_Dangi._--A cultivating caste found almost exclusively in the
Saugor District, which contained 23,000 persons out of a total of
24,000 of the caste in the Central Provinces in 1911. There are also
considerable numbers of them in Rajputana and Central India, from
which localities they probably immigrated into the Saugor District
during the eleventh century. The Dangis were formerly dominant in
Saugor, a part of which was called Dangiwara after them. The kings of
Garhpahra or old Saugor were Dangis, and their family still remains at
the village of Bilehra, which with a few other villages they hold as
a revenue-free grant. The name of the caste is variously derived. The
traditional story is that the Rajput king of Garhpahra detained the
palanquins of twenty-two married women of different castes and kept
them as his wives. The issue of the illicit intercourse were named
Dangis, and there are thus twenty-two subdivisions of the caste,
besides three other subdivisions who are held to be descended from
pure Rajputs. The name is said to be derived from _dang_, fraud,
on account of the above deception. A more plausible derivation is
from the Persian _dang_, a hill, the Dangis being thus hillmen; and
they may not improbably have been a set of robbers and freebooters in
the Vindhyan Hills, like the Gujars and Mewatis in northern India,
naturally recruiting their band from all classes of the population,
as is shown by ingenious implication in this story itself. '_Khet men
bami, gaon men Dangi_,' or 'A Dangi in the village is like the hole
of a snake in one's field' is a proverb which shows the estimation
in which they were formerly held. The three higher septs may have
been their leaders and may well have been Rajputs. Since they have
settled down as respectable cultivators and enjoy a good repute among
their neighbours, the Dangis have disowned the above story, and now
say that they are descended from Raja Dang, a Kachhwaha Rajput king
of Narwar in Central India. Nothing is known of Raja Dang except a
rude couplet which records how he was cheated by a horse-dealer:
Jitki ghori tit gayi
Dang hath karyari rahi,
'The mare bolted to the seller again, leaving in Dang's hand nothing
except the reins.'
The Dangis have a more heroic version of this story to the effect
that the mare was a fairy of Indra's court, who for some reason had
been transformed into this shape and was captured by Raja Dang. He
refused to give her up to Indra and a battle was about to ensue,
when the mare besought them to place her on a pyre and sacrifice her
instead of fighting. They agreed to do this, and out of the flames
of the pyre the fairy emerged and floated up to heaven, leaving only
the reins and bridle of the mare in Raja Dang's hand. Yet a third
story is that their original ancestor was Raja Nipal Singh of Narwar,
and when he was fighting with Indra over the fairy, Krishna came to
Indra's assistance. But Nipal Singh refused to bow down to Krishna,
and being annoyed at this and wishing to teach him a lesson the god
summoned him to his court. At the gate through which Nipal Singh
had to pass, Krishna fixed a sword at the height of a man's neck,
so that he must bend or have his head cut off. But Nipal Singh saw
the trick, and, sitting down, propelled himself through the doorway
with his head erect. The outwitted god remarked, '_Tum bare dandi
ho_,' or 'You are very cunning,' and the name Dandi stuck to Nipal
Singh and was afterwards corrupted to Dangi. There can be little
doubt that the caste are an offshoot of Rajputs of impure blood,
and with a large admixture of other classes of the population. Some
of their sept names indicate their mixed descent, as Rakhya, born
of a potter woman, Dhoniya, born of a washerwoman, and Pavniya, born
of a weaver woman. In past times the Dangis served in the Rajput and
Maratha armies, and a small isolated colony of them is found in one
village of Indora in the Nagpur District, the descendants of Dangis
who engaged in military service under the Bhonsla kings.