________________
Social Divisions in the Jaina Community
91
is said to have stopped. Like other Baniyā sub-castes Charanāgares are divided into Visā and Dasā. Inter-marriage between the two sections occasionally occurs and the Dasā will take food from the Visā section, but the latter will not reciprocate except at caste feasts.107
The Paravāras themselves are divided into two endogamous sections, viz., Atha Sake Paravāras and Chau Sake Paravāras. The former will not permit the marriage of persons related more nearly than eight degrees, while the latter permit it after four degrees. The Atha Sake have the higher position and if one of them marries a Chau Sake he is degraded to that group. Besides this the Paravāras have an inferior division called Binaikiyā, which consists of the offspring of irregular unions and of widows who have remarried. Persons who have committed a caste-offence and cannot pay the fine imposed on them for it also are relegated to this sub-caste of Paravaras. There is a village by name Binaika in the Sagar District but it is not known whether Binaikiyās are called after that place. What stigma is attached to Dasās in other castes, the same is implied by the name Binaikiyā. To use an honourable word this sub-caste is also known as Laharisena or Laghuśreņi. The Binaikiyās themselves are distributed into four groups of varying degrees of respectability of which two are well-known, viz., Purāne Binaikiyās and Naye Binaikiyās. There are nearly 250 families in Purāne Binaikiyās and it cannot be said when they were degraded from Paravāras and had to form this sub-caste. Unlike Purāne Binaikiyās, the Naye Binaikiyās have more than 2000 families and every year its number
creases by absorbing degraded people not only from Chau Sake · Paravāras and Purane Binaikiyās but also from castes like Sunāvāra, Golāpūraba, etc. In this way Naye Binaikiyās are rapidly increasing in strength and along with it are gaining social estimation. Now they are not specifically looked down upon. Formerly they were not allowed to enter the temples but of late they have constructed their own temples. If this process continues, it can be hoped that Binaikiyas will be assimilated with Paravāras in not too distant a future. On the contrary, Paravāras will have to request the Binaikiyas to enter in their fold because in view of their increasing strength and absence of former social stigma the Binaikiyās are recently asserting that they keep with Paravāras relations only of Pakkī and not of Kāchhi. 108
