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[edit] Dosad, Dosadh

This semi-Hinduized aboriginal tribe is not numerous in Eastern Bengal, and in the city of Dacca there are not more than fifteen or twenty families of them who lay claim to a more dignified position than is conceded in their native districts of Tirhut and Mungir. They are employed as house bearers, syces, pankha coolies, and porters. As a rule the young men are handsome, of a yellowish-brown complexion, with wide expanded nostrils, and the tip of the nose slightly retrousse.

Dosads claim to be descended from the soldiers of Bhim Sen, and to be allied to the Cheru-Chandals, while at least one of their deities connect them with the Puraniya district. The following six subdivisions are recognised:�

Maghaiya, Kanaujiya,

Palawar, Keot,

Kuri, Kuril.

The majority of Dosads belong to the first, a fact which Buchanan thought indicated that Magadha was their native land. In Maithila, where the Dosads are styled Hazaras, three small tribes, known as Kamar, or beef-eaters, Palawar, and Kurin, had separated from the parent stock and been excommunicated. By many Bahaliyas the claim of being Dosads is insisted on, and in Bengal the Bahaliya and Dosad eat and smoke together.

In Bihar, Dosad has come to be synonymous with Chaukidar, as all the watchmen belong to that tribe. Although Dosads are no longer employed as executioners and carriers of dead bodies, they are often found feeding pigs and curing pork.

The most interesting point about the Dosads, however, is their peculiar religious ceremonies. The demon rahu is their patron deity, and in fulfilment of vows, sacrifices are offered to him, when a Bhagat or Chatiya presides. Dr. Buchanan regarded the worship of Kahu as a survival of an early aboriginal cultus, which the Dosads were one of the last to give up, and, as they were found reluctant to abandon it, the Brahmans transformed Kahu into an "Asura," or demon, and placed him in their Pantheon. Whenever the worship is to be performed in Bengal, priests are procured from Bihar, who are always Dosads. A ladder, made with sides of green bamboos and rungs of sword-blades, is raised in the midst of a pile of burning mangoe wood, through which the Bhagat walks barefooted, and ascends the ladder without injury. Swine of all ages, a ram, wheaten flour, and rice-milk (Khir), are offered up, after which the worshippers partake of a feast, and drink enormous quantities of fiery spirits.

Next in importance to the worship of Kahu is that of various deified heroes, in honour of whom huts are erected in different parts of the country. At Sherpur, near Patna, is the shrine of Gauraia, a Dosad bandit chief, to which members of all castes resort, clean making offerings of meal, the unclean sacri-ficing a swine, or several young pigs, and pouring out libations of spirit on the ground. In the Tarai, Salesh, said to have been the porter of Bhim Sen, but afterwards a formidable robber is invoked, a pig being killed, and rice, ghi, sweetmeats, and spirits offered. In other districts Ghoar Mal is supplicated, and a ram sacrificed. In Mirzapur, the favoured deity is Bhindachal; in Patna it is either Bandi, Karu, Bhairav, Jagda Ma, Kali, Devi, Patanesvari, or Ketu.

It is worthy of notice that in none of these shrines are there any idols, and that the officiating priests are always Dosards, who minster to the Sudra castes frequenting them.

The Sakadvipa Brahmans act as the hereditary Purohits of the Dosads, and fix a favourable day for weddings, and the naming of children. To the great indignation of other tribes these Brahmans assume the aristocratic title of Misra, which properly belongs to the Kanaujiya order. The Guru, called Gosain, Faqir, Vaishnava, or simply Sadhu, abstains from all manual labour, and from intoxicating drugs. His text book is the "Gyan-sagar,"1 or Sea of Knowledge, believed to have been written by Vishnu himself, in his form of Chatur-bhuja, or the four-armed. It inculcates the immaterial nature of God (Nir-akara), which is regarded by the Brahmans as a most pernicious heresy.

Dosads follow the ordinary Hindu ceremonies at marriages, but they often take more than one wife, and the Sagai, or Levirate marriage custom, is not unknown at the present day.

The female Dosad is unclean for six days after confinement, when she bathes, but is not permitted to touch the household utensils till the twelfth day, when a feast, Barahi, is given, and she becomes ceremonially clean.

During the Muhammadan rule in Bengal, Dosads, or Bahaliyas, served in the army, and during the Nawabship of 'Ali Vardi Khan, the native historian2 stigmatises their licentious conduct as a disgrace to the government.

From the days of William Hamilton3 it has been generally believed that in the early period of our military history, "Bengali Sepoys almost exclusively filled several of our battalions, and distinguished themselves as brave and active soldiers," but, as pointed out by Mr. Shore,4 for years before the battle of Plassey, the troops in Bengal were chiefly com-posed of Hindustani recruits enlisted there. Furthermore, the

1 Wilson's "Religious Septs," i, 60.

2 Sleeman's "Journey through the Kingdom of Oude," i, 317.

1 Literally Jnana-sagara.

2 "A Narrative of the Transactions in Bengal," translated by F. Gladwin, p. 177.

3 Vol. i, 95.

4 Shore, F.J. ii, 432. Sepoys who served under Lord Clive were, according to Mr. Reade, Dosads,1 and they cannot be regarded as Bengalis in the true and ordinary sense of the word.

The majority of Dosads belong to the Sri Narayana sect, but others follow the "Pantha," or doctrines, of Kabir Sahib, Tulasi Das, Gorakhnath, or Nanak Shah.

[edit] Notes