being more common in the
west of the Province and the latter in the eastern Satpura Districts
and the Chhattisgarh plain. In the Nerbudda valley and on the Vindhyan
plateau the place of both Mali and Marar is taken by the Kachhi of
Upper India. [156] Marar appears to be a Marathi name, the original
term, as pointed out by Mr. Hira Lal, being Malal, or one who grows
garden-crops in a field; but the caste is often called Mali in the
Maratha country and Marar in the Hindi Districts. The word Mali is
derived from the Sanskrit _mala_, a garland. In 1911 the Malis numbered
nearly 360,000 persons in the present area of the Central Provinces,
and 200,000 in Berar. A German writer remarks of the caste [157]
that: "It cannot be considered to be a very ancient one. Generally
speaking, it may be said that flowers have scarcely a place in the
Veda. Wreaths of flowers, of course, are used as decorations, but
the separate flowers and their beauty are not yet appreciated. That
lesson was first learned later by the Hindus when surrounded by
another flora. Amongst the Homeric Greeks, too, in spite of their
extensive gardening and different flowers, not a trace of horticulture
is yet to be found." It seems probable that the first Malis were not
included among the regular cultivators of the village but were a lower
group permitted to take up the small waste plots of land adjoining the
inhabited area and fertilised by its drainage, and the sandy stretches
in the beds of rivers, on which they were able to raise the flowers
required for offerings and such vegetables as were known. They still
hold a lower rank than the ordinary cultivator. Sir D. Ibbetson writes
[158] of the gardening castes: "The group now to be discussed very
generally hold an inferior position among the agricultural community
and seldom if ever occupy the position of the dominant tribe in any
considerable tract of country. The cultivation of vegetables is looked
upon as degrading by the agricultural classes, why I know not, unless
it be that night-soil is generally used for their fertilisation; and
a Rajput would say: 'What! Do you take me for an Arain?' if anything
was proposed which he considered derogatory." But since most Malis
in the Central Provinces strenuously object to using night-soil as
a manure the explanation that this practice has caused them to rank
below the agricultural castes does not seem sufficient. And if the
use of night-soil were the real circumstance