Priestly Castes

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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.

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.

See also

Hindu priests

Priestly Castes