If this rule was violated, i.e., if he married a girl with whom the Vanias did not have commensal relations, the maximum punishment, namely, excommunication, was imposed. Hindu society is usually described as divided into a number of castes the boundaries of which are maintained by the rule of caste endogamy. yorba linda football maxpreps; weiteste entfernung gerichtsbezirk; wyoming rockhounding locations google maps; One of the reasons behind underplaying of the principle of division by Dumont as well as by others seems to be the neglect of the study of caste in urban areas (see Dumonts remarks in 1972: 150). Thus, at one end, there were first-order divisions, each of which was sub-divided up to the fourth-order, and at the other end there were first-order divisions which were not further divided at all. What I am trying to point out, however, is that greater emphasis on division (Pococks difference, Dumonts separation. While certain first-order divisions were found mainly in towns, the population of certain other first-order divisions was dispersed in villages as well as in towns, the population of the rural and the urban sections differing from one division to another. These marriage links do not seem to have allowed, among the Kolis, formation of well organized, small, endogamous units (ekadas, gols) as were found among some other castes. Castes pervaded by divisive tendencies had small populations confined to small areas separated from each other by considerable gaps. I will not discuss the present situation in detail but indicate briefly how the above discussion could be useful for understanding a few important changes in modern times. It is easy to understand that the pattern of change would be different in those first-order divisions (such as Rajput) or second-order divisions (such as Leva Kanbi) which did not have within them subdivisions of lower orders and which practised hypergamy extensively. Gujarat- A state in India. Content Guidelines 2. Census officials-turned-scholars, from Risley to Hutton, wrote many of the earlier general works on caste. The three trading castes of Vania, Lohana and Bhatia were mainly urban. In particular, the implications of the co-existence of lower-order divisions within a higher- order division in the same town or city should be worked out. The Brahmans were divided into such divisions as Audich, Bhargav, Disawal, Khadayata, Khedawal, Mewada, Modh, Nagar, Shrigaud, Shrimali, Valam, Vayada, and Zarola. The four major woven fabrics produced by these communities are cotton, silk, khadi and linen. The ekdas have not yet lost their identities. ), as contrasted with the horizontal unity of the caste. The Chumvalias and Patanwadias migrated possibly from the same tract and continued to belong to the same horizontal unit after migration. Although the name of a Brahman or Vania division might be based on a place name, the division was not territorial in nature. Real Estate Software Dubai > blog > manvar surname caste in gujarat. Frequently, the urban population of such a division performed more specialized functions than did the rural one. The handloom weavers of Gujarat, Maharastra and Bengal produced and exported some of the world's most desirable fabrics. It is not easy to find out if the tads became ekdas in course of time and if the process of formation of ekdas was the same as that of the formation of tads. Usually, these divisions were distinguished from one another by prohibition of what people called roti vyavahar (bread, i.e., food transactions) as well as beti vyavahar (daughter, i.e., marital transactions). www.opendialoguemediations.com. The existence of flexibility at both the levels was made possible by the flexibility of the category Rajput. The two areas merge gradually, and my field work covered most of the spectrum. Traditionally, the Brahman division was supposed to provide the priests for the corresponding divisions. This surname is most commonly held in India, where it is held by 2,496 people, or 1 in 307,318. When the rural population began to be drawn towards the new opportunities, the first to take advantage of them were the rural sections of the rural-cum-urban castes. That there was room for flexibility and that the rule of caste endogamy could be violated at the highest level among the Rajputs was pointed out earlier. Britain's Industrial Revolution was built on the de-industrialisation of India - the destruction of Indian textiles and their replacement by manufacturing in England, using Indian raw materials and exporting the finished products back to India and even the rest of the world. Gujarat (along with Bombay) has perhaps the largest number of caste associations and they are also more active and wealthy compared to those in other regions. I should hasten to add, however, that the open-minded scholar that he is, he does not rule out completely the possibility of separation existing as independent principle. This was because political authorities were hierarchized from little kingdom to empire and the boundaries of political authorities kept changing. Hypergamy was accompanied by sanskritization of at least a section of the tribal population, their claim to the Kshatriya Varna and their economic and political symbiosis with the caste population. They wrote about the traditional Indian village, but not about the traditional Indian town. It owned corporate property, usually in the form of vadis (large buildings used for holding feasts and festivals, accommodating wedding guests, and holding meetings), huge utensils for cooking feasts, and money received as fees and fines. The degree of contravention is highest if the couple belong to two different first-order divisions. Many second-order divisions were further divided into two or three status categories. With the exclusion of caste (except scheduled caste) from the census since 1951 (practically since 1941, because the census of that year did not result in much reporting), writings on castes as horizontal units greatly declined. The population of certain first-order divisions lived mainly in villages. However, it is well known that there were subtle arguments regarding the status of certain royal families being Rajput. In any case, the population of any large caste was found in many kingdoms. This tendency reaches its culmination in the world of Dumont. Another clearly visible change in caste in Gujarat is the emergence of caste associations. So far we have considered first-order divisions with large and widely spread populations. In the plains, therefore, every village had one or more towns in its vicinity. If the first-order divisions are called jatis and castes, the second-order divisions would be called sub-jatis or sub-castes. Castes having continuous internal hierarchy and lacking effective small endogamous units, such as Rajputs, Leva Kanbis, Anavils and Khedawals, do not have active associations for lower-order divisions. Caste divisions of the first-order can be classified broadly into three categories. They took away offerings made to Shiva, which was considered extremely degrading. Limitations of the holistic view of caste, based as it is mainly on the study of the village, should be realized in the light of urban experience. The Vanias provide an example of such castes. The Mehta family name was found in the USA, and the