Part 16

"It is necessary," the account continues, "for the Marar's business for one member at least of his family to go to market with his vegetables; and the Mararin is a noteworthy feature in all bazars, sitting with her basket or garment spread on the ground, full of white onions and garlic, purple brinjals and scarlet chillies, with a few handfuls of strongly flavoured green stuff. Whether from the publicity which it entails on their women or from whatever cause, the Mararin does not bear the best of reputations for chastity; and is usually considered rather a bold, coarse creature. The distinctive feature of her attire is the way in which she ties up her body-cloth so as to leave a tail sticking up behind; whence the proverb shouted after her by rude little boys: 'Jump from roof to roof, Monkey. Pull the tail of the Mararin, Monkey,' She also rejoices in a very large tikli or spangle on her forehead and in a peculiar kind of angia (waistcoat). The caste are usually considered rather clannish and morose. They live in communities by themselves, and nearly always inhabit a separate hamlet of the village. The Marars of a certain place are said to have boycotted a village carpenter who lost an axe belonging to one of their number, so that he had to leave the neighbourhood for lack of custom."

12. Other functions of the Mali

Many Malis live in the towns and keep vegetable- or flower-gardens just outside. They sell flowers, and the Mali girls are very good flower-sellers, Major Sutherland says, being famous for their coquetry. A saying about them is: "The crow among birds, the jackal among beasts, the barber among men and the Malin among women; all these are much too clever." The Mali also prepares the maur or marriage-crown, made from the leaves of the date-palm, both for the bride and bridegroom at marriages. In return he gets a present of a rupee, a piece of cloth and a day's food. He also makes the garlands which are used for presentation at entertainments, and supplies the daily bunches of flowers which are required as offerings for Mahadeo. The Mali keeps garlands for sale in the bazar, and when a well-to-do person passes he goes up and puts a garland round his neck and expects a present of a pice or two.

13. Physical appearance

"Physically," Mr. Low states, "the Marar is rather a poor-looking creature, dark and undersized; but the women are often not bad looking, and dressed up in their best at a wedding, rattling their castanets and waving light-coloured silk handkerchiefs, give a very graceful dance. The caste are not as a rule celebrated for their cleanliness. A polite way of addressing a Marar is to call him Patel."

Mallah

Mallah, Malha. --A small caste of boatmen and fishermen in the Jubbulpore and Narsinghpur Districts, which numbered about 5000 persons in 1911. It is scarcely correct to designate the Mallahs as a distinct caste, as in both these Districts it appears from inquiry that the term is synonymous with Kewat. Apparently, however, the Mallahs do form a separate endogamous group, and owing to many of them having adopted the profession of growing hemp, a crop which respectable Hindu castes usually refuse to cultivate, it is probable that they would not be allowed to intermarry with the Kewats of other Districts. In the United Provinces Mr. Crooke states that the Mallahs, though, as their Arabic name indicates, of recent origin, have matured into a definite social group, including a number of endogamous tribes. The term Mallah has nothing to do with the Mulla or Muhammadan priest among the frontier tribes, but comes from an Arabic word meaning 'to be salt,' or, according to another derivation, 'to move the wings as a bird.' The Mallahs of the Central Provinces are also, in spite of their Arabic name, a purely Hindu caste. In Narsinghpur they say that their original ancestor was one Bali or Baliram, who was a boatman and was so strong that he could carry his boat to the river and back under his armpit. On one occasion he ferried Rama across the Ganges in Benares, and it is said that Rama gave him a horse to show his gratitude; but Baliram was so ignorant that he placed the bridle on the horse's tail instead of the head. And from this act of Baliram's arose the custom of having the rudder of a boat at the stern instead of at the bow. The Mallahs in the Central Provinces appear from their family names to be immigrants from Bundelkhand. Their customs resemble those of lower-class Hindus. Girls are usually married under the age of twelve years, and the remarriage of widows is permitted, while divorce may be effected in the presence of the panchayat or caste committee by the husband and wife breaking a straw between them. They are scantily clothed and are generally poor. A proverb about them says:

Jahan bethen Malao Tahan lage alao,

or, 'Where Mallahs sit, there is always a fire.' This refers to their custom of kindling fires on the river-bank to protect themselves from cold. In Narsinghpur the Mallahs have found a profitable opening in the cultivation of hemp, a crop which other Hindu castes until recently tabooed on account probably of the dirty nature of the process of cleaning out the fibre and the pollution necessarily caused to the water-supply. They sow and cut hemp on Sundays and Wednesdays, which are regarded as auspicious days. They also grow melons, and will not enter a melon-field with their shoes on or allow a woman during her periodical impurity to approach it. The Mallahs are poor and illiterate, but rank with Dhimars and Kewats, and Brahmans will take water from their hands.

Mana

Mana. --A Dravidian caste of cultivators and labourers belonging to the Chanda District, from which they have spread to Nagpur, Bhandara and Balaghat. In 1911 they numbered nearly 50,000 persons, of whom 34,000 belonged to Chanda. The origin of the caste is obscure. In the Chanda Settlement Report of 1869 Major Lucie Smith wrote of them: "Tradition asserts that prior to the Gond conquest the Manas reigned over the country, having their strongholds at Surajgarh in Ahiri and at Manikgarh in the Manikgarh hills, now of Hyderabad, and that after a troubled rule of two hundred years they fell before the Gonds. In appearance they are of the Gond type, and are strongly and stoutly made; while in character they are hardy, industrious and truthful. Many warlike traditions still linger among them, and doubtless in days gone by they did their duty as good soldiers, but they have long since hung up sword and shield and now rank among the best cultivators of rice in Chanda." Another local tradition states that a line of Mana princes ruled at Wairagarh. The names of three princes are remembered: Kurumpruhoda, the founder of the line; Surjat Badwaik, who fortified Surjagarh; and Gahilu, who built Manikgarh. As regards the name Manikgarh, it may be mentioned that the tutelary deity of the Nagvansi kings of Bastar, who ruled there before the accession of the present Raj-Gond dynasty in the fourteenth century, was Manikya Devi, and it is possible that the chiefs of Wairagarh were connected with the Bastar kings. Some of the Manas say that they, as well as the Gowaris, are offshoots of the Gond tribe; and a local saying to the effect that 'The Gond, the Gowari and the Mana eat boiled juari or beans on leaf-plates' shows that they are associated together in the popular mind. Hislop states that the Ojhas, or soothsayers and minstrels of the Gonds, have a subdivision of Mana Ojhas, who lay claim to special sanctity, refusing to take food from any other caste. The Gonds have a subdivision called Mannewar, and as war is only a Telugu suffix for the plural, the proper name Manne closely resembles Mana. It is shown in the article on the Parja tribe that the Parjas were a class of Gonds or a tribe akin to them, who were dominant in Bastar prior to the later immigration under the ancestors of the present Bastar dynasty. And the most plausible hypothesis as to the past history of the Manas is that they were also the rulers of some tracts of Chanda, and were displaced like the Parjas by a Gond invasion from the south.

In Bhandara, where the Manas hold land, it is related that in former times a gigantic kite lived on the hill of Ghurkundi, near Sakoli, and devoured the crops of the surrounding country by whole fields at a time. The king of Chanda proclaimed that whoever killed the kite would be granted the adjoining lands. A Mana shot the kite with an arrow and its remains were taken to Chanda in eight carts, and as his reward he received the grant of a zamindari. In appearance the Manas, or at least some of them, are rather fine men, nor do their complexion and features show more noticeable traces of aboriginal descent than those of the local Hindus. But their neighbours in Chanda and Bastar, the Maria Gonds, are also taller and of a better physical type than the average Dravidian, so that their physical appearance need not militate against the above hypothesis. They retained their taste for fighting until within quite recent times, and in Katol and other towns below the Satpura hills, Manas were regularly enlisted as a town guard for repelling the Pindari raids. Their descendants still retain the ancestral matchlocks, and several of them make good use of these as professional shikaris or hunters. Many of them are employed as servants by landowners and moneylenders for the collection of debts or the protection of crops, and others are proprietors, cultivators and labourers, while a few even lend money on their own account. Manas hold three zamindari estates in Bhandara and a few villages in Chanda; here they are considered to be good cultivators, but have the reputation as a caste of being very miserly, and though possessed of plenty, living only on the poorest and coarsest food. The Mana women are proverbial for the assistance which they render to their husbands in the work of cultivation.

Owing to their general adoption of Maratha customs, the Manas are now commonly regarded as a caste and not a forest tribe, and this view may be accepted. They have two subcastes, the Badwaik Manas, or soldiers, and the Khad Manas, who live in the plains and are considered to be of impure descent. Badwaik or 'The Great Ones' is a titular term applied to a person carrying arms, and assumed by certain Rajputs and also by some of the lower castes. A third group of Manas are now amalgamated with the Kunbis as a regular subdivision of that caste, though they are regarded as somewhat lower than the others. They have also a number of exogamous septs of the usual titular and totemistic types, the few recognisable names being Marathi. It is worth noticing that several pairs of these septs, as Jamare and Gazbe, Narnari and Chudri, Wagh and Rawat, and others are prohibited from intermarriage. And this may be a relic of some wider scheme of division of the type common among the Australian aborigines. The social customs of the Manas are the same as those of the other lower Maratha castes, as described in the articles on Kunbi, Kohli and Mahar. A bride-price of Rs. 12-8 is usually paid, and if the bridegroom's father has the money, he takes it with him on going to arrange for the match. Only one married woman of the bridegroom's family accompanies him to the wedding, and she throws rice over him five times. Four days in the year are appointed for the celebration of weddings, the festivals of Shivratri and of Akhatij, and a day each in the months of Magh (January) and Phagun (February). This rule, however, is not universal. Brahmans do not usually officiate at their ceremonies, but they employ a Brahman to prepare the rice which is thrown over the couples. Marriage within the sept is forbidden, as well as the union of the children of two sisters. But the practice of marrying a brother's daughter to a sister's son is a very favourite one, being known as Mahunchar, and in this respect the Manas resemble the Gonds. When a widow is to be remarried, she stops on the way by the bank of a stream as she is proceeding to her new husband's house, and here her clothes are taken off and buried by an exorcist with a view to laying the first husband's spirit and preventing it from troubling the new household. If a woman goes wrong with a man of another caste she is not finally cast out, but if she has a child she must first dispose of it to somebody else after it is weaned. She may then be re-admitted into caste by having her hair shaved off and giving three feasts; the first is prepared by the caste and eaten outside her house, the second is prepared by her relatives and eaten within her house, and at the third the caste reinstate her by partaking of food cooked by herself. The dead are either buried or burnt; in the former case a feast is given immediately after the burial and no further mourning is observed; in the latter the period of mourning is three days. As among the Gonds, the dead are laid with feet to the north. A woman is impure for seven days after child-birth.

The Manas have Bhats or genealogists of their own caste, a separate one being appointed for each sept. The Bhat of any sept can only accept gifts from members of that sept, though he may take food from any one of the caste. The Bhats are in the position of beggars, and the other Manas will not take food from them. Every man must have a Bhat for his family under penalty of being temporarily put out of caste. It is said that the Bhats formerly had books showing the pedigrees of the different families, but that once in a spirit of arrogance they placed their shoes upon the books; and the other Manas, not brooking this insolence, burnt the books. The gravity of such an act may be realised when it is stated that if anybody even threatens to hit a Mana with a shoe, the indignity put upon him is so great that he is temporarily excluded from caste and penalised for readmission. Since this incident the Bhats have to address the Manas as 'Brahma,' to show their respect, the Mana replying 'Ram, Ram.' Their women wear short loin-cloths, exposing part of the thigh, like the Gonds. They eat pork and drink liquor, but will take cooked food only from Brahmans.

