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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MARCH, 1873.
The Kayasths are notorious for their drinking and gambling propensities. On special occasions many of them devote day and night to these vices, by reason of which the caste loses inuch of that respectability which its talent and education would otherwise secure. These terrible evils well illustrate, however, the bondage of caste. Whatever any caste sanctions, whether it be right or wrong, its members are in honour bound to carry out. This accounts for the prevalence of these two pernicious habits among the Kayasths. The caste upholds and sanctions them, so that I believe he would be regarded as a renegade who should not, on great occasions, indulge in them. Yet a few persons are to be found here and there-in the caste, who altogether spurn such habits; and to keep themselves quite pure, as they imagine, from pollution, neither drink spirits, nor gamble, nor eat flesh. They are termed bhagats, or religious persons, and wear the sacred thread, and the kanthi or small necklace of beads. Should they, at any time, fall into tempta- tion, these sacred objects are taken from them.
There is one other evil to which this tribe is addicted, which indeed is not peculiar to the Kayasth caste, but is cherished, more or less, by all casts of overy degree. This is the inordinate expense incurred at marriage festivals. Some meinbers of the Kayasth caste, the 8rf. Bastabs in particular, indulge in such expenses to a most extravagant and ruinous extent. Men with an income of ten rupees a month, will spend three hundred, and even five hundred, at the marriage of their daughters, which they borrow at the enormous interest of twenty-four per cento per annum, or more, and under the burden of which they lie for many years, and at their death band down, perhape, to their children. Great and most laudable efforts have been made of late in Banaras, Allahabad, and other cities in the North-Western Provinces, to bring not only the Kayasths, but all the principal castes, to agree to a great diminution of marriage expenses. This, it is hoped, will faci- litate marriage; and lessen, if not wipe out, the crime of infanticide so prevalent among certain castes; and give to Hindu girls, not only a better chance to live, but also a more honourable, because less expensive, position in native society.
The Kayasths are called Devi-putra, or sons of Devi, a term used to express a female divinity in general. In other words, they pay more homage to female deities than to male; though why, I am
unable to say. They hold Brahmans in great respect, more so, perhaps, than other castes; although every caste, from the highest to the lowest, reverences the Brahmans even to worshipping them.
This tribo is divided into twelve sub-castes, which are really independent of one another, as, with the exception of the Mathurs, the first on the list, they do not intermarry, nor eat cooked food together. They may smoke together, however, from the same cocoa-nut hukah--& condition of considerable liberty. They may all likewise drink spirits with one another indiscriminately. For some unexplained reason, it is the privilege of all the subcastes below the first to intermarry with it, although they are not permitted to intermarry with one another. The sub-castes are descended, tradition affirms, from one father, Chitrgupt, and two mothers-one the daughter of Suraj Rishi, the other the daughter of Surma Rishi. From the first inarriage four sub-castes have, it is said, proceeded, and the remainder from the second. There is also half a caste called Unai, commonly appended to these twelve, sprung, it is asserted, from a concubine of Chitrgupt. But the Kayasths proper do not associate with its members. Yet they are always spoken of as Kayasths. So that, in public Hindu estimation, there are twelve and a half castes of Kayasths. It should be stated, however, that the impure Unai sub-caste of Kayasths is devoted to trade, and does not pursue the special occupation of the Writer caste.
Tas KAYASTHS OF BENGAL. From the manuscript on Hindu Castes by Babu Kishori Lal, a native of the North-Western Provinoen, I learn that there are four separate clans of Kayasths in Bengal, the names of which are as follows 1. Kewas.
3. Sirdatt. 2. Newas.
4. Abni. For the correctness of this list I am unable to vouch. It certainly does not agree with one which I have received from a respectable Bengali Kayasth of Bendras. He states that the Bengali Kayasths are divided into eleven clans, three of which are Kulin, and are of higher rank than the rest.
17. Palit. 2. Bhose,
8. Sen. 3. Mittr,
9. Singh. 4. De.
10. Das. 5. Datta
11. Guhs. 6. Kor.
1. Gbose,
kulins.
