_Chasa_, [469] _Tasa_ (also called Alia in the Sonpur and Patna
States).--The chief cultivating caste of Orissa. In 1901 more
than 21,000 Chasas were enumerated in Sambalpur and the adjoining
Feudatory States, but nearly all these passed in 1905 to Bengal. The
Chasas are said [470] by Sir H. Risley to be for the most part of
non-Aryan descent, the loose organisation of the caste system among
the Uriyas making it possible on the one hand for outsiders to be
admitted into the caste, and on the other for wealthy Chasas who
gave up ploughing with their own hands and assumed the respectable
title of Mahanti to raise themselves to membership among the lower
classes of Kayasths. This passage indicates that the term Mahanti is
or was a broader one than Karan or Uriya Kayasth, and was applied to
educated persons of other castes who apparently aspired to admission
among the Karans, in the same manner as leading members of the
warlike and landholding castes lay claim to rank as Rajputs. For
this reason probably the Uriya Kayasths prefer the name of Karan
to that of Mahanti, and the Uriya saying, 'He who has no caste is
called a Mahanti,' supports this view. The word Chasa has the generic
meaning of 'a cultivator,' and the Chasas may in Sambalpur be merely
an occupational group recruited from other castes. This theory is
supported by the names of their subdivisions, three of which, Kolta,
Khandait and Ud or Orh are the names of distinct castes, while the
fourth, Benatia, is found as a subdivision of several other castes.