The Ahir

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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.

Caste No. 27)

The Ahirs are properly a pastoral caste, their name being derived from the Sanskrit Abhira, or milkman. But in the Panjab they are now almost exclusively agricultural, and stand in quite the first rank as huslmndmen, being as good as the Kamboh and somewhat superior to the Jat. They are of the same social standing as the Jat and Gujar, who will cat and smoke with them ; but they do not seem ever to have been, at any rate within recent times, tho dominant race in any considerable tract. Perhaps their nearest approach to such a pOsition was in Rewari and the country to the west of it still locally known as Hirwati, where they held nearly three quarters of the jparganah in 18.38.

A very full description of them will be found in Elliott^s Races of the North-est Provinces, and also in Sherring . The west coast of India and Gujarat would appear to be their ancient homes, but they are numerous in Behar and Gorakhpur, and at one time there was an Ahir dynasty in Nepal. In the Panjab they are chiefly found in the south of Dehli, Gurgaon, and Rohtak and the Native States bordering upon these districts, and in this limited tract they form a consider able proportion of the whole population. They are almost all Hindus, and are said to trace their origin from Mathra. They are industrious, patient, and orderly ; and though they are ill spoken of in the proverbs of the country side, yet that is probably only because the Jat is jealous of them as being even better cultivators than himself. Thus they say in Rohtak : Kosli (the head village of the Ahirs) has fifty brick houses and several thousand swag gerers.'So in Dehli : Rather be kicked by a Rajput or stumble uphill, '* than hoj^e anything from a jackal, spear grass, or an Ahir ;and again : All castes are God^s creatures, but three castes are ruthless. When they get a chance they have no shame ; tho whore, the Banya, and the Ahir. But these stigmas are now-a-days at least wholly undeserved.

The Ahirs of the North-West Provinces have three great sections, the Nandbans of the central dodb, the Jadubans Of the upper dodb and the Mathra country, and the Gwalbans of the lower dodb at Benares. The Ahirs of the Pan j jib have returned themselves as shown in the margin. Of the Gwalbans more than 16,000 are found in Patiala. Within these tribes they clans, among which the Kosali of Rohtak and Gurgaon