Prabhu
This article was written in 1916 when conditions were different. Even in Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly |
From The Tribes And Castes Of The Central Provinces Of India
By R. V. Russell
Of The Indian Civil Service
Superintendent Of Ethnography, Central Provinces
Assisted By Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, Extra Assistant Commissioner
Macmillan And Co., Limited, London, 1916.
NOTE 1: The 'Central Provinces' have since been renamed Madhya Pradesh.
NOTE 2: While reading please keep in mind that all articles in this series have been scanned from the original book. Therefore, footnotes have got inserted into the main text of the article, interrupting the flow. Readers who spot these footnotes gone astray might like to shift them to their correct place.
Prabhu
The Maratha caste of clerks, i. Historiaccountants and patwaris corresponding to the Kayasths. " "o^ice. They numbered about 1400 persons in the southern Districts of the Central Provinces and Berar in 191 1. The Prabhus, like the Kayasths, claim to be descendants of a child of Chandra Sena, a Kshatriya king and himself a son of Arjun, one of the five Pandava brothers. Chandra Sena was slain by Parasurama, the Brahman destroyer of the Kshatriyas, but the child was saved by a Rishi, who promised that he should be brought up as a clerk.
The boy was named Somraj and was married to the daughter of Chitra Gupta, the recorder of the dead. The caste thus claim Kshatriya origin. The name Prabhu signifies ' lord,' but the Brahmans pretend that the real name of the caste was Parbhu, meaning one of irregular birth. The Prabhus say that Parbhu is a colloquial corruption used by the uneducated. The gotras of the Prabhus are eponymous, the names being the same as those of Brahmans. In the Central Provinces many of them have the surname of Chitnavis or Secretary. Child -marriage is in vogue and widow- remarriage is forbidden. The wedding ceremony resembles that of the Brahmans.
- The Pindari's childhood is recalled here, vide poem.
In his Description of a Prabhu viarriage ^ Rai Bahadur
B. A. Gupte shows how the old customs are being broken
through among the educated classes under the influence of
modern ideas. Marriages are no longer arranged without
regard to the wishes of the couple, which are thus ascertained
- " The next step ^ is to find out the inclination of
the hero of the tale. His friends and equals do that easilyenough. They begin talking of the family and the girl, and are soon able to fathom his mind.
They leave on his desk all the photographs of the girls offered and watch his movements. If he is sensible he quietly drops or returns all the likenesses except the one he prefers, and keeps this in his drawer. He dare not display it, for it is immodest to do so. The news of the approval by the boy soon reaches the parents of the girl." Similarly in her case : " The girl has no direct voice, but her likes and dislikes are carefully fathomed through her girl friends. If she says, 'Why is papa in such a hurry to get rid of me,' or turns her face and goes away as soon as the proposed family is mentioned, a sensible father drops the case and turns his attention to some other boy.
This is the direct result of higher education under British rule, but among the masses the girl has absolutely no voice, and the boy has very little unless he revolts and disobediently declines to accept a girl already selected." Similarly the educated Prabhus are beginning to dispense with the astrologer's calculations showing the agreement of the horoscopes of the couple, which are too often made a cloak for the extortion of large presents. " It very often happens that everything is amicably settled except the greed of the priest, and he manages to find out some disagreement between the horoscopes of the marriageable parties to vent his anger.
This trick has been sufficiently exposed, and the educated portion of this ultraliterary caste have in most cases discarded horoscopes and planetary conjunctions altogether. Under these restrictions the only thing the council of astrologers have to do is to draw up two documents giving diagrams based on the names of the parties—for names are presumably selected 1 Pamphlet published in connection with the Ethnographic Survey. ^ A Prablni Marriage^ p. 3 et seq.
according to the conjunctions of the stars at birth. But they are often not, and depend on the Hking of the father for a family god, a mythological hero, a patron or a celebrated/ ancestor in the case of the boy. In that of the girl the favourite deity or a character in the most recent fable or drama the father has just read."
According to custom the bridegroom should go to the bride's house to be married, but if it is more convenient to have the wedding at the bridegroom's town, the bride goes there to a temporary house taken by her father,^ and then the bridegroom proceeds to a temple with his party and is welcomed as if he had arrived on completion of a journey. Mr. Gupte thus describes the reception of the bride when she has come to be married : " But there comes an urgent telegram. The bride and her mother are expected and information is given to the bridegroom's father.
In all haste preparations are made to give her a grand and suitable reception. Oh, the flutter among the girls assembled in the house of the bridegroom from all quarters. Every one is dressed in her best and is trying to be the foremost in welcoming the new bride, the Goddess Lakshmi. The numerous maidservants of the house want to prostrate themselves before their future queen on the Suna or borderland of the city, which is of course the railway station. Musicians have been already despatched and the platform is full of gaily dressed girls.
The train arrives, the party assemble at the waiting-room, a maidservant waves rice and water to 'take off' the effects of evil eyes and they start amid admiring eyes of the passengers and onlookers. As soon as the bride reaches her father's temporary residence another girl waves rice and water and throws it away. The girls of the bridegroom's house run home and come back again with a Kalash (water-pot) full of water, with its mouth covered with mango-leaves and topped over with a cocoanut and a large tray of sugar. This is called SakJiar pdni, sugar and water, the first to wash the mouth with and the second to sweeten it.
The girls have by this time all gathered round the bride and are busy cheering her up with encouraging remarks : ' Oh, she is a Rati, the goddess of beauty,' says one, and another, ' How delicate,' ' What a fine VOL. IV 2 t)
nose ' from a third, and ' Look at her eyes ' from a fourth. All complimentary and comforting. ' We are glad it is our house you are coming to,' says a sister-in-law in prospect.
' We are happy you are going to be our indlikin (mistress)/
adds a maidservant. As soon as the elder ladies have
completed their courteous inquiries pdn-supdri and attar are
distributed and the party returns home. But on arrival
the girls gather round the bridegroom to tease him. ' Oh,
you Sudharak (reformer),' ' Oh, you Sahib (European), you
have selected your bride.' ' You have seen her before
marriage. You have broken the rule of the society. You
ought to be excommunicated.' * But,' says another, ' he
will now have no time to speak to us. His Rati (goddess
of beauty) and he ! The Sahib and the Memsahib ! We
shall all be forgotten now. Who cares for sisters and
cousins in these days of civilisation ?
' But all these little
jokes of the little girls are meant as congratulations to him
for having secured a good girl." At a wedding among the
highest families such as is described here, the bridegroom
is presented with drinking cups and plates, trays for holding
sandalwood paste, betel-leaf and an incense-burner, all
in solid silver to the value of about Rs. looo ; water-pots
and cooking vessels and a small bath in German silver
costing Rs. 300 to Rs. 400 ; and a set of brass vessels.-^
General The Prabhus wear the sacred thread.
In Bombay boys receive it a short time before their marriage without the ceremonies which form part of the regular Brahman investiture. On the fifth day after the birth of a child, the sword and also pens, paper and ink are worshipped, the sword being the symbol of their Kshatriya origin and the pens, paper and ink of their present occupation of clerks,"
The funeral ceremonies, Mr. Enthoven writes, are performed
during the first thirteen days after death. Oblations of rice
are offered every day, in consequence of which the soul of
the dead attains a spiritual body, limb by limb, till on the
thirteenth day it is enabled to start on its journey. In
twelve months the journey ends, and a shrdddh ceremony
is performed on an extensive scale on the anniversary of
^ A Prabhu Marriage, pp. 26-27.
^ Boiidtay Ethnographic Stn-vey, art. Prabhu.
customs
the death. Most of the Prabhus are in Government service and others are landowners. In the l^ombay Presidency^ they had at first almost a monopoly of Government service as English writers, and the term Prabhu was commonly employed to denote a clerk of any caste who could write English. Both men and women of the caste arc generally of a fair complexion, resembling the Maratha Brahmans. The taste of the women in dress is proverbial, and when a Sunar, Sutar or Kasar woman has dressed herself in her best for some family festival, she will ask her friends, ' Prabhttin distol or ' Do I look like a Prabhu ?