Manbhao

1. History and nature of the sect

Manbhao. --A religious sect or order, which has now become a caste, belonging to the Maratha Districts of the Central Provinces and to Berar. Their total strength in India in 1911 was 10,000 persons, of whom the Central Provinces and Berar contained 4000. The name would appear to have some such meaning as 'The reverend brothers.' The Manbhaos are stated to be a Vaishnavite order founded in Berar some two centuries ago. They themselves say that their order is a thousand years old and that it was founded by one Arjun Bhat, who lived at Domegaon, near Ahmadnagar. He was a great Sanskrit scholar and a devotee of Krishna, and preached his doctrines to all except the Impure castes. Ridhpur, in Berar, is the present headquarters of the order, and contains a monastery and three temples, dedicated to Krishna and Dattatreya, the only deities recognised by the Manbhaos. Each temple is named after a village, and is presided over by a Mahant elected from the celibate Manbhaos. There are other Mahants, also known after the names of villages or towns in which the monasteries over which they preside are located. Among these are Sheone, from the village near Chandur in Amraoti District; Akulne, a village near Ahmadnagar; Lasorkar, from Lasor, near Aurangabad; Mehkarkar, from Mehkar in Buldana; and others. The order thus belongs to Berar and the adjoining parts of India. Colonel Mackenzie describes Ridhpur as follows: "The name is said to be derived from ridh, meaning blood, a Rakshas or demon having been killed there by Parasurama, and it owes its sanctity to the fact that the god lived there. Black stones innumerable scattered about the town show where the god's footsteps became visible. At Ridhpur Krishna is represented by an ever-open, sleeplessly watching eye, and some Manbhaos carry about a small black stone disk with an eye painted on it as an amulet." Frequently their shrines contain no images, but are simply chabutras or platforms built over the place where Krishna or Dattatreya left marks of their footprints. Over the platform is a small veranda, which the Manbhaos kiss, calling upon the name of the god. Sukli, in Bhandara, is also a headquarters of the caste, and contains many Manbhao tombs. Here they burn camphor in honour of Dattatreya and make offerings of cocoanuts. They make pilgrimages to the different shrines at the full moons of Chait (March) and Kartik (October). They pay reverence to no deities except Krishna and Dattatreya, and observe the festivals of Gokul Ashtami in August and Datta-Jayantri in December. They consider the month of Aghan (November) as holy, because Krishna called it so in the Bhagavat-Gita. This is their sacred book, and they reject the other Hindu scriptures. Their conception of Krishna is based on his description of himself to Arjun in the Bhagavat-Gita as follows: "'Behold things wonderful, never seen before, behold in this my body the whole world, animate and inanimate. But as thou art unable to see with these thy natural eyes, I will give thee a heavenly eye, with which behold my divine connection.'

"The son of Pandu then beheld within the body of the god of gods standing together the whole universe divided forth into its vast variety. He was overwhelmed with wonder and every hair was raised on end. 'But I am not to be seen as thou hast seen me even by the assistance of the Vedas, by mortification, by sacrifices, by charitable gifts: but I am to be seen, to be known in truth, and to be obtained by that worship which is offered up to me alone: and he goeth unto me whose works are done for me: who esteemeth me supreme: who is my servant only: who hath abandoned all consequences, and who liveth amongst all men without hatred.'"

Again: "He my servant is dear to me who is free from enmity, the friend of all nature, merciful, exempt from all pride and selfishness, the same in pain and in pleasure, patient of wrong, contented, constantly devout, of subdued passions and firm resolves, and whose mind and understanding are fixed on me alone."

