Raghuvansi
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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.
Raghuvansi
Raghvi
A class of Rajputs of impure i- Historidesccnt, who have now developed in the Central Provinces into a caste of cultivators, marrying among themselves. Their first settlement here was in the Nerbudda Valley, and Sir C. Elliott wrote of them : "' " They are a queer class, all professing to be Rajputs from Ajodhia, though on crossexamination thej^ are obliged to confess that they did not come here straight from Ajodhia, but stopped in Bundelkhand and the Gwalior territory by the way.
They are obviously of impure blood as they marry only among themselves
- but when they get wealthy and influential they
assume the sacred thread, stop all familiarity with Gujars and Kirars (with whom they are accustomed to smoke the huqqa and to take water) and profess to be very high-caste Rajputs indeed." From Hoshangabad they have spread to Betul, Chhindwara and Nagpur and now number 24,000 persons in all in the Central Provinces.
Chhindwara, on the Satpura plateau, is supposed to have been founded by one Ratan Raghuvansi, who built the first house on the site, burying a goat alive under the foundations. The goat is still worshipped as the tutelary deity of the town. The name Raghuvansi is derived from Raja Raghu, king of Ajodhia and ancestor of the great Rama, the hero of the Ramayana. In Nagpur the name has been shortened to Raghvi, and the branch of the caste settled here is somewhat looked down upon by their fellows in Hoshangabad.
^ Bombay Gazetteer, ix. p. 68, footnotes. ^ Hoshangabad Settlement Report {iZo"]), p. 60. customs
Sir R. Craddock ^ states that their reh"gion is unorthodox and they have gurus or priests of their own caste, discarding Brahmans. Their names end in Deo. Their origin, however, is still plainly discernible in their height, strength of body and fair complexion. The notice continues : ' Whatever may happen to other classes the Raghvi will never give way to the moneylender. Though he is fond of comfort he combines a good deal of thrift with it, and the clannish spirit of the caste would prevent any oppression of Raghvi tenants by a landlord or moneylender of their own body." In Chhindwara, Mr. Montgomerie states," they rank among the best cultivators, and formerly lived in clans, holding villages on bhaiacJidri or communal tenure.
As malguzars or village proprietors, they are very prone to, absorb tenant land into their home-farms. Social The Raghuvansis have now a set of exogamous groups of the usual low-caste type, designated after titles, nicknames or natural objects. They sometimes invest their sons with the sacred thread at the time of marriage instead of performing the proper thread ceremony. Some discard the cord after the wedding is over.
At a marriage the Raghuvansis of Chhindwara and Nagpur combine the Hindustani custom of walking round the sacred pole with the Maratha one of throwing coloured rice on the bridal couple. Sometimes they have what is known as a gdnkar wedding. At this, flour, sugar and ghl'^ are the only kinds of food permissible, large cakes of flour and sugar being boiled in pitchers full of ghi^ and everybody being given as much of this as he ' can eat. The guests generally over-eat themselves, and as weddings are celebrated in the hot weather, one or two may occasionally die of repletion.
The neighbours of Raghuvansis say that the host considers such an occurrence as evidence of the complete success of his party, but this is probably a libel. Such a wedding feast may cost two or three thousand rupees. After the wedding the women of the bride's party attack those of the bridegroom's with bamboo sticks, while these retaliate by throwing red powder on them. The remarriage of widows is freely permitted, but ' Nagpur Settlancnt Keporl. - Setllcmcitl Report. •* Preserved butler.
a widow must be taken from the house of her own parents or relatives, and not from that of her first husband or his parents. In fact, if any members of the dead husband's family meet the second husband on the night of the wedding they will attack him and a serious affray may follow. On reaching her new house the woman enters it by a back door, after bathing and changing all her clothes.
The old clothes are given away to a barber or washerman, and the presentation of new clothes by the second husband is the only essential ceremony. No wife will look on a widow's face on the night of her second marriage, for fear lest by doing so she should come to the same position. The majority of the caste abstain from liquor, and they eat flesh in some localities, but not in others.
The men commonly wear beards divided by a shaven patch in the centre of the chin ; and the women have two body-cloths, one worn like a skirt according to the northern custom. Mr. Crooke states ^ that " in northern India a tradition exists among them that the cultivation of sugar is fatal to the farmer, and that the tiling of a house brings down divine displeasure upon the owner ; hence to this day no sugar is grown and not a tiled house is to be seen in their estates." These superstitions do not appear to be known at all in the Central Provinces.
