Vedic relations, they are divided into Rig Vedis, Krishna Yajur Vedis, Shukla Yajur Vedis, Sama Vedis, Drâvida Atharva Vedis, and Nunbis. And by sect they are either Smârtas, Vaishnavas, Sri Vaishnavas, Bhagvatas or Sâktas. "The Drâvira Brâhmans profess to be the most scrupulous in India in reference to caste observance and practice, and in support of their pretensions in this respect they exhibit all kinds of absurdities and puerilities. They are great opponents of the re-marriage of widows and other proposals of reform." Their country lies to the south of Tailangâna and Maisûr and to the east of the Cochin and Travancore territories. Distribution of the Drávira Brahmans according to the Census of 1891. Dugdha. A tribe of inferior Brâhmans on the borders of Fatehpur and Allahâbâd. They date their origin from the time of Jay Chand, who figures in so many fabulous legends of those parts. A certain Pânrê Brâhman by name Barru, set up his abode as a recluse in Parsakhi, between Shâhzâdpur and the Ganges, and withdrew himself entirely from wordly concerns. His credit as a holy man was so great that Jay Chand became anxious to see him, and promised to reward any one who would bring him into his presence. After several unsuccessful attempts by all the chief officers of his Court, a woman of the Râjput tribe, and of great personal charms, ventured on the difficult undertaking. Her wiles and blandishments could not be withstood, and before long, the holy hermit con DUGDHA; DURGBANSI. 346 DUSÂDH. fessed himself the father of several children; and as the lady succeeded in the object of introducing him to an audience with Jay Chand, a grant of several villages was bestowed upon her. On the death of the hermit, she is said to have married a Qâzi, but it is not probable that such a connection took place at the early period of the Muhammadan conquest. However, she divided the inheritance, it is asserted, amongst her children. Those by the Pânrê, who were Dugdha Brahmans (.e., of mixed blood) received forty-eight villages, of the greater part of which they are in possession to this day. The Musalmân descendants also retain some of the villages said to have been granted at the same time. The Dugdhas are reckoned in no repute as Brâhmans; indeed they are properly Bhuînhârs and are very indifferent about the rank of the families with which they intermarry, not unfrequently receiving the daughters of Râjputs as wives."1 Durgbansi.-A Râjput sept found in the eastern part of the Province and Oudh. They are said to be a branch of the Dikhit sept. In Oudh it is said that they take their name from Râja Durga Vâhan Dikhit of Ajudhya; according to the Partâbgarh story, they are really an offshoot from the Bilkhariya sept, and are named from their ancestor Durga Dâs, the second son of Râja Ramdeo. Their social position may be judged from their giving daughters in marriage to the Chamar Gaur, Bandhalgoti, Tilokchandi Bais, Sombansi, Sûrajbansi, Sirnet, Baghel, and the Gaharwâr of Kantit. Their sons marry in the septs of Chandel, Puâr, Gautam, Raghubansi, Ujjaini, and the inferior grades of Bais. Dusâdh.3-A menial tribe found to the east of the province. An attempt has been made to derive the name from the Sanskrit dush "to be corrupted" and ad "to eat;" or from dauh-sádhika, a porter." But the name is more probably of non-Aryan origin. By the account current among themselves they are the descendants of Duhsâsana, the son of Dhritarashtra, who, when the Pândavas lost their wife Draupadi, in gambling with Duryodhana, dragged her forward by the hair and otherwise misused her. By another story they are the descendants of Bhîmsen. In the hills they call themselves Khasiya Râjputs, and say they are so called because they lived 1 Elliot, Supplementary Glossary, s. v. 2 Elliot, Supplementary Glossary, s. v. : Elliott Chronicles of Undo, 34; Partáb garh Settlement Report, 95, Note. Based on enquiries at Mirzapur. on the borders of Kumaun and Garhwâl. Another legend makes them the descendants of the hero Salhes, who is connected with the Lorik cycle. He was the companion of Harua and Barua who were defeated by Lorik. 2. There is another famous tribal legend which is thus told by Mr. Beglar. "There was a Dusâdh living Legend of Bawan Ganga. in Râjgir, whose daughter used to take the household pigs out in the field to feed. It happened that as she was so engaged on the day of the full moon of a certain great festival, she saw a Brâhman walking on very rapidly. On questioning him he replied that he was going to bathe in the Ganges on the full moon. The girl replied "You cannot possibly reach the Ganges in time; but if you believe me and your mind be full of faith, this is the exact moment of the full moon, and here is a pool (in which her pigs were wallowing); dip into it and you will realise the full fruits of bathing in the Ganges at this auspicious moment." The Brahman did as she desired and when he was in the pool, she said "Now is the exact moment. Dive in and see what you get." The Brâhman did as desired and found the bottom full of valuable gems, of which he clutched a handful and came up. "Dive again," said the girl. He dived again and found only mud at the bottom. "You see,” said the girl, “that I told you only the truth, when I said you will be too late if you go to the Ganges, for at the moment of your first dive the moon was at its exact full and you got your reward.” 