(_c_) _Kankubja or Kanaujia._--These are named after the old town of Kanauj on the Ganges near Cawnpore, once the capital of India. The Kanaujia are the most important of the northern groups and extend from the west of Oudh to beyond Benares and into the northern Districts of the Central Provinces. Here they are subdivided into four principal groups--the Kanaujia, Jijhotia, Sarwaria and Sanadhya, which are treated in annexed subordinate articles.
(_d_) _Maithil._--They take their name from Mithila, the old term for Bihar or Tirhut, and belong to this tract.
(_e_) _Utkal._--These are the Brahmans of Orissa.
The five groups of the Panch-Dravida are as follows:
(_a_) _Maharashtra._--These belong to the Maratha country or Bombay. They are subdivided into three main territorial groups--the Deshasth, or those of the home country, that is the Poona tract above the Western Ghats; the Konkonasth, who belong to the Bombay Konkan or littoral; and the Karhara, named after a place in the Satara District. [406]
(_b_) _Tailanga or Andhra._--The Brahmans of the Telugu country, Hyderabad and the northern part of Madras. This territory was known as Andhra and governed by an important dynasty of the same name in early times.
(_c_) _Dravida._--The Brahmans of the Tamil country or the south of Madras.
(_d_) _Karnata._--The Brahmans of the Carnatic, or the Canarese country. The Canarese area comprises the Mysore State, and the British Districts of Canara, Dharwar and Belgaum.
(_e_) _Gurjara._--The Brahmans of Gujarat, of whom two subcastes are found in the Central Provinces. The first consists of the Khedawals, named after Kheda, a village in Gujarat, who are a strictly orthodox class holding a good position in the caste. And the second are the Nagar Brahmans, who have been long settled in Nimar and the adjacent tracts, and act as village priests and astrologers. Their social status is somewhat lower.
There are, however, a large number of other subcastes, and the tendency to fissure in a large caste, and to the formation of small local groups which marry among themselves, is nowhere more strikingly apparent than among the Brahmans. This is only natural, as they, more than any other caste, attach importance to strict ceremonial observance in matters of food and the daily ritual of prayer, and any group which was suspected of backsliding in respect of these on emigration to a new locality would be debarred from intermarriage with the parent caste at home. An instance of this is found among the Chhattisgarhi Brahmans, who have been long settled in this backward tract and cut off from communication with northern India. They are mainly of the Kanaujia division, but the Kanaujias of Oudh will neither take food nor intermarry with them, and they now constitute a separate subcaste of Kanaujias. Similarly the Malwi Brahmans, whose home is in Malwa, whence they have spread to Hoshangabad and Betul, are believed to have been originally a branch of the Gaur or Kanaujia, but have now become a distinct subcaste, and have adopted many of the customs of Maratha Brahmans. Mandla contains a colony of Sarwaria [407] Brahmans who received grants of villages from the Gond kings and have settled down there. They are now cultivators, and some have taken to the plough, while they also permit widow-remarriage in all but the name. They are naturally cut off from intercourse with the orthodox Sarwarias and marry among themselves. The Harenia Brahmans of Saugor are believed to have immigrated from Hariana some generations ago and form a separate local group; and also the Laheria Brahmans of the same District, who, like the Mandla Sarwarias, permit widows to marry. In Hoshangabad there is a small subcaste of Bawisa or 'Twenty-two' Brahmans, descended from twenty-two families from northern India, who settled here and have since married among themselves. A similar diversity of subcastes is found in other Provinces. The Brahmans of Bengal are also mainly of the Kanaujia division, but they are divided into several local subcastes, of which the principal are Rarhi and Barendra, named after tracts in Bengal, and quite distinct from the subdivisions of the Kanaujia group in the Central Provinces.