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[edit] Ghataka

The Ghataks are Brahmans engaged in negotiating marriages between families, and each Sreni, or division, of the sacred order in Bengal, has its recognized staff, upon whom rests the responsibility of arranging suitable marriages, and of preserving the pristine purity of each family belonging to it. The Varendra, Rarhi, and Vaidika Brahmans possess Ghataks distinct from those employed by the Baidya and Kayath castes, who intermarry with, and act as agents for, the Brahmans of their own division, but for no others.

The organisation of the society is referred to Ballal Sen, who settled the Rarhi Ghataks in Jessore, Baqirganj, and Bikrampur, where, with the exception of a few who have lately emigrated to Calcutta, they are domiciled at the present day. The Ghatak registers of the Rarhi Brahmans, like those of the Kulin Kayaths, go back twenty-three generations, or five hundred years, and, although any Brahman may become a Ghatak, the highest estimation, and the title Pradhan, or chief, is only bestowed on the individual who can show a long and unbroken pedigree of Ghatak ancestors.

There are three grades of Ghataks. The first can repeat off-hand the names of all the members of the main, as well as collateral, branches of any family in his particular part of the country, of the families with which they have married, and of the issue of such marriages.

A Ghatak possessing a memory as retentive as this is liable at any wedding to be challenged by some youthful aspirant to a "Vichara," or trial of memory, when he must defend the laurela he has won. It is, however, considered not only rash, but unmannerly, for a challenge to be given to an old Ghatak, who has for years retained, against all comers, a position of this pre-eminence.

The second grade embraces those Ghataks who can only give the same of the "Kula," or family into which a Brahman or his relatives have married; while the third comprises such as can only name the Vansa, or lineage, to which the Brahman belongs.

The text books of the Ghataks are the "Darbha-nanda Misra Grantha," a Sanskrit treatise intelligible to few, and the Kulanama," a work of little value, from its only containing a con-fused account of the Brahmans and their subdivisions.

Ghataks never officiate at religious ceremonies, and always employ Purohits for their own requirements. Every Kulin Brahman in Eastern Bengal is compelled to employ a Ghatak in negotiating the marriages of his family, otherwise the whole race of Ghataks revolt and ostracise him. The rich Brahman Zamindars, who are willing and able to pay a large sum for an unexceptionable Kulin bride, often try to convince the Ghataks that their families are of purer and more honourable descent than they actually are. Bribes are often offered to establish the claim, but are rarely accepted. Disputes however, are common, and the Ghataks who favour a claim that is fallacious, and who attend at an unauthorised marriage, fall in the estimation of those who have questioned its soundness, and declined to be present. The scruples of a single Pradhan Ghatak often mar the otherwise perfect satisfaction of a parent on the marriage of his son to a family of higher rank than his own; and should all the leaders unite in forbidding the marriage it is impossible for him to win any permanent promotion beyond that laid down in their registers.

Ghataks of similar rank receive equal fees, while at weddings of rich Kulins, at which hundreds attend, the fees are distributed according to a provisional scale, by which Ghataks of the first estimation receive double what the last get. Thus, if the first is given a hundred rupees, the second is entitled to seven-eighths, or eighty-seven rupees; the third to three-fourths, or seventy-five rupees; the fourth to five-eighths, or sixty-two rupees eight anas; and the fifth to a half, or fifty rupees.

At the present day the two most celebrated Pradhan Ghataks are Kali Nath Kabi-sagar, of Kachadia in Bikrampur, and Grish Chanda Ghataka-Sinha of Kolah, men not only remarkable for their prodigious memories, but for modesty and general information on all subjects connected with Hindu society.

1 Vivien de St. Martin is of the opinion that the Ganrar, the Gonrhi of Bihar, the Gangai of the Tarai, are remnants of the Gangaridae of Pliny and Ptolemy.

[edit] Notes