nds, their elderly relations,
nor the sons of their husband's eldest brother. A man does not name
his wife, as he thinks that to do so would tend to shorten his life
in accordance with the Sanskrit saying, 'He who is desirous of long
life should not name himself, his _guru_, a miser, his eldest son,
or his wife.' The Agharias do not admit outsiders into the caste. They
will not take cooked food from any caste, and water only from a Gaur
or Rawat. They refuse to take water from an Uriya Brahman, probably
in retaliation for the refusal of Uriya Brahmans to accept water from
an Agharia, though taking it from a Kolta. Both the Uriya Brahmans
and Agharias are of somewhat doubtful origin, and both are therefore
probably the more concerned to maintain the social position to which
they lay claim. But Kewats, Rawats, Telis and other castes eat cooked
food from Agharias, and the caste therefore is admitted to a fairly
high rank in the Uriya country. The Agharias do not drink liquor or
eat any food which a Rajput would refuse.

5. Occupation.

As cultivators they are considered to be proficient. In the census of
1901 nearly a quarter of the whole caste were shown as malguzars or
village proprietors and lessees. They wear a coarse cloth of homespun
yarn which they get woven for them by Gandas; probably in consequence
of this the Agharias do not consider the touch of the Ganda to pollute
them, as other castes do. They will not grow turmeric, onions, garlic,
_san_-hemp or tomatoes, nor will they rear tasar silk-cocoons. Colonel
Dalton says that their women do no outdoor work, and this is true in
the Central Provinces as regards the better classes, but poor women
work in the fields.

Aghori

1. General accounts of the caste.

_Aghori, Aghorpanthi._ [7]--The most disreputable class of Saiva
mendicants who feed on human corpses and excrement, and in past
times practised cannibalism. The sect is apparently an ancient one, a
supposed reference to it being contained in the Sanskrit drama _Malati
Madhava_, the hero of which rescues his mistress from being offered
as a sacrifice by one named Aghori Ghanta. [8] According to Lassen,
quoted by Sir H. Risley, the Aghoris of the present day are closely
connected with the Kapalika sect of the Middle Ages, who wore crowns
and necklaces of skulls and offered human sacrifices to Chamunda,
a form of Devi. The Aghoris now represent their filthy habits as
merely giving practical e