The business of a Bhat in former times is thus described by Forbes:
[289] "When the rainy season closes and travelling becomes practicable,
the bard sets off on his yearly tour from his residence in the
Bhatwara or bard's quarter of some city or town. One by one he
visits each of the Rajput chiefs who are his patrons, and from whom
he has received portions of land or annual grants of money, timing
his arrival, if possible, to suit occasions of marriage or other
domestic festivals. After he has received the usual courtesies he
produces the Wai, a book written in his own crabbed hieroglyphics
or in those of his father, which contains the descent of the house
from its founder, interspersed with many a verse or ballad, the dark
sayings contained in which are chanted forth in musical cadence to
a delighted audience, and are then orally interpreted by the bard
with many an illustrative anecdote or tale. The Wai, however, is not
merely a source for the gratification of family pride or even of love
of song; it is also a record by which questions of relationship are
determined when a marriage is in prospect, and disputes relating to the
division of ancestral property are decided, intricate as these last
necessarily are from the practice of polygamy and the rule that all
the sons of a family are entitled to a share. It is the duty of the
bard at each periodical visit to register the births, marriages and
deaths which have taken place in the family since his last circuit,
as well as to chronicle all the other events worthy of remark which
have occurred to affect the fortunes of his patron; nor have we ever
heard even a doubt suggested regarding the accurate, much less the
honest fulfilment of this duty by the bard. The manners of the bardic
tribe are very similar to those of their Rajput clients; their dress
is nearly the same, but the bard seldom appears without the _katar_
or dagger, a representation of which is scrawled beside his signature,
and often rudely engraved upon his monumental stone, in evidence of
his death in the sacred duty of _traga_ (suicide)." [290]