenes to Herodotus. For example, the Khadayata Brahmans worked as priests at important rituals among Khadayata Vanias. So in this way, the Maharashtra caste list is given to all cast Aarakshan belonging to the Scheduled Castes category for the state of MH. Hypergamy was accompanied by sanskritization of at least a section of the tribal population, their claim to the Kshatriya Varna and their economic and political symbiosis with the caste population. The Anavil, numbering 30,000 to 40,000 in 1931, were found mainly in south Gujarat. The highest stratum among the Leva Kanbi tried to maintain its position by practising polygyny and female infanticide, among other customs and institutions, as did the highest stratum among the Rajput. First, since the tads were formed relatively recently, it is easier to get information about their formation than about the formation of ekdas. That there was room for flexibility and that the rule of caste endogamy could be violated at the highest level among the Rajputs was pointed out earlier. stream That the role of the two principles could vary at different levels within a first-order division has also been seen. These coastal towns were involved in trade among themselves, with other towns on the rest of the Indian sea coast, and with many foreign lands. The Brahmans and Vanias seem to have had the largest number of divisions as mentioned earlier, about eighty in the former and about forty in the latter. The hypergamous tendency was never as sharp, pervasive and regular among the Vania divisions as among the Rajputs, Leva Kanbis, Anavils and Khedawals. Thus, finding any boundary between Rajputs and Kolis in the horizontal context was impossible, although there were sharp boundaries between the two in the narrow local context. They were found in almost every village in plains Gujarat and in many villages in Saurashtra and Kachchh. To have a meaningful understanding of the system of caste divisions, there is no alternative but to understand the significance of each order of division and particularly the nature of their boundaries and maintenance mechanisms. The two together formed a single complex of continental dimension. If this rule was violated, i.e., if he married a girl with whom the Vanias did not have commensal relations, the maximum punishment, namely, excommunication, was imposed. No analytical gains are therefore likely to occur by calling them by any other name. window.__mirage2 = {petok:"uGhRfiuY26l2oZgRlfZRFSp4BWPIIt7Gh61sQC1XrRU-3600-0"}; Thus, at one end, there were first-order divisions, each of which was sub-divided up to the fourth-order, and at the other end there were first-order divisions which were not further divided at all. This bulk also was characterized by hierarchy, with the relatively advanced population living in the plains at one end and the backward population living along with the tribal population in the highlands at the other end. The urban centres in both the areas, it is hardly necessary to mention, are nucleated settlements populated by numerous caste and religious groups. He stresses repeatedly the primacy of the principle of hierarchy-epitomized in the title of his book. The co-residence of people belonging to two or more divisions of a lower order within a division of a higher order has been a prominent feature of caste in towns and cities. Any one small caste may look insignificant in itself but all small castes put together become a large social block and a significant social phenomenon. If the first-order divisions are called jatis and castes, the second-order divisions would be called sub-jatis or sub-castes. The sub- the manner in which the ideas of free marriages and castles society are used by both the old and the young in modern India and how a number of new customs and institutions have evolved to cope with these new ideas is a fascinating subject of study. No sooner had the village studies begun that their limitations and the need for studying caste in its horizontal dimension were realized. A recent tendency in sociological literature is to consider jatis as castes. During Mughal Empire India was manufacturing 27% of world's textile and Gujarati weavers dominated along with Bengali weavers in Indian textile trade industry overseas. For example, there was considerable ambiguity about the status of Anavils. TOS 7. In effect, the Vania population in a large town like Ahmedabad could have a considerable number of small endogamous units of the third or the fourth order, each with its entire population living and marrying within the town itself. The fact that Mahatma Gandhi came from a small third-order division in the Modh Vania division in a town in Saurashtra does not seem to be an accident. A large proportion, if not the whole, of the population of many of such divisions lived in towns. Early industrial labour was also drawn mainly from the urban artisan and servant castes. While we do get evidence of fission of caste divisions of a higher order into two or more divisions of a lower order, the mere existence of divisions of a lower order should not be taken as evidence of fission in a division of a higher order. Similarly, the Khedawal Brahmans were divided into Baj and Bhitra, the Nagar Brahmans into Grihastha and Bhikshuk, the Anavils into Desai and Bhathela, and the Kanbis into Kanbi and Patidar. Sometimes a division corresponding to a division among Brahmans and Vanias was found in a third first-order division also. There were about three hundred divisions of this order in the region as a whole. Unfortunately, such figures are not available for the last fifty years or so. For example, in a Rajput kingdom the families of the Rajput king and his nobles resided in the capital town, while the Rajput landlords and cultivators resided in villages. Simultaneously, there is gradual decline in the strength of the principle of hierarchy, particularly of ritual hierarchy expressed in purity and pollution. Each ekda or gol was composed of a definite number of families living in certain villages and/or towns. Once the claim was accepted at either level, hypergamous marriage was possible. Prohibited Content 3. The marital alliances of the royal families forming part of the Maratha confederacy, and of the royal families of Mysore in south India and of Kashmir and Nepal in the north with the royal families of Gujarat and Rajasthan show, among other things, how there was room for flexibility and how the rule of caste endogamy could be violated in an acceptable manner at the highest level. Hindu society is usually described as divided into a number of castes the boundaries of which are maintained by the rule of caste endogamy. Our analysis of caste in towns has shown how it differed significantly from that in villages. The change from emphasis on hierarchy to emphasis on division is becoming increasingly significant in view of the growth of urban population both in absolute number and in relation to the total population. This was because political authorities were hierarchized from little kingdom to empire and the boundaries of political authorities kept changing. Until recently, sociologists and anthropologists described Indian society as though it had no urban component in the past. The Kayasthas and Brahma-Kshatriyas, the so- called writer castes, employed mainly in the bureaucracy, and the Vahivancha Barots, genealogists and mythographers, were almost exclusively urban castes. I have discussed above caste divisions in Gujarat mainly in the past, roughly in the middle of the 19th century. The pattern of inter-divisional marriages shows how the idea of free marriage, which guides most of the inter-caste marriages, is restricted, modified, and graded according to the traditional structure of caste divisions. Limitations of the holistic view of caste, based as it is mainly on the study of the village, should be realized in the light of urban experience. At the other end were castes in which the principle of division had free play and the role of the principle of hierarchy was limited. These prefixes Visa and Dasa, were generally understood to be derived from the words for the numbers 20 (vis) and 10 (das), which suggested a descending order of status, but there is no definite evidence of such hierarchy in action. But many Rajput men of Radhvanaj got wives from people in distant villages who were recognized there as Kolisthose Kolis who had more land and power than the generality of Kolis had tried to acquire some of the traditional Rajput symbols in dress manners and customs and had been claiming to be Rajputs. Report a Violation, Caste Stratification: Changing Rural Caste Stratification, Caste in Rural India: Specificities of Caste in Rural Society. I do not propose to review the literature on caste here; my aim is to point out the direction towards which a few facts from Gujarat lead us. Systematic because castes exist and are like each other in being different (298). It used to have a panch (council of leaders) and sometimes also a headman (patel). Even the archaeological surveys and studies have indicated that the people of Dholavira, Surkotada. Both were recognized as Brahman but as degraded ones. An important idea behind the activities of caste associations is: service to ones caste is service to the nation. Also, the horizontal spread of a caste rarely coincided with the territorial boundaries of a political authority. Roughly, while in the plains area villages are nucleated settlements, populated by numerous castes, in the highland area villages are dispersed settlements, populated by tribes and castes of tribal origin. Kolis were the largest first-order division in Gujarat. Since Rajput as a caste occurred all over northern, central and western India (literally, it means rulers son, ruling son), the discussion of Rajputs in Gujarat will inevitably draw us into their relationship with Rajputs in other regions. So far we have considered first-order divisions with large and widely spread populations. Another major factor in the growth of urban centres in Gujarat was political. The weavers were forced into selling exclusively to the British at extremely low rates, pushing them into poverty. They were involved in agriculture in one way or another. This