_Kumhar, Kumbhar_.--The caste of potters, the name being derived
from the Sanskrit _kumbh_, a water-pot. The Kumhars numbered
nearly 120,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911 and were
most numerous in the northern and eastern or Hindustani-speaking
Districts, where earthen vessels have a greater vogue than in the
south. The caste is of course an ancient one, vessels of earthenware
having probably been in use at a very early period, and the old
Hindu scriptures consequently give various accounts of its origin
from mixed marriages between the four classical castes. "Concerning
the traditional parentage of the caste," Sir H. Risley writes, [1]
"there seems to be a wide difference of opinion among the recognised
authorities on the subject. Thus the Brahma Vaivartta Purana says
that the Kumbhakar or maker of water-jars (_kumbka_), is born of
a Vaishya woman by a Brahman father; the Parasara Samhita makes
the father a Malakar (gardener) and the mother a Chamar; while the
Parasara Padhati holds that the ancestor of the caste was begotten
of a Tili woman by a Pattikar or weaver of silk cloth." Sir Monier
Williams again, in his Sanskrit Dictionary, describes them as the
offspring of a Kshatriya woman by a Brahman. No importance can of
course be attached to such statements as the above from the point of
view of actual fact, but they are interesting as showing the view taken
of the formation of castes by the old Brahman writers, and also the
position given to the Kumhar at the time when they wrote. This varies
from a moderately respectable to a very humble one according to the
different accounts of his lineage. The caste themselves have a legend
of the usual Brahmanical type: "In the Kritayuga, when Maheshwar (Siva)
intended to marry the daughter of Hemvanta, the Devas and Asuras [2]
assembled at Kailas (Heaven). Then a question arose as to who should
furnish the vessels required for the ceremony, and one Kulalaka,
a Brahman, was ordered to make them. Then Kulalaka stood before the
assembly with folded hands, and prayed that materials might be given
to him for making the pots. So Vishnu gave his Sudarsana (discus) to
be used as a wheel, and the mountain of Mandara was fixed as a pivot
beneath it to hold it up. The scraper was Adi Kurma the tortoise,
and a rain-cloud was used for the water-tub. So Kulalaka made the
pots and gave them to Maheshwar for his marriage, and ever since his
descendants have been known as Kumbhakar or maker of water-jars."