3. "The Brâhman was astonished and seeing her as lovely as she was wise proposed marriage. She referred him to her father who refused, saying he could not presume to ally his daughter of low caste to a high caste Brâhman. The Brâhman thereupon threatened to kill himself, and the Dusâdh fearful of incurring the guilt of Brahmahatya, consented after consulting his friends; the marriage was duly solemnised, and the girl then taught her husband to ask no dowry of her father except a particular cow, a particular pig, and a particular parrot. The Dusâdh, on bidding his daughter good-bye and Godspeed when they were departing, desired his son-in-law to ask for any gift she chose. The Brâhman refused, but being pressed, he bound the Dusâdh by a promise to grant his request, and then asked for the cow, the pig and the parrot, as he had been taught. 1 Archæological Reports, VIII., 102, The Dusâdh being taken aback was bound by his promise to give them up. 4. "The parrot was an extraordinary one, as he would daily go to Indra's palace and bring the news of what took place there to his mistress; the pig was the leader of all the pigs in the country, and the cow was no other than the famous Surabhi. One day the parrot told his mistress that Indra had given orders that during the approaching rainy season, it should rain nowhere in the district except on the sterile valleys and stony slopes of Râjgir. The girl on hearing this immediately called her pig and directed him to dig up the whole of the stony valleys and hill slopes of Râjgir; the pig with the aid of his subject pigs did as she desired. She then directed her husband to go and scatter paddy in all these places, explaining the object to her husband. He did as desired. When it rained the paddy seed sprouted and the whole of stony Râjgir was full of paddy, while outside not a blade of paddy was to be found owing to want of rain. It being reported to Indra that within Râjgir enough of paddy had been grown to stave off famine, he ordered an army of mice and rats to be sent to destroy the crops; but the girl informed of this order by her parrot, got her husband to procure an army of cats as guard; when it was reported to Indra that this plan of destroying the crops had failed, he directed that when cut, each load of the paddy sheaves should produce only one and a quarter ser of clean paddy. The girl informed by her parrot of this order, directed her husband to make bundles of only two stalks of paddy each tied end to end. The order of Indra having gone forth and become irrevocable, each of these bundles produced one-and-a-quarter sers of paddy. Indra informed of this and seeing himself outwitted, ordered a furious storm to blow and scatter all the paddy which had been threshed out ready for storing. The girl informed of this and aware that no wattle hut would resist the storm should he store it in such, directed her husband to dig the deep moat now seen round Râjgir. When the storm blew it naturally carried all the paddy into these trenches where it lay safe till the storm had blown over, and thus was the country saved from famine through the cleverness of this girl, in memory of whom the pool where her pigs used to wallow was named Bâwan Ganga or the fifty-two Ganges." This story is interesting as it marks the custom which still prevails among the Dusâdhs of introducing men of higher caste than their own into their tribe, and this is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to fix their position ethnologically, and to lay down with certainty whether they are a degraded Aryan race or of genuine Dravidian stock. The tribe is clearly very much mixed and is probably a compound of different races. many 5. At the last Census the Dusâdhs entered themselves under seven sub-castes beside others whose numTribal organisation. bers were not sufficient to warrant their inclusion in the returns. These sub-castes are Bharsiya, Dhârhi, Gondar, Kanaujiya, Madhesiya, Magahiya and Rajar. Of these we have the Dhârhi separately noticed and the Gondar perhaps mark a Dravidian branch akin to the Gonds and Mânjhis. Another Mirzapur enumeration gives the sub-castes, which as usual are supposed to amount to the mystical number seven, as Magahiya or "residents of Magadha”; Kanaujiya from Kanauj ; Dârhi, Dhârh or Dhârhi which may correspond to the drummers and singers of that name; Baheliya who have been separately described as a tribe of hunters and fowlers; Tirhûtiya or those of Tirabhukti or Tirhût; Palwâr which is also the name of a sept of Râjputs, and Gondar. A third Mirzapur list supplied by a member of the tribe gives the sub-castes as Dusâdh, Khatîk, Pâsi, Pahri, Kuchaniya, Kujra, and Dharkâr, where we have a mixture of various well known tribes. The detailed Census lists show the sub-castes of local importance as the Gujahua and Panwâr of Mirzapur; the Barwâr and Belwâr of Ballia and the Bangariya, Gauriya, Katoraha, Khariya, and Kotiya of Gorakhpur. All this goes to corroborate the theory of the mixed character of the tribe. These sub-castes are now endogamous, but there is some reason to believe that this process of fission into endogamous groups may, in some instances at least, be of comparatively recent origin. Thus in Mirzapur they assert that up to modern times the Magahiya and Kanaujiya Dusâdhs used to intermarry; but now they have ceased to do so because when the Kanaujiyas gave their daughters to the Magahiyas, they would not allow them to return home with their husbands, but insisted on their sons-in-law coming to live with their fathers-inlaw; in other words been a marriage was the rule in these two groups. The result of this is said to have been that marriage ceased between them and the groups became endogamous. The Mirzapur Dusâdhs fix their original home in Magadha or Bihar, and left it when their ancestor Râhu, of whom more will be said later on, who used to live in a place called Kedallean in Bengal |