The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 2

Bania, Oswāl

Bania, Oswāl.—This is perhaps the most important subdivision of the Banias after the Agarwāla. The Oswāls numbered nearly 10,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, being found in considerable numbers in all the Berār Districts, and also in Nimār, Wardha and Raipur. The name is derived from the town of Osia or Osnagar in Mārwār. According to one legend of their origin the Rāja of Osnagar had no son, and obtained one through the promise of a Jain ascetic. The people then drove the ascetic from the town, fearing that the Rāja would become a Jain; but Osadev, the guardian goddess of the place, told the ascetic, Sri Ratan Suri, to convert the Rāja by a miracle. So she took a small hank (pūni) of cotton and passed it along the back of the saint, when it immediately became a snake and bit Jaichand, the son of the Rāja, in the toe, while he was asleep beside his wife. Every means was tried to save his life, but he died. As his corpse was about to be burnt, the ascetic sent one of his disciples and stopped the cremation. Then the Rāja came with the body of his son and stood with hands clasped before the saint. He ordered that it was to be taken back to the place where the prince had been bitten, and that the princess was to lie down beside it as before. At midnight the snake returned and licked the bite, when the prince was restored to life. Then the Rāja, with all his Court and people, became a Jain. He and his family founded the gotra or section now known as Sri Srimāl or most noble; his servants formed that known as Srimāl or excellent, while the other Rājpūts of the town became ordinary Oswāls. When the Brāhmans of the place heard of these conversions they asked the saint how they were to live, as all their clients had become Jains. The saint directed that they should continue to be the family priests of the Oswāls and be known as Bhojak or ‘eaters.’ Thus the Oswāls, though Jains, continue to employ Mārwāri Brāhmans as their family priests. Another version of the story is that the king of Srimāli¹⁵⁷ allowed no one who was not a millionaire to live within his city walls. In consequence of this a large number of persons left Srimāl, and, settling in Mandovad, called it Osa or the frontier. Among them were Srimāli Banias and also Bhatti, Chauhān, Gahlot, Gaur, Yādava, and several other clans of Rājpūts, and these were the people who were subsequently converted by the Jain ascetic, Sri Ratan Suri, and formed into the single caste of Oswāl.¹⁵⁸ Finally, Colonel Tod states that the Oswāls are all of pure Rājpūt descent, of no single tribe, but chiefly Panwārs, Solankis and Bhattis.¹⁵⁹ From these legends and the fact that their headquarters are in Rājputāna, it may safely be concluded that the Oswāl Banias are of Rājpūt origin.

The large majority of the Oswāls are Jain by religion, but a few are Vaishnava Hindus. Intermarriage between the Hindu and Jain sections is permitted. Like the Agarwālas, the Oswāls are divided into Bīsa, Dasa and Pacha sections or twenties, tens and fives, according to the purity of their lineage. The Pacha subcaste still permit the remarriage of widows. The three groups take food together but do not intermarry. In Bombay, Dasa Oswāls intermarry with the Dasa groups of Srimāli and Parwār Banias,¹⁶⁰ and Oswāls generally can marry with other good Bania subcastes so long as both parties are Jains. The Oswāls are divided into eighty-four gotras or exogamous sections for purposes of marriage, a list of which is given by Mr. Crooke.¹⁶¹ Most of these cannot be recognised, but a few of them seem to be titular, as Lorha a caste which grows hemp, Nunia a salt-refiner, Seth a banker, Daftari an office-boy, Vaid a physician, Bhandāri a cook, and Kukara a dog. These may indicate a certain amount of admixture of foreign elements in the caste. As stated from Benāres, the exogamous rule is that a man cannot marry in his own section, and he cannot marry a girl whose father’s or mother’s section is the same as that of either his father or mother. This would bar the marriage of first cousins.

Though Jains the Oswāls perform their weddings by walking round the sacred fire and observe certain Hindu rites, including the worship of the god Ganpati.¹⁶² They also revere other Hindu deities and the sun and moon. The dead are burnt, but they do not observe any impurity after a death nor clean the house. On the day after the death the mourning family, both men and women, visit Parasnāth’s temple, and lay one seer (2 lbs.) of Indian millet before the god, bow to him and go home. They do not gather the ashes of the dead nor keep the yearly death-day. Their only observance is that on some day between the twelfth day after a death and the end of a year, the caste-people are treated to a dinner of sweetmeats and the dead ‘are then forgotten.’¹⁶³ The Oswāls will take food cooked with water (katchi) only from Brāhmans, and that cooked without water (pakki) from Agarwāla and Maheshri Banias. In the Central Provinces the principal deity of the Oswāls is the Jain Tirthakār Parasnāth, and they spend large sums in the erection of splendid temples. The Oswāls are the most prominent trading caste in Rājputāna; and they have also frequently held high offices, such as Diwān or minister, and paymaster in Rājpūt States.¹⁶⁴

