ho founded the caste. At the thirteenth-day feast
after a death the Brahmans must be fed first before the members of the
caste. On this occasion thirteen brass or earthen vessels are filled
with flour, and a piece of money, and presented to thirteen Brahmans,
while the family priest receives a bed and piece of cloth. The priests
are said to be greedy, and to raise quarrels over the value of the
presents given to them. At the Diwali festival the Gahois worship the
implements of their trade, pen and ink, and their account-books. The
Gahois are Vaishnava Hindus, and abstain from all flesh and alcoholic
liquor. They trade in grain and groceries, and are bankers and
moneylenders. They are considered to be cunning in business, and a
proverb says that a Gahoi will deceive even his own father.

Bania, Golapurab

_Bania, Golapurab, Golahre._--This Jain subcaste numbers about 6000
persons in the Central Provinces, and belongs mainly to the Saugor,
Damoh and Narsinghpur Districts. Its distribution is nearly the
same as that of the Gahois, and it is probably also a Bundelkhand
group. The Golapurabs are practically all Digambari Jains with a small
Hindu minority. In some localities they intermarry with Parwar Banias
who are also Digambari Jains; and they will take food cooked without
water from the Nema subcaste who are Hindus. According to one story
the Golapurabs were the offspring of a Purabia, that is probably a
Bais Rajput, by a kept woman of the Ahir caste. This fits in very
well with the name, as Golak means a bastard, and the termination
_purab_ would be from Purabia; but it is probably the name which has
given rise to the story, or at any rate to the supposed descent from
a Purabia. In the United Provinces a small subcaste of Bania called
Golahre exists, belonging to the Jhansi District, that is the country
of the Golapurabs, and Jain by religion. There is no doubt that this
group is the same as the Golapurabs, and Mr. Crooke derives [149]
the name from _gola_, a grain-mart, which seems more probable than
the derivation suggested above. But it is an interesting fact that
there is also a caste of cultivators called Golapurab in the United
Provinces, found only in the Agra District. It is suggested that
these people are the illegitimate offspring of Sanadhya Brahmans,
with whom they appear to be closely connected. From their sept-names,
however, which include those of several Rajput clans and also some
titular terms o