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SOCIAL ORGANISATION
145
Then we meet a number of low races in our stories. The Panas, also known as Candalas, were employed to carry corpses.* 44 We read in the Antagada that Kanha Vasudeva asked the Panas to drag the dead body out and throw it away. They also attended the burial ground; they had no houses of their own and lived outside the villages under the open sky.46 Then there were the Dombas, who sang songs and sold winnowing basket and such other articles Then there were the Kinkas who prepared the leather-fittings around the musical instruments and blew them before the criminals carried for execution. To the same category of despised classes belonged the Sovagas, who cooked the flesh of dogs and sold bowstring (tanti). The Varudas earned their bread by making ropes.47
LOW PROFESSIONAL CASTES
Besides these despised classes we meet with other groups of people who were despised and isolated from the "civilised" castes of people Amongst them may be mentioned peacock-tamers (posaga), barbers (samvara), acıobats (nada), pole-dancers (lankha), hunters (vaha), fishermen (macchandha), washermen (ajaya), fowlers (vagunya) and cobblers (padakāra) 48
44 Vya Bho 2 37 47 4, p 22
48 C Manu X 501
47
Ta Bha 3 92, Nisi cu 11, p 747 48 Ija Bha 3 94, Mp 345, 11, p 747
