==============+========+============+=======
District. |Hindus. |Muhammadans.| Total.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~
Sahâranpur | 4 | 3 | 7
Meerut | 1 | ... | 1
Mathura | 7 | ... | 7
Agra | 6 | ... | 6
Farrukhâbâd | 2 | ... | 2
Etah | ... | 5 | 5
Etâwah | 17 | ... | 17
Budâun | 34 | ... | 34
Morâdâbâd | 31 | ... