considered
as landholders, and have not therefore the position which attaches
to the holding of land among all early agricultural peoples, and
which in India consisted in the status of a constituent member of
the village community. So far as ceremonial purity goes there is no
difference between the Malis and the cultivating castes, as Brahmans
will take water from both. It may be surmised that this privilege
has been given to the Malis because they grow the flowers required
for offerings to the gods, and sometimes officiate as village priests
and temple servants; and their occupation, though not on a level with
regular agriculture, is still respectable. But the fact that Brahmans
will take water from them does not place the Malis on an equality with
the cultivating castes, any more than it does the Nais (barbers) and
Dhimars (watermen), the condemned menial servants of the cultivators,
from whom Brahmans will also take water from motives of convenience.

2. Caste legend

The Malis have a Brahmanical legend of the usual type indicating
that their hereditary calling was conferred and ratified by divine
authority. [162] This is to the effect that the first Mali was a
garland-maker attached to the household of Raja Kansa of Mathura. One
day he met with Krishna, and, on being asked by him for a chaplet of
flowers, at once gave it. On being told to fasten it with string,
he, for want of any other, took off his sacred thread and tied it,
on which Krishna most ungenerously rebuked him for his simplicity
in parting with his _paita_, and announced that for the future his
caste would be ranked among the Sudras.

The above story, combined with the derivation of Mali from _mala_,
a garland, makes it a plausible hypothesis that the calling of the
first Malis was to grow flowers for the adornment of the gods, and
especially for making the garlands with which their images were and
still are decorated. Thus the Malis were intimately connected with the
gods and naturally became priests of the village temples, in which
capacity they are often employed. Mr. Nesfield remarks of the Mali:
[163] "To Hindus of all ranks, including even the Brahmans, he acts
as a priest of Mahadeo in places where no Gosain is to be found,
and lays the flower offerings on the _lingam_ by which the deity is
symbolised. As the Mali is believed to have some influence with the god
to whose temple he is attached, none objects to his appropriating the
fee w