The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India | Page 8

Gonds and other forest tribes, was probably, until a comparatively short time ago, the wildest and least-known part of the whole Indian peninsula. It is now being rapidly opened up by railways and good roads.

2. Constitution of the population.
Up to a few centuries ago the Central Provinces remained outside the sphere of Hindu and Muhammadan conquest. To the people of northern India it was known as Gondwana, an unexplored country of inaccessible mountains and impenetrable forests, inhabited by the savage tribes of Gonds from whom it took its name. Hindu kingdoms were, it is true, established over a large part of its territory in the first centuries of our era, but these were not accompanied by the settlement and opening out of the country, and were subsequently subverted by the Dravidian Gonds, who perhaps invaded the country in large numbers from the south between the ninth and twelfth centuries. Hindu immigration and colonisation from the surrounding provinces occurred at a later period, largely under the encouragement and auspices of Gond kings. The consequence is that the existing population is very diverse, and is made up of elements belonging to many parts of India. The people of the northern Districts came from Bundelkhand and the Gangetic plain, and here are found the principal castes of the United Provinces and the Punjab. The western end of the Nerbudda valley and Betul were colonised from Malwa and Central India. Berar and the Nagpur plain fell to the Marathas, and one of the most important Maratha States, the Bhonsla kingdom, had its capital at Nagpur. Cultivators from western India came and settled on the land, and the existing population are of the same castes as the Maratha country or Bombay. But prior to the Maratha conquest Berar and the Nimar District of the Central Provinces had been included in the Mughal empire, and traces of Mughal rule remain in a substantial Muhammadan element in the population. To the south the Chanda District runs down to the Godavari river, and the southern tracts of Chanda and Bastar State are largely occupied by Telugu immigrants from Madras. To the east of the Nagpur plain the large landlocked area of Chhattisgarh in the upper basin of the Mahanadi was colonised at an early period by Hindus from the east of the United Provinces and Oudh, probably coming through Jubbulpore. A dynasty of the Haihaivansi Rajput clan established itself at Ratanpur, and owing to the inaccessible nature of the country, protected as it is on all sides by a natural rampart of hill and forest, was able to pursue a tranquil existence untroubled by the wars and political vicissitudes of northern India. The population of Chhattisgarh thus constitutes to some extent a distinct social organism, which retained until quite recently many remnants of primitive custom. The middle basin of the Mahanadi to the east of Chhattisgarh, comprising the Sambalpur District and adjoining States, was peopled by Uriyas from Orissa, and though this area has now been restored to its parent province, notices of its principal castes have been included in these volumes. Finally, the population contains a large element of the primitive or non-Aryan tribes, rich in variety, who have retired before the pressure of Hindu cultivators to its extensive hills and forests. The people of the Central Provinces may therefore not unjustly be considered as a microcosm of a great part of India, and conclusions drawn from a consideration of their caste rules and status may claim with considerable probability of success to be applicable to those of the Hindus generally. For the same reason the standard ethnological works of other Provinces necessarily rank as the best authorities on the castes of the Central Provinces, and this fact may explain and excuse the copious resort which has been made to them in these volumes.

3. The word 'Caste.'
The word 'Caste,' Dr. Wilson states, [1] is not of Indian origin, but is derived from the Portuguese casta, signifying race, mould or quality. The Indian word for caste is jat or jati, which has the original meaning of birth or production of a child, and hence denotes good birth or lineage, respectability and rank. Jatha means well-born. Thus jat now signifies a caste, as every Hindu is born into a caste, and his caste determines his social position through life.

4. The meaning of the term 'Caste.'
The two main ideas denoted by a caste are a community or persons following a common occupation, and a community whose members marry only among themselves. A third distinctive feature is that the members of a caste do not as a rule eat with outsiders with the exception of other Hindu castes of a much higher social position than their own. None of these will, however, serve as a definition of a caste. In a