Bania, Parwār

1. Origin.

Bania, Parwār. ¹⁶⁵—This Jain subcaste numbered nearly 29,000 persons in 1911. They belong almost entirely to the Jubbulpore and Nerbudda Divisions, and the great bulk are found in the Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore Districts. The origin of the Parwārs and of their name is not known, but there is some reason to suppose that they are from Rājputāna. Their women wear on the head the bīj, a Rājputāna ornament, and use the chāru, a deep brass plate for drinking, which also belongs there. Their songs are said to be in the Rājasthāni dialect. It seems likely that the Parwārs may be identical with the Porawāl subcaste found in other Provinces, which, judging from the name, may belong to Rājputāna. In the northern Districts the Parwārs speak Bundeli, but in the south their language is said to be Mārwāri.

2. Subdivisions.

Among the Parwārs the Samaiya or Channāgri form a separate sectarian Jain group. They do not worship the images of the Jain Tirthakārs, but enshrine the sacred books of the Jains in their temples, and worship these. The Parwārs will take daughters in marriage from the Channāgris, and sometimes give their daughters in consideration of a substantial bride-price. Among the Parwārs themselves there is a social division between the Ath Sāke and the Chao Sāke; the former will not permit the marriage of persons related more nearly than eight degrees, while the latter permit it after four degrees. The Ath Sāke have the higher position, and if one of them marries a Chao Sāke he is degraded to that group. Besides this the Parwārs have an inferior division called Benaikia, which consists of the offspring of irregular unions and of widows who have remarried. Persons who have committed a caste offence and cannot pay the fine imposed on them for it also go into this subcaste. The Benaikias¹⁶⁶ themselves are distributed into four groups of varying degrees of respectability, and families who live correctly and marry as well as they can tend to rise from one to the other until after several generations they may again be recognised as Parwārs proper.

3. Exogamy.

The Parwārs have twelve gotras or main sections, and each gotra has, or is supposed to have, twelve muls or subsections. A Parwār must not marry in his own gotra nor in the mul of his mother, or any of his grandmothers or greatgrandmothers. This practically bars marriage within seven degrees of relationship. But a man’s sister and daughter may be married in the same family, and even to two brothers, and a man can marry two sisters.

4. Marriage customs.

As a rule no bride-price is paid, but occasionally an old man desiring a wife will give something substantial to her father in secret. There are two forms of marriage, called Thinga and Dajanha; in the former, women do not accompany the wedding procession, and they have a separate marriage-shed at the bridegroom’s house for their own celebrations; while in the latter, they accompany it and erect such a shed at the house in the bridegroom’s village or town where they have their lodging. Before the wedding, the bridegroom, mounted on a horse, and the bride, carried in a litter, proceed together round the marriage-shed. The bridegroom then stands by the sacred post in the centre and the bride walks seven times round him. In the evening there was a custom of dressing the principal male relatives of the bridegroom in women’s clothes and making them dance, but this is now being discarded. On the fifth day is held a rite called Palkachār. A new cot is provided by the bride’s father, and on it is spread a red cloth. The couple are seated on this with their hands entwined, and their relations come and make them presents. If the bridegroom catches hold of the dress of his mother- or father-in-law, they are expected to make him a handsome present. In other respects the wedding follows the ordinary Hindu ritual. Widow-marriage and divorce are forbidden among the Parwārs proper, and those who practise them go into the lower Benaikia group.

5. Religion: Hindu observances.

The Parwārs are practically all Jains of the Digambari sect. They build costly and beautiful temples for their Tirthakārs, especially for their favourite Parasnāth. They have also many Hindu practices. They observe the Diwāli, Rakshabandhan and Holi festivals; they say that at the Diwāli the last Tirthakār Mahāvīra attained beatitude and the gods rained down jewels; the little lamps now lighted at Diwāli are held to be symbolic of these jewels. They tie the threads round the wrist on Rakshabandhan to keep off evil spirits. They worship Sītala Devi, the Hindu goddess of smallpox, and employ Brāhmans to choose names for their children and fix the dates of their wedding and other ceremonies, though not at the ceremonies themselves.

