Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 06
Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Previous | Next

Page 294
________________ 234 THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY. [August, 1877. (5) The Dhadias, a small community in the find out his opinion of; for the extravagant doc. south of Surat. trines and rites of the eccentric sects of India (6) The Chaudaris, settled immediately north occupy all the rest of the notes which were made of these. Both may be considered offshoots of available after the writer's death. The subject the Koli race; as may also was so much more congenial to the missionary (7) The Waralis, whom the doctor considers and scholar that it occupies nearly two-thirds of "the most interesting and remarkable" of this the book, and this portion is certainly, on the family, and whom he has to a great extent made whole, as superior in qnality as in quantity: Is his own literary property by the sketch of them is, however, occasionally marred by most atronow before us, which, though first written and cious editing, as in a paragraph about the Nihilist published many years ago, still remains the stan- Shunyávads, which is absolutely unintelligible. dard authority on their "beastly customs, and If the doctor really wrote it, he must have been total absence of manners;" though they have prostrated by illness at the time; but the concertainly become much more settled and civilized fusion seems rather the result of a printer'sin the interval. devilry, or of the carelees collation of confused (8) The Katodis or Katkaris = catechu-ma- notes. The proofs, too, do not appear to have kers, certainly the most monkeyfied tribe of West- been corrected by a competent person. ern India, and better described, perhaps, in Mr. The doctor classes the devotees under twentyHearn's excellent Statistical Account of Koldbd. one hends, each with many subdivisions. Some, as (9) Dubalas = weaklings, an aboriginal tribe the Sikhs, Jainas, Vallabhacharyas, and Svami of Sarat and the North Konkana, reduced for- Narayanas, have made a noise in the world, and merly to serfage, from which a few are now been fully described elsewhere. The Ramanujas, emerging. most numerous in the south, may perhaps be (10) The Th&kurs, whose origin the doctor considered as the Vaishnava counterpart of the traces to certain barons (Thaleur) of Gujarat who well-known Saiva Lingayats. The R&mânandis took the jungle with their followers, chiefly Kolis or Bairagis, also Vaishnava, are often confoundand Wäralis, from the earlier Muhammadan inva- ed by Europeans with the Saiva Gosains, and sion. His account of this race, however, is short have a quaint babit of condescending to a sdheb's and not very accurate, as they are both more nu- ignorance by answering to his questions that they merous and more respectable than he seems to are Sild pådris. The Dnyånadera Panthis, or fol. have thought. He notices, however, the antipathy lowers of the celebrated author of the Drydnes. between them and the Bråhmans, which still in part vars, the Chancer of the Marathi tongue, do not, survives, and is hardly consistent with his accouut says the doctor, really constitute an organized of their origin. body at all. But space fails us to examine in The 11th tribe are the Ramusis, called in Sholf- detail the mass of information, the collection of půr Beruds, and further towards their ancestral which was doubtless far more a labour of love to Dravidian seats Bedars. A certain amount of the lamented autho. than the reviewing of it can interest attaches to the history of their single be to a lay commentator. dynasty, called by Grant Duff the Naiks of Wakin W. F. S. kera, and later known as the Râjâs of Shorápur ; Tax HISTORY of INDIA, as told by its own Historians.-- and an excellent account of it, by the late Colonel The Muhammadan Period. The posthumous papers of Meadows Taylor, is among the appendices to the the late Sir H. M. ELLIOT, K.C.B., edited and continued fine volume of Photographs of the Antiquities of by Professor John Dowson, M.R.A.S. Vol. VII. (Lon. Dharwar and Mysore, published by the old " West- don: Trübner & Co. 1877.) ern India Architectural Committee." This seventh volume of materials for the hisThe doctor, having thus disposed of the "Jun- tory of India under the Muhammadans consists glies," mentions next the "depressed aboriginal of twenty-three extracts and notices of varying tribes" of Mhârs, Dheds, and Mångs. The first lengths from the native histories relating to the two are identical, and they are generally lumped reigns of Sbâh-Jahan, Aurangzeb, Bahadur Shah, together as Parvåris." Jahåndâr Shah, Farrukh Siyar, Rafi'u-d Daula, It is obvious that this list, though valuable, and Rafi'u-d Darajat, and of the earlier part of the is by no means exhaustive; but the doctor, reign of Muhammad Shah,-that is from A. D. or his editor, here leaves the aboriginals pro- 1627 to about 1732. Some of the twenty-three perly so called, and enters upon the subject of sections, it should be remarked, are merely bibwandering tribes and classes. These he divides liographical notices of books: thus the first is a into religious devotees and pilgrims, and a second notice of the Padshah Nama of Muhammad Amin class, or more classes, which we shall now never | Kazwini, which has been the model for most of

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458