2. Divisions of the order

The Manbhaos are now divided into three classes: the Brahmachari; the Gharbari; and the Bhope. The Brahmachari are the ascetic members of the sect who subsist by begging and devote their lives to meditation, prayer and spiritual instruction. The Gharbari are those who, while leading a mendicant life, wearing the distinctive black dress of the order and having their heads shaved, are permitted to get married with the permission of their Mahant or guru. The ceremony is performed in strict privacy inside a temple. A man sometimes signifies his choice of a spouse by putting his jholi or beggar's wallet upon hers; if she lets it remain there, the betrothal is complete. A woman may show her preference for a man by bringing a pair of garlands and placing one on his head and the other on that of the image of Krishna. The marriage is celebrated according to the custom of the Kunbis, but without feasting or music. Widows are permitted to marry again. Married women do not wear bangles nor toe-rings nor the customary necklace of beads; they put on no jewellery, and have no choli or bodice. The Bhope or Bhoall, the third division of the caste, are wholly secular and wear no distinctive dress, except sometimes a black head-cloth. They may engage in any occupation that pleases them, and sometimes act as servants in the temples of the caste. In Berar they are divided into thirteen bas or orders, named after the disciples of Arjun Bhat, who founded the various shrines. The Manbhaos are recruited by initiation of both men and women from any except the impure castes. Young children who have been vowed by their parents to a religious life or are left without relations, are taken into the order. Women usually join it either as children or late in life. The celibate members, male or female, live separately in companies like monks and nuns. They do not travel together, and hold services in their temples at different times. A woman admitted into the order is henceforward the disciple of the woman who initiated her by whispering the guru mantra or sacred verse into her ear. She addresses her preceptress as mother and the other women as sisters. The Manbhaos are intelligent and generally literate, and they lead a simple and pure life. They are respectable and are respected by the people, and a guru or spiritual teacher is often taken from them in place of a Brahman or Gosain. They often act as priests or gurus to the Mahars, for whom Brahmans will not perform these services. Their honesty and humility are proverbial among the Kunbis, and are in pleasing contrast to the character of many of the Hindu mendicant orders. They consider it essential that all their converts should be able to read the Bhagavat-Gita or a commentary on it, and for this purpose teach them to read and write during the rainy season when they are assembled at one of their monasteries.

3. Religious observances and customs

One of the leading tenets of the Manbhaos is a respect for all forms of animal and even vegetable life, much on a par with that of the Jains. They strain water through a cloth before drinking it, and then delicately wipe the cloth to preserve any insects that may be upon it. They should not drink water in, and hence cannot reside in, any village where animal sacrifices are offered to a deity. They will not cut down a tree nor break off a branch, or even a blade of grass, nor pluck a fruit or an ear of corn. Some, it is said, will not even bathe in tanks for fear of destroying insect-life. For this reason also they readily accept cooked food as alms, so that they may avoid the risk of the destruction of life involved in cooking. The Manbhaos dislike the din and noise of towns, and live generally in secluded places, coming into the towns only to beg. Except in the rains they wander about from place to place. They beg in the morning, and then return home and, after bathing and taking their food, read their religious books. They must always worship Krishna before taking food, and for this purpose when travelling they carry an image of the deity about with them. They will take food and water from the higher castes, but they must not do so from persons of low caste on pain of temporary excommunication. They neither smoke nor chew tobacco. Both men and women shave the head clean, and men also the face. This is first done on initiation by the village barber. But the sendhi or scalp-lock and moustaches of the novice must be cut off by his guru, this being the special mark of his renunciation of the world. The scalp-locks of the various candidates are preserved until a sufficient quantity of hair has been collected, when ropes are made of it, which they fasten round their loins. This may be because Hindus attach a special efficacy to the scalp-lock, perhaps as being the seat of a man's strength or power. The nuns also shave their heads, and generally eschew every kind of personal adornment. Both monks and nuns usually dress in black or ashen-grey clothes as a mark of humility, though some have discarded black in favour of the usual Hindu mendicant colour of red ochre. The black colour is in keeping with the complexion of Krishna, their chief god. They dye their cloths with lamp-black mixed with a little water and oil. They usually sleep on the ground, with the exception of those who are Mahants, and they sometimes have no metal vessels, but use bags made of strong cloth for holding food and water. Men's names have the suffix Boa, as Datto Boa, Kesho Boa, while those of boys end in da, as Manoda, Raojida, and those of women in Bai, as Gopa Bai, Som Bai. The dead are buried, not in the common burial-grounds, but in some waste place. The corpse is laid on its side, facing the east, with head to the north and feet to the south. A piece of silk or other valuable cloth is placed on it, on which salt is sprinkled, and the earth is then filled in and the ground levelled so as to leave no trace of the grave. No memorial is erected over a Manbhao tomb, and no mourning nor ceremony of purification is observed, nor are oblations offered to the spirits of the dead. If the dead man leaves any property, it is expended on feeding the brotherhood for ten days; and if not, the Mahant of his order usually does this in his name.