UK between 1891 and 1920. The Hindu and Muslim kingdoms in Gujarat during the medieval period had, of course, their capital towns, at first Patan and then Ahmedabad. A large proportion, if not the whole, of the population of many of such divisions lived in towns. Systematic because castes exist and are like each other in being different (298). Here, usually, what mattered was the first-order division, as for example Brahman, Vania, Rajput, Kanbi, carpenter, barber, leather-worker, and so on. Since after expansion of British textile markets and decline of Indian textile industry Vankars suffered a lot. The degree of contravention is less if the couple belong, let us say, to two different fourth-order divisions within a third-order division than if they belong to two different third-order divisions within a second-order division, and so on. During Mughal Empire India was manufacturing 27% of world's textile and Gujarati weavers dominated along with Bengali weavers in Indian textile trade industry overseas. Since these were all status categories rather than clear- cut divisions, I have not considered them as constituting third-order divisions. For example, all Vania divisions were divided into a number of ekdas or gols. The urban community included a large number of caste groups as well as social groups of other kinds which tended to be like communities with a great deal of internal cohesion. As weaving is an art and forms one of the most important artisan community of India. All the small towns sections in each of the ekdas resented that, while the large town section accepted brides from small towns, they did not reciprocate. In the second kind of area, indigenous Kolis live side-by-side with immigrant Kolis from an adjoining area. It seems the highland Bhils (and possibly also other tribes) provided brides to lower Rajputs in Gujarat. The point is that there was nothing like the endogamous unit but there were only several units of various orders with defined roles in endogamy. There was also a third category called Pancha, derived from the word punch (meaning 5) and denoting extremely low Vania. More common was an ekda or tad having its population residing either in a few neighbouring villages, or in a few neighbouring towns, or in both. The Kayatias main occupation was to perform a ritual on the eleventh day after death, during which they took away offerings made to ghosts: this was the main cause of their extremely low status among Brahmans. If the Varna divisions are taken into account, then this would add one more order to the four orders of caste divisions considered above. The latter continued to be the provincial capital during Mughal rule. Patidars or Patels claim themselves to be descendants of Lord Ram. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Social_groups_of_Gujarat&oldid=1080951156, Social groups of India by state or union territory, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 4 April 2022, at 12:36. The pattern of inter-divisional marriages shows how the idea of free marriage, which guides most of the inter-caste marriages, is restricted, modified, and graded according to the traditional structure of caste divisions. Nor do I claim to know the whole of Gujarat. There were similar problems about the status of a number of other divisions. The sub- the manner in which the ideas of free marriages and castles society are used by both the old and the young in modern India and how a number of new customs and institutions have evolved to cope with these new ideas is a fascinating subject of study. I have, therefore, considered them a first-order division and not a second-order one among Brahmans (for a fuller discussion of the status of Anavils, see Joshi, 1966; Van der Veen 1972; Shah, 1979). Many primarily rural castes, such as Kolisthe largest castehave remained predominantly rural even today. Pages in category "Social groups of Gujarat" The following 157 pages are in this category, out of 157 total. The Rajput hierarchy had many levels below the level of the royal families of the large and powerful kingdoms: lineages of owners of large and small fiefs variously called jagir, giras, thakarat,thikana, taluka, and wanted-, lineages of substantial landowners under various land tenures having special rights and privileges; and lineages of small landowners. Nevertheless, a breakdown of the population of Gujarat into major religious, caste and tribal groups according to the census of 1931 is presented in the following table to give a rough idea of the size of at least some castes. To have a meaningful understanding of the system of caste divisions, there is no alternative but to understand the significance of each order of division and particularly the nature of their boundaries and maintenance mechanisms. The hierarchy, however, was very gradual and lacked sharpness. The urban centres in both the areas, it is hardly necessary to mention, are nucleated settlements populated by numerous caste and religious groups. Because of these two major factors, one economic and the other political, Gujarat at the beginning of the 19th century had a large urban population, distributed over a large number of small towns. It reflects, on the one hand, the political aspirations of Kolis guided by the importance of their numerical strength in electoral politics and on the other hand, the Rajputs attempt to regain power after the loss of their princely states and estates. In contrast, there were horizontal units, the internal hierarchy and hypergamy of which were restricted to some extent by the formation of small endogamous units and which had discernible boundaries at the lowest level. Frequently, The ekdas or gols were each divided into groups called tads (split). After the commercial revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, Gujarat had a large number of tradition towns on its long sea-coast. Till the establishment of democratic polity in 1947, hardly any caste association in Gujarat had manifest political functions. The decline was further accelerated by the industrial revolution. But during the 18th century, when the Mughal Empire was disintegrating, a large number of small kingdoms came into existence, and each had a small capital town of its own. The co-residence of people belonging to two or more divisions of the lower orders within a division of a higher order has been a prominent feature of caste in towns and cities. There were Brahman and Vania divisions of the same name, the myths about both of them were covered by a single text. 3 0 obj They are described by the ruling elite as robbers, dacoits, marauders, predators and the like. History. We have analyzed the internal structure of two first-order divisions, Rajput and Anavil, which did not have any second-order divisions, and of several second-order divisionsTalapada and Pardeshi Koli, Khedawal Brahman, and Leva Kanbiwhich did not have any third-order divisions. The castes pervaded by hierarchy and hypergamy had large populations spread evenly from village to village and frequently also from village to town over a large area. The lowest stratum among the Khedawals tried to cope with the problem of scarcity of brides mainly by practising ignominious exchange marriage and by restricting marriage of sons in a family to the younger sons, if not to only the youngest.