_Lodhi, Lodha._--An important agricultural caste residing principally
in the Vindhyan Districts and Nerbudda valley, whence they have spread
to the Wainganga valley and the Khairagarh State of Chhattisgarh. Their
total strength in the Province is 300,000 persons. The Lodhis
are immigrants from the United Provinces, in whose Gazetteers it
is stated that they belonged originally to the Ludhiana District
and took their name from it. Their proper designation is Lodha,
but it has become corrupted to Lodhi in the Central Provinces. A
number of persons resident in the Harda tahsil of Hoshangabad are
called Lodha and say that they are distinct from the Lodhis. There is
nothing to support their statement, however, and it is probable that
they simply represent the separate wave of immigration which took
place from Central India into the Hoshangabad and Betul Districts
in the fifteenth century. They spoke a different dialect of the
group known as Rajasthani, and hence perhaps the caste-name did
not get corrupted. The Lodhis of the Jubbulpore Division probably
came here at a later date from northern India. The Mandla Lodhis
are said to have been brought to the District by Raja Hirde Sah of
the Gond-Rajput dynasty of Garha-Mandla in the seventeenth century,
and they were given large grants of the waste land in the interior in
order that they might clear it of forest. [89] The Lodhis are a good
instance of a caste who have obtained a great rise in social status
on migrating to a new area. In northern India Mr. Nesfield places
them lowest among the agricultural castes and states that they are
little better than a forest tribe. He derives the name from _lod_,
a clod, according to which Lodhi would mean clodhopper. [90] Another
suggestion is that the name is derived from the bark of the _lodh_
tree, [91] which is collected by the Lodhas in northern India and sold
for use as a dyeing agent. In Bulandshahr they are described as "Of
short stature and uncouth appearance, and from this as well as from
their want of a tradition of immigration from other parts they appear
to be a mixed class proceeding from aboriginal and Aryan parents. In
the Districts below Agra they are considered so low that no one drinks
water touched by them; but this is not the case in the Districts above
Agra." [92] In Hamirpur they appear to have some connection with the
Kurmis, and a story told of them in Saugor is that the first Lodhi
was created by Mahadeo from a scarecrow in a Kurmi woman's field
and given the vocation of a farmservant But the Lodhis themselves
claim Rajput ancestry and say that they are descended from Lava,
the eldest of the two sons of Raja Ramchandra of Ajodhya.