4. Hostility between Manbhaos and Brahmans

The Manbhaos are dissenters from orthodox Hinduism, and have thus naturally incurred the hostility of the Brahmans. Mr. Kitts remarks of them: "The Brahmans hate the Manbhaos, who have not only thrown off the Brahmanical yoke themselves, but do much to oppose the influence of Brahmans among the agriculturists. The Brahmans represent them as descended from one Krishna Bhat, a Brahman who was outcasted for keeping a beautiful Mang woman as his mistress. His four sons were called the Mang-bhaos or Mang brothers." This is an excellent instance of the Brahman talent for pressing etymology into their service as an argument, in which respect they resemble the Jesuits. By asserting that the Manbhaos are descended from a Mang woman, one of the most despised castes, they attempt to dispose of these enemies of a Brahman hegemony without further ado.

Another story about their wearing black or ashen-coloured clothes related by Colonel Mackenzie is that Krishna Bhat's followers, refusing to believe the aspersions cast on their leader by the Brahmans, but knowing that some one among them had been guilty of the sin imputed to him, determined to decide the matter by the ordeal of fire. Having made a fire, they cast into it their own clothes and those of their guru, each man having previously written his name on his garments. The sacred fire made short work of all the clothes except those of Krishna Bhat, which it rejected and refused to burn, thereby forcing the unwilling disciples to believe that the finger of God pointed to their revered guru as the sinner. In spite of the shock of thus discovering that their idol had feet of very human clay, they still continued to regard Krishna Bhat's precepts as good and worthy of being followed, only stipulating that for all time Manbhaos should wear clothes the colour of ashes, in memory of the sacred fire which had disclosed to them their guru's sin.

Captain Mackintosh also relates that "About A.D. 1780, a Brahman named Anand Rishi, an inhabitant of Paithan on the Godavari, maltreated a Manbhao, who came to ask for alms at his door. This Manbhao, after being beaten, proceeded to his friends in the vicinity, and they collected a large number of brethren and went to the Brahman to demand satisfaction; Anand Rishi assembled a number of Gosains and his friends, and pursued and attacked the Manbhaos, who fled and asked Ahalya Bai, Rani of Indore, to protect them; she endeavoured to pacify Anand Rishi by telling him that the Manbhaos were her gurus; he said that they were Mangs, but declared that if they agreed to his proposals he would forgive them; one of them was that they were not to go to a Brahman's house to ask for alms, and another that if any Brahman repeated Anand Rishi's name and drew a line across the road when a Manbhao was advancing, the Manbhao, without saying a word, must return the road he came. Notwithstanding this attempt to prevent their approaching a Brahman's house, they continue to ask alms of the Brahmans, and some Brahmans make a point of supplying them with provisions."

This story endeavours to explain a superstition still observed by the caste. This is that when a Manbhao is proceeding along a road, if any one draws a line across the road with a stick in front of him the Manbhao will wait without passing the line until some one else comes up and crosses it before him. In reality this is probably a primitive superstition similar to that which makes a man stop when a snake has crossed the road in front of him and efface its track before proceeding. It is said that the members of the order also carry their sticks upside down, and a saying is repeated about them: