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This article is an extract from
PANJAB CASTES
SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I.
2014-05-01T23:47:55Z

Created page with " {| class="wikitable" |- |colspan="0"|<div style="font-size:100%"> This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. <br..."

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This article is an extract from 

PANJAB CASTES 

SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. 

Being a reprint of the chapter on 
The Races, Castes and Tribes of 
the People in the Report on the 
Census of the Panjab published 
in ''' 1883 ''' by the late Sir Denzil 
Ibbetson, KCSI 

Lahore : 

Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 

1916. 
''Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees '' 
''with the contents of this article.''
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[[Category:India|P]]
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==Priestly Castes==

The group of castes which I am about to discuss,
and of which the figures are given in Abstract No. 88 on the next page,may
be divided into three classes, Hindu priests, Muhammadan priests, sind faqirs.
The last I give in this abstract so as to complete the group ; but they will be
discussed further on, and I shall confine my remarks at present to the priestly
and religious castes, as distinct from orders. The Brahmans are of course the
very type of a Hindu caste, while the pujnris of our tables probably belong for
the most part to what is now a real caste, though the word itself is merely the
name for an occupation. But the Muhammadan group is not so homogeneous.
The title of a Saiyad should be, but notoriously is not, confined to the descen
dants of a common ancestor ; while the bodlas are professedly a miscellaneous
collection of persons returned under entries most of which should never have
appeared at all in the caste column.

The Chishtis again probably include both
spiritual and carnal descendants of their Chief, as is the case with so many of
the religious orders next to be discussed ; while the Bodlas are almost
certainly a clan of Rajputs who have acquired a character for sanctity. Theoe
tically, the two groups should occupy very different positions among the fol
lowers of their respective faiths. The Brahman is a priest, and entitled as such
to reverence and support by the ordinances of the Hindu religion : the Saiyad
merely claims respect in virtue of his descent from the son-in-law of the Pro
phet, and the Muhammadan religion as such has no organised priesthood. But
it has already been pointed out in the Chapter on Religion that there is really
little to choose between the Hindu and the Musalman as regards the spiritual
bondage in which their superstition enfolds them ; and indeed that if either
has the advantage, it is the former rather than the latter. The classes includ
ed under the present group are by no means purely priestly ; they are also
large owners and cultivators of land. But their most distinctive characteristic
is their saintly character, and I have therefore separated them from the land
owning and agricultural classes. At the same time the distinction between
the Saiyad and the Qui-eshi Shekh as regards the spiritual reverence paid them
is probably, at least in the south-western districts, exceedingly small.

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 the Saiyad and the Qui-eshi Shekh as regards the spiritual reverence paid them
 is probably, at least in the south-western districts, exceedingly small.