meant that he could marry a girl of any subdivision within the Vania division. The ekdas have not yet lost their identities. The idea of inter-caste marriage is, moreover, linked with the idea of creating such a society involves a compromise with, if not subtle negation of, the ideal. There is a patterned widening of the connubial field along an area chalked out historically. The most important example of primarily political caste association is the Gujarat Kshatriya Sabha. This list may not reflect recent changes. In the second kind of area, indigenous Kolis live side-by-side with immigrant Kolis from an adjoining area. How many sub-divisions existed in the various divisions of the various orders is a matter of empirical investigation. Division and Hierarchy: An Overview of Caste in Gujarat! Gujarat- A state in India. 3 0 obj Although they claimed to be Brahman they were closely associated with agriculture. It is easy to understand that the pattern of change would be different in those first-order divisions (such as Rajput) or second-order divisions (such as Leva Kanbi) which did not have within them subdivisions of lower orders and which practised hypergamy extensively. Almost all the myths about the latter are enshrined in the puranas (for an analysis of a few of them, see Das 1968 and 1977). Disclaimer 9. 3.8K subscribers in the gujarat community. Hindu society is usually described as divided into a number of castes the boundaries of which are maintained by the rule of caste endogamy. The tad thus represented the fourth and last order of caste divisions. <> Although some of them set up shops in villages they rarely became full-fledged members of the village community. Weavers became beggars, manufacturing collapsed and the last 2000 years of Indian textile industry was knocked down. Similarly, in Saurashtra, the Talapadas were distinguished from the Chumvalias, immigrants from the Chumval tract in north Gujarat. The primarily rural and lower castes were the last to form associations and that too mainly after independence (1947). caste: [noun] one of the hereditary social classes in Hinduism that restrict the occupation of their members and their association with the members of other castes. They married their daughters into higher Rajput lineages in the local area who in turn married their daughters into still higher nearly royal rajput lineages in Saurashtra and Kachchh. Hence started farming and small scale business in the British Raj to thrive better conditions ahead to maintain their livelihood. In the meanwhile, it is important to note that there does not seem to have been any attempt to form small endogamous units (ekdas, gols) at any level among the Rajputs unlike attempts made as we shall see, among some other hypergamous castes in Gujarat. The census reports provide such figures until 1931, but it is well known that these pose many problems for sociological analysis, most of which arise out of the nature of castes as horizontal units. Frequently, The ekdas or gols were each divided into groups called tads (split). These linkages played an important role in the traditional social structure as well as in the processes of change in modern India. <>/ExtGState<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/Annots[ 9 0 R] /MediaBox[ 0 0 612 792] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<>/Tabs/S/StructParents 0>> The arrival of the East India Company, however sounded the death knell for the Indian textile industry. The hierarchy, however, was very gradual and lacked sharpness. As regards the rest of Gujarat, I have used various sources: my work on the caste of genealogists and mythographys and on the early 19th century village records; the available ethnographic, historical and other literature; and observations made while living m Gujarat. For the sake of bravity and simplicity of presentation, I have not provided detailed documentation. The freedom struggle brought the Indian handloom sector back to the fore, with Mahatma Gandhi spearheading the Swadeshi cause. Most inter-divisional marriages take place between boys and girls belonging to the lowest order in the structure of divisions. And how flexibility was normal at the lowest level has just been shown. In central Gujarat, for example, one and the same division, freely arranging marriages within it, was known by several names such as Baraiya, Dharala, Khant, Kotwal, Pagi, Patelia, Talapada, Thakarada, and Thakor. hu)_EYUT?:fX:vOR,4g4ce{\(wcUO %OW-Knj|qV]_)1?