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158 JAINISM AND KARNĀTAKA CULTURE themselves to worship Vişnu.” 112 As a matter of fact there is another class called “Jaina Banajigaru or Dāsa Banajigas who style themselves Jaina Ksatriya Rāmānujas.' These appellations are a string of contradictory epithets, only revealing the confusion of faiths that resulted in the course of centuries. Banajigas, for aught we can make out, must have been traders (San. arust trade ); but they call themselves Ksatriyas ! Jaina Rāmānuja is again an unintelligible paradox. Whereas, in truth, the “ Jaina Baņajigas" are not Jainas at all; for Buchanan says they were converted to saivism at the time of Basava. To make this confusion, worse confounded he adds, “They worship the same gods as the Hindu Pancama Baņiji, i.e. Śiva, his wife and sons, whom they consider identical with Brahma and Siva !” 113
The Gaudas 113? are farmers and labourers, speaking Tuļu or Kannada as their home-language. They all follow the ordinary system of inheritance and not that of "descent through females.” Generally they are Hindus, but some are also Jainas.114 Sturrock gives the following account of their splendid organisation :
“ They have a somewhat elaborate system of caste goverment. In every village there are two head-men, the Grāma-Gauda and the Vattu or Gottu Gauda; for every group of eight or nine villages there is another head, called the Māganê Gawda, and for every nine māganês there is a yet higher authority called the Katļêmanèyava. The caste is divided into eighteen baris or balis,
112 Buchanan, op. cit. I, pp. 421-22 113 Buchanan, op. cit., p. 240. These Banajigas might very well be
compared to the Mälkkanás of Rajputana and the Kabir-panthis of North India, both of whom are & curious mixture of Hindu and Mahomedan faiths,--the one from ignorance and force of habit;
the coher from enlightened eclecticism. 113a From Grāma-bhajaka 68mộtis), Qãounda (grūma-unda, inscrip
tions), to gaunda or gauda. 114 Of. Sturrock, op. cit., p. 191; Thurston, op. cit., and Buchanan op.
cit., pp. 421-22.
