f a low-caste type, Mr. Crooke thinks their Brahmanical
origin improbable. It is noticeable that these Golapurabs though a
cultivating caste have, like the Banias, a subcaste called Dasa,
comprising persons of irregular descent; they also prohibit the
remarriage of widows, and abstain from all flesh and from onions and
garlic. Such customs are peculiar in a cultivating caste, and resemble
those of Banias. It seems possible that a detailed investigation
might give ground for supposing that both the Golahre and Golapurab
subcastes of Banias in the United and Central Provinces respectively
are connected with this cultivating caste of Golapurabs. The latter
might have abandoned the Jain religion on taking to cultivation,
as a Jain cannot well drive the plough, which involves destruction
of animal life; or the Bania section might have adopted Jainism in
order to obtain a better social position and differentiate themselves
from the cultivators. Unfortunately no detailed information about
the Golapurabs of the Central Provinces is available, from which the
probability or otherwise of this hypothesis could be tested.

Bania, Kasarwani

_Bania, Kasarwani_. [150]--This Hindu subcaste numbers about 6500
persons in the Central Provinces, who belong mainly to Saugor,
Jubbulpore and the three Chhattisgarh Districts. The name is probably
derived from _kansa_, bell-metal, as these Banias retail brass and
bell-metal vessels. The Kasarwanis may therefore not improbably
be an occupational group formed from persons who engaged in the
trade, and in that case they may be wholly or partly derived from
the Kasars and Tameras, the castes which work in brass, copper and
bell-metal. The Kasarwanis are numerous in Allahabad and Mirzapur,
and they may have come to Chhattisgarh from Mirzapur, attracted by the
bell-metal industries in Ratanpur and Drug. In Saugor and also in the
United Provinces they say that they came from Kara Manikpur several
generations ago. If the selling of metal vessels was their original
calling, many, or the majority of them, have now abandoned it, and
deal in grain and groceries, and lend money like other Banias. The
Kasarwanis do not observe the same standard of strictness as the good
Bania subcastes in their social rules. They eat the flesh of goats,
sheep, birds and fish, though they abstain from liquor. They permit the
remarriage of widows and divorce; and women who have been divorced can
marry again in the cast