@{^ $:0ZY\fpg7J~Q~pHaMVSP5bLC}6+zwgv;f f^v4[|vug+vO0h t7QNP}EYm+X[x~;O|z5tq ]-39aa{g-u5n:a56&`3y.f-a@a"0v-a@$%`Z]]Iqb56aR0g 30V9EM%K"#|6uN? =O|8alCcs):~AC<5 q|om57/|Sgc}2c#)U~WL}%T]s> z. A comment on the sociology of urban India would, therefore, be in order before we go ahead with the discussion of caste divisions. The essential idea in the category was power, and anybody who wielded powereither as king or as dominant group in a rural (even tribal) areacould claim to be Rajput. For example, the Patanwadia population was spread continuously from the Patan area to central Gujarat, and the Talapada population from central Gujarat to Pal. Fortunately, they have now started writing about it (see Rao 1974). They adopted Rajput customs and traditions, claimed Rajput status, and gave daughters in marriage to Rajputs in the lower rungs of Rajput hierarchy. Usually, a single Koli division had different local names in different parts of Gujarat, but more about this later. . Tapodhans were priests in Shiva temples. As Ghurye pointed out long ago, slow consolidation of the smaller castes into larger ones would lead to three or four large groups being solidly organized for pushing the interests of each even at the cost of the others. We have seen how one second-order division among Brahmans, namely, Khedawal, was marked by continuous internal hierarchy and strong emphasis on hypergamy on the one hand and by absence of effective small endogamous units on the other. Among the Kanbis, while there was hypergamy within the Leva division and possibly, similar hypergamy within the Kadva division, there was no hierarchy or hypergamy between the two second-order divisions. Usually, the affairs of the caste were discussed in large congregations of some fifty to hundred or even more villages from time to time. In other words, it did not involve a big jump from one place to another distant place. The institutions of both bride and bridegroom price (the latter also called dowry) were rampant in castes with continuous internal hierarchydowry mainly at the upper levels, bride price mainly at the lower levels, and both dowry and bride price among status-seeking middle level families. Privacy Policy 8. Not only that, there were also third-order divisions (i.e., ekdas) in one or more second-order divisions, and finally one or more fourth-order divisions (i.e., tads) in one or more third-order divisions. Although the number of inter-ekda marriages has been increasing, even now the majority of marriages take place within an ekda. Gujarati migrations to the nearby metropolis of Bombay the first new centre of administration, industry, commerce, education, and western culture, followed the same links. I describe here three prominent units of the latter type, namely, Anavil, Leva Kanbi, and Khedawal Brahman. In spite of them, however, sociologists and social anthropologists have not filled adequately the void left by the disappearance of caste from the census and the gazetteer. Most associations continue to retain their non-political character. This does not solve the problem if there are four orders of divisions of the kind found in Gujarat. rogers outage brampton today; levelland, tx obituaries. Such a description not only overlooks the diversity and complexity of caste divisions and the rural-urban Link- ages in them but also leads to placing them in the same category as Muslims, Christians, Parsis, Jains, Buddhists, and so on. The small ekda or tad with its entire population residing in a single town was, of course, not a widespread phenomenon. Frequently, marriages were arranged in contravention of a particular rule after obtaining the permission of the council of leaders and paying a penalty in advance. In recent years, however, there has been a tendency to emphasize hierarchy as the primary principle encompassing the principle of division. This list may not reflect recent changes. Frequently, the urban population of such a division performed more specialized functions than did the rural one. Most of them were, true to their name, rulers at various levels of the political hierarchy from the kingly level to the level of dominant caste in many villages. I do not, however, have sufficient knowledge of the latter and shall, therefore, confine myself mainly to Rajputs in Gujarat. The complex was provided a certain coherence and integrityin the pre- industrial time of slow communicationby a number of oral and literate traditions cultivated by cultural specialists such as priests, bards, genealogists and mythographers (see in this connection Shah and Shroff 1958). Indeed, a major achievement of Indian sociology during the last thirty years or so has been deeper understanding of caste in the village context in particular and of its hierarchical dimension in general. In any case, castes are not likely to cease to be castes in the consciousness of people in the foreseeable future. Each unit was ranked in relation to others, and many members of the lower units married their daughters into the higher units, so that almost every unit became loose in the course of time. The members of a kings caste were thus found not only in his own kingdom but in other kingdoms as well. This account of the divisions is based on various sources, but mainly on Bombay Gazetteer (1901). Many of them claimed that they were Brahmans but this claim was not accepted by most established Brahmans. Both Borradaile and Campbell were probably mixing up small endogamous units of various kinds. There were also a number of first-order divisions, mainly of artisans, craftsmen and specialized servants, with small populations. We will now analyze the internal structure of a few first-order divisions, each of which was split into divisions going down to the fourth order.