to
pilgrims who come to bathe in the Ganges at the sacred city. The
creation of new local subcastes seems to arise in two ways: when
different groups of a caste settle in different tracts of country
and are prevented from attending the caste feasts and assemblies,
the practice of intermarriage and taking food together gradually
ceases, they form separate endogamous groups and for purposes of
distinction are named after the territory in which they reside; this
is what has happened in the case of Brahmans and many other castes;
and, secondly, when a fresh body of a caste arrives and settles in a
tract where some of its members already reside, they do not amalgamate
with the latter group, but form a fresh one and are named after the
territory from which they have come, as in the case of such names as
Pardeshi, Purabia, Gangapari ('from the other side of the Ganges'),
and similar ones already cited. In former times, when the difficulties
of communication were great, these local subcastes readily multiplied;
thus the Kanaujia Brahmans of Chhattisgarh are looked down upon by
those of Saugor and Damoh, as Chhattisgarh has been for centuries
a backward tract cut off from the rest of India, and they may be
suspected of having intermarried with the local people or otherwise
derogated from the standard of strict Hinduism. Similarly the Kanaujia
Brahmans of Bengal are split into several local subcastes named
after tracts in Bengal, who marry among themselves and neither with
other Kanaujias of Bengal nor with those of northern India. Since the
opening of railways people can travel long distances to marriage and
other ceremonies, and the tendency to form new subcastes is somewhat
checked; a native gentleman said to me, when speaking of his people,
that when a few families of Khedawal Brahmans from Gujarat first
settled in Damoh they had the greatest difficulty in arranging their
marriages; they could not marry with their caste-fellows in Gujarat
because their sons and daughters could not establish themselves, that
is, could not prove their identity as Khedawal Brahmans; but since the
railway has been opened intermarriage takes place freely with other
Khedawals in Gujarat and Benares. Proposals are on foot to authorise
the intermarriage of the three great subcastes of Maratha Brahmans:
Deshasth, Konkonasth and Karhara. As a rule, there is no difference
of status between the different local subcastes, and a man's subcaste
is often no