6. Disposal of the dead.

The caste burn the dead, with the exception of the bodies of young children, which are buried. The corpse is sometimes placed sitting in a car to be taken to the cremation ground, but often laid on a bier in the ordinary manner. The sitting posture is that in which all the Tirthakārs attained paradise, and their images always represent them in this posture. The corpse is naked save for a new piece of cloth round the waist, but it is covered with a sheet. The Jains do not shave their hair in token of mourning, nor do they offer sacrificial cakes to the dead. When the body is burnt they bathe in the nearest water and go home. Neither the bearers nor the mourners are held to be impure. Next day the mourning family, both men and women, visit Parasnāth’s temple, lay two pounds of Indian millet before the god and go home.¹⁶⁷ But in the Central Provinces they whitewash their houses, get their clothes washed, throw away their earthen pots and give a feast to the caste.

7. Social rules and customs.

The Parwārs abstain from eating any kind of flesh and from drinking liquor. They have a panchāyat and impose penalties for offences against caste rules like the Hindus. Among the offences are the killing of any living thing, unchastity or adultery, theft or other bad conduct, taking cooked food or water from a caste from which the Parwārs do not take them, and violation of any rule of their religion. To get vermin in a wound, or to be beaten by a low-caste man or with a shoe, incidents which entail serious penalties among the Hindus, are not offences with the Parwārs. When an offender is put out of caste the ordinary deprivation is that he is not allowed to enter a Jain temple, and in serious cases he may also not eat nor drink with the caste. The Parwārs are generally engaged in the trade in grain, ghī, and other staples. Several of them are well-to-do and own villages.

Bania, Srimāli

Bania, Srimāli.—This subcaste takes its name from the town of Srimāl, which is now Bhinmāl in Mārwār. They numbered 600 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, most of whom belonged to the Hoshangābād District. More than two-thirds were Hindus and the remainder Jains. Colonel Tod writes of Bhinmāl and an adjoining town, Sanchor: “These towns are on the high road to Cutch and Gujarāt, which has given them from the most remote times a commercial celebrity. Bhinmāl is said to contain about 1500 houses and Sanchor half that number. Very wealthy mahājans or merchants used to reside here, but insecurity both within and without has much injured these cities.” From Bhinmāl the Srimālis appear to have gone to Gujarāt, where they are found in considerable numbers. Their legend of origin is that the goddess Lakshmi created from a flower-garland 90,000 families to act as servants to the 90,000 Srimāli Brāhmans, and these were the ancestors of the Srimāli Banias.¹⁶⁸ Both the Jain and Hindu sections of the Srimāli Banias employ Srimāli Brāhmans as priests. Like other classes of Banias, the Srimāli are divided into two sections, the Bīsa and Dasa, or twenty and ten, of which the Bīsa are considered to be of pure and the Dasa of somewhat mixed descent. In Gujarāt they also have a third territorial group, known as Lādva, from Lād, the old name of Gujarāt. All three subdivisions take food together but do not intermarry.¹⁶⁹ The two highest sections of the Oswāl Banias are called Sri Srimāl and Srimāl, and it is possible that further investigation might show the Srimāls and Oswāls to have been originally of one stock.

Bania, Umre

Bania, Umre.—This Hindu subcaste belongs to Damoh and Jubbulpore. They are perhaps the same as the Ummar Banias of the United Provinces, who reside in the Meerut, Agra and Kumaon Divisions. The name Umre is found as a subdivision of several castes in the Central Provinces, as the Telis and others, and is probably derived from some town or tract of country in northern or central India, but no identification has been made. Mr. Bhīmbhai Kirpārām states that in Gujarāt the Ummar Banias are also known as Bāgaria from the Bāgar or wild country, comprised in the Dongarpur and Pertābgarh States of Rājputāna, where considerable numbers of them are still settled. Their headquarters is at Sāgwāra, near Dongarpur.¹⁷⁰ In Damoh the Umre Banias formerly cultivated the al plant,¹⁷¹ which yielded a well-known dye, and hence they lost caste, as in soaking the roots of the plant to extract the dye the numerous insects in them are necessarily destroyed. The Dosar subcaste¹⁷² are a branch of the Umre, who allow widow-remarriage.

Banjāra

1. Historical notice of the caste.

Banjāra, Wanjāri, Lahāna, Mukeri.¹⁷³—The caste of carriers and drivers of pack-bullocks. In 1911 the Banjāras numbered about 56,000 persons in the Central Provinces and 80,000 in Berār, the caste being in greater strength here than in any part of India except Hyderābād, where their total is 174,000. Bombay comes next with a figure approaching that of the Central Provinces and Berār, and the caste belongs therefore rather to the Deccan than to northern India. The name has been variously explained, but the most probable derivation is from the Sanskrit banijya kara, a merchant. Sir H. M. Elliot held that the name Banjāra was of great antiquity, quoting a passage from the Dasa Kumara Charita of the eleventh or twelfth century. But it was subsequently shown by Professor Cowell that the name Banjāra did not occur in the original text of this work.¹⁷⁴ Banjāras are supposed to be the people mentioned by Arrian in the fourth century B.C., as leading a wandering life, dwelling in tents and letting out for hire their beasts of burden.¹⁷⁵ But this passage merely proves the existence of carriers and not of the Banjāra caste. Mr. Crooke states¹⁷⁶ that the first mention of Banjāras in Muhammadan history is in Sikandar’s attack on Dholpur in A.D. 1504.¹⁷⁷ It seems improbable, therefore, that the Banjāras accompanied the different Muhammadan invaders of India, as might have been inferred from the fact that they came into the Deccan in the train of the forces of Aurāngzeb. The caste has indeed two Muhammadan sections, the Turkia and Mukeri.¹⁷⁸ But both of these have the same Rājpūt clan names as the Hindu branch of the caste, and it seems possible that they may have embraced Islām under the proselytising influence of Aurāngzeb, or simply owing to their having been employed with the Muhammadan troops. The great bulk of the caste in southern India are Hindus, and there seems no reason for assuming that its origin was Muhammadan.

2. Banjāras derived from the Chārans or Bhāts.

It may be suggested that the Banjāras are derived from the Chāran or Bhāt caste of Rājputāna. Mr. Cumberlege, whose Monograph on the caste in Berār is one of the best authorities, states that of the four divisions existing there the Chārans are the most numerous and by far the most interesting class.¹⁷⁹ In the article on Bhāt it has been explained how the Chārans or bards, owing to their readiness to kill themselves rather than give up the property entrusted to their care, became the best safe-conduct for the passage of goods in Rājputāna. The name Chāran is generally held to mean ‘Wanderer,’ and in their capacity of bards the Chārans were accustomed to travel from court to court of the different chiefs in quest of patronage. They were first protected by their sacred character and afterwards by their custom of trāga or chāndi, that is, of killing themselves when attacked and threatening their assailants with the dreaded fate of being haunted by their ghosts. Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparām¹⁸⁰ remarks: “After Parāsurāma’s dispersion of the Kshatris the Chārans accompanied them in their southward flight. In those troubled times the Chārans took charge of the supplies of the Kshatri forces and so fell to their present position of cattle-breeders and grain-carriers....” Most of the Chārans are graziers, cattle-sellers and pack-carriers. Colonel Tod says:¹⁸¹ “The Chārans and Bhāts or bards and genealogists are the chief carriers of these regions (Mārwār); their sacred character overawes the lawless Rājpūt chief, and even the savage Koli and Bhīl and the plundering Sahrai of the desert dread the anathema of these singular races, who conduct the caravans through the wildest and most desolate regions.” In another passage Colonel Tod identifies the Chārans and Banjāras¹⁸² as follows: “Murlāh is an excellent township inhabited by a community of Chārans of the tribe Cucholia (Kacheli), who are Bunjārris (carriers) by profession, though poets by birth. The alliance is a curious one, and would appear incongruous were not gain the object generally in both cases. It was the sanctity of their office which converted our bardais (bards) into bunjārris, for their persons being sacred, the immunity extended likewise to their goods and saved them from all imposts; so that in process of time they became the free-traders of Rājputāna. I was highly gratified with the reception I received from the community, which collectively advanced to meet me at some distance from the town. The procession was headed by the village elders and all the fair Chāranis, who, as they approached, gracefully waved their scarfs over me until I was fairly made captive by the muses of Murlāh! It was a novel and interesting scene. The manly persons of the Chārans, clad in the flowing white robe with the high loose-folded turban inclined on one side, from which the māla or chaplet was gracefully suspended; and the naiques or leaders, with their massive necklaces of gold, with the image of the pitriswar (manes) depending therefrom, gave the whole an air of opulence and dignity. The females were uniformly attired in a skirt of dark-brown camlet, having a bodice of light-coloured stuff, with gold ornaments worked into their fine black hair; and all had the favourite chūris or rings of hāthidānt (elephant’s tooth) covering the arm from the wrist to the elbow, and even above it.” A little later, referring to the same Chāran community, Colonel Tod writes: “The tānda or caravan, consisting of four thousand bullocks, has been kept up amidst all the evils which have beset this land through Mughal and Marātha tyranny. The utility of these caravans as general carriers to conflicting armies and as regular tax-paying subjects has proved their safeguard, and they were too strong to be pillaged by any petty marauder, as any one who has seen a Banjāri encampment will be convinced. They encamp in a square, and their grain-bags piled over each other breast-high, with interstices left for their matchlocks, make no contemptible fortification. Even the ruthless Tūrk, Jamshīd Khān, set up a protecting tablet in favour of the Chārans of Murlāh, recording their exemption from dīnd contributions, and that there should be no increase in duties, with threats to all who should injure the community. As usual, the sun and moon are appealed to as witnesses of good faith, and sculptured on the stone. Even the forest Bhīl and mountain Mair have set up their signs of immunity and protection to the chosen of Hinglāz (tutelary deity); and the figures of a cow and its kairi (calf) carved in rude relief speak the agreement that they should not be slain or stolen within the limits of Murlāh.”

In the above passage the community described by Colonel Tod were Chārans, but he identified them with Banjāras, using the name alternatively. He mentions their large herds of pack-bullocks, for the management of which the Chārans, who were graziers as well as bards, would naturally be adapted; the name given to the camp, tānda, is that generally used by the Banjāras; the women wore ivory bangles, which the Banjāra women wear.¹⁸³ In commenting on the way in which the women threw their scarves over him, making him a prisoner, Colonel Tod remarks: “This community had enjoyed for five hundred years the privilege of making prisoner any Rāna of Mewār who may pass through Murlāh, and keeping him in bondage until he gives them a got or entertainment. The patriarch (of the village) told me that I was in jeopardy as the Rāna’s representative, but not knowing how I might have relished the joke had it been carried to its conclusion, they let me escape.” Mr. Ball notes a similar custom of the Banjāra women far away in the Bastar State of the Central Provinces:¹⁸⁴ “Today I passed through another Banjāra hamlet, from whence the women and girls all hurried out in pursuit, and a brazen-faced powerful-looking lass seized the bridle of my horse as he was being led by the sais in the rear. The sais and chaprāsi were both Muhammadans, and the forward conduct of these females perplexed them not a little, and the former was fast losing his temper at being thus assaulted by a woman.” Colonel Mackenzie in his account of the Banjāra caste remarks:¹⁸⁵ “It is certain that the Chārans, whoever they were, first rose to the demand which the great armies of northern India, contending in exhausted countries far from their basis of supply, created, viz. the want of a fearless and reliable transport service.... The start which the Chārans then acquired they retain among Banjāras to this day, though in very much diminished splendour and position. As they themselves relate, they were originally five brethren, Rāthor, Turi, Panwār, Chauhān and Jādon. But fortune particularly smiled on Bhīka Rāthor, as his four sons, Mersi, Multāsi, Dheda and Khāmdār, great names among the Chārans, rose immediately to eminence as commissariat transporters in the north. And not only under the Delhi Emperors, but under the Satāra, subsequently the Poona Rāj, and the Subāhship of the Nizām, did several of their descendants rise to consideration and power.” It thus seems a reasonable hypothesis that the nucleus of the Banjāra caste was constituted by the Chārans or bards of Rājputāna. Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparām¹⁸⁶ also identifies the Chārans and Banjāras, but I have not been able to find the exact passage. The following notice¹⁸⁷ by Colonel Tone is of interest in this connection:

“The vast consumption that attends a Marātha army necessarily superinduces the idea of great supplies; yet, notwithstanding this, the native powers never concern themselves about providing for their forces, and have no idea of a grain and victualling department, which forms so great an object in a European campaign. The Banias or grain-sellers in an Indian army have always their servants ahead of the troops on the line of march, to purchase in the circumjacent country whatever necessaries are to be disposed of. Articles of consumption are never wanting in a native camp, though they are generally twenty-five per cent dearer than in the town bazārs; but independent of this mode of supply the Vanjāris or itinerant grain-merchants furnish large quantities, which they bring on bullocks from an immense distance. These are a very peculiar race, and appear a marked and discriminated people from any other I have seen in this country. Formerly they were considered so sacred that they passed in safety in the midst of contending armies; of late, however, this reverence for their character is much abated and they have been frequently plundered, particularly by Tipu.”

The reference to the sacred character attaching to the Banjāras a century ago appears to be strong evidence in favour of their derivation from the Chārans. For it could scarcely have been obtained by any body of commissariat agents coming into India with the Muhammadans. The fact that the example of disregarding it was first set by a Muhammadan prince points to the same conclusion.

Mr. Irvine notices the Banjāras with the Mughal armies in similar terms:¹⁸⁸ “It is by these people that the Indian armies in the field are fed, and they are never injured by either army. The grain is taken from them, but invariably paid for. They encamp for safety every evening in a regular square formed of the bags of grain of which they construct a breastwork. They and their families are in the centre, and the oxen are made fast outside. Guards with matchlocks and spears are placed at the corners, and their dogs do duty as advanced posts. I have seen them with droves of 5000 bullocks. They do not move above two miles an hour, as their cattle are allowed to graze as they proceed on the march.”

One may suppose that the Chārans having acted as carriers for the Rājpūt chiefs and courts, both in time of peace and in their continuous intestinal feuds, were pressed into service when the Mughal armies entered Rājputāna and passed through it to Gujarāt and the Deccan. In adopting the profession of transport agents for the imperial troops they may have been amalgamated into a fresh caste with other Hindus and Muhammadans doing the same work, just as the camp language formed by the superposition of a Persian vocabulary on to a grammatical basis of Hindi became Urdu or Hindustāni. The readiness of the Chārans to commit suicide rather than give up property committed to their charge was not, however, copied by the Banjāras, and so far as I am aware there is no record of men of this caste taking their own lives, though they had little scruple with those of others.

3. Chāran Ranjārans employed with the Mughal armies.

The Chāran Banjāras, Mr. Cumberlege states,¹⁸⁹ first came to the Deccan with Asaf Khān in the campaign which closed with the annexation by the Emperor Shāh Jahān of Ahmadnagar and Berār about 1630. Their leaders or Nāiks were Bhangi and Jhangi of the Rāthor¹⁹⁰ and Bhagwān Dās of the Jādon clan. Bhangi and Jhangi had 180,000 pack-bullocks, and Bhagwān Dās 52,000. It was naturally an object with Asaf Khān to keep his commissariat well up with his force, and as Bhangi and Jhangi made difficulties about the supply of grass and water to their cattle, he gave them an order engraved on copper in letters of gold to the following effect:

 
Ranjan kā pāni
Chhappar kā ghās
Din ke tīn khūn muāf;
Aur jahān Asaf Jāh ke ghore
Wahān Bhangi Jhangi ke bail,
 

which may be rendered as follows: “If you can find no water elsewhere you may even take it from the pots of my followers; grass you may take from the roofs of their huts; and I will pardon you up to three murders a day, provided that wherever I find my cavalry, Bhangi and Jhangi’s bullocks shall be with them.” This grant is still in the possession of Bhangi Nāik’s descendant who lives at Musi, near Hingoli. He is recognised by the Hyderābād Court as the head Nāik of the Banjāra caste, and on his death his successor receives a khillat or dress-of-honour from His Highness the Nizām. After Asaf Khān’s campaign and settlement in the Deccan, a quarrel broke out between the Rāthor clan, headed by Bhangi and Jhangi, and the Jādons under Bhagwān Dās, owing to the fact that Asaf Khān had refused to give Bhagwān Dās a grant like that quoted above. Both Bhangi and Bhagwān Dās were slain in the feud and the Jādons captured the standard, consisting of eight thāns (lengths) of cloth, which was annually presented by the Nizām to Bhangi’s descendants. When Mr. Cumberlege wrote (1869), this standard was in the possession of Hatti Nāik, a descendant of Bhagwān Dās, who had an estate near Muchli Bunder, in the Madras Presidency. Colonel Mackenzie states¹⁹¹ that the leaders of the Rāthor clan became so distinguished not only in their particular line but as men of war that the Emperors recognised their carrying distinctive standards, which were known as dhal by the Rāthors themselves. Jhangi’s family was also represented in the person of Rāmu Nāik, the patel or headman of the village of Yaoli in the Yeotmāl District. In 1791–92 the Banjāras were employed to supply grain to the British army under the Marquis of Cornwallis during the siege of Seringapatam,¹⁹² and the Duke of Wellington in his Indian campaigns regularly engaged them as part of the commissariat staff of his army. On one occasion he said of them: “The Banjāras I look upon in the light of servants of the public, of whose grain I have a right to regulate the sale, always taking care that they have a proportionate advantage.”¹⁹³