_Dhuri._ [560]--A caste belonging exclusively to Chhattisgarh, which
numbered 3000 persons in 1911. Dhuri is an honorific abbreviation
from Dhuriya as Bani from Bania. The special occupation of the caste
is rice-parching, and they are an offshoot from Kahars, though in
Chhattisgarh the Dhuris now consider the Kahars as a subcaste of
their own. In Bengal the Dhuriyas are a subcaste of the Kandus or
Bharbhunjas. Sir H. Risley states that "the Dhurias rank lowest of
all the subcastes of Kandus, owing either to their having taken up
the comparatively menial profession of palanquin-bearing, or to their
being a branch of the Kahar caste who went in for grain-parching and
thus came to be associated with the Kandus." [561] The caste have
immigrated to Chhattisgarh from the United Provinces. In Kawardha
they believe that the Raja of that State brought them back with him
on his return from a pilgrimage. In Bilaspur and Raipur they say
they came from Badhar, a pargana in the Mirzapur District, adjoining
Rewah. Badhar is mentioned in one of the Rajim inscriptions, and is a
place remembered by other castes of Chhattisgarh as their ancestral
home. The Dhuris of Chhattisgarh relate their origin as follows:
Mahadeo went once to the jungle and the damp earth stuck to his
feet. He scraped it off and made it into a man, and asked him what
caste he would like to belong to. The man said he would leave it to
Mahadeo, who decided that he should be called Dhuri from _dhur,_
dust. The man then asked Mahadeo to assign him an occupation, and
Mahadeo said that as he was made from dust, which is pounded earth,
his work should be to prepare _cheora_ or pounded rice, and added as a
special distinction that all castes including Brahmans should eat the
pounded rice prepared by him. All castes do eat _cheora_ because it is
not boiled with water. The Dhuris have two subcastes, a higher and a
lower, but they are known by different names in different tracts. In
Kawardha they are called Raj Dhuri and Cheorakuta, the Raj Dhuris
being the descendants of personal servants in the Raja's family and
ranking above the Cheorakutas or rice-pounders. In Bilaspur they are
called Badharia and Khawas, and in Raipur Badharia and Desha. The
Khawas and Desha subcastes do menial household service and rank
below the Badharias, who are perhaps later immigrants and refuse to
engage in this occupation. The names of their exogamous sections are
nearly all territorial, as Naugahia from Naogaon in Bilaspur District,
Agoria from Agori, a pargana in Mirzapur District, Kashi or Benares,
and a number of other names derived from villages in Bilaspur. But the
caste do not strictly enforce the rule forbidding marriage within the
_gotra_ or section, and are content with avoiding three generations
both on the father's and mother's side. They have probably been driven
to modify the rule on account of the paucity of their numbers and the
difficulty of arranging marriages. For the same reason perhaps they
look with indulgence on the practice, as a rule strictly prohibited,
of marriage with a woman of another caste of lower social rank, and
will admit the children of such a marriage into the caste, though
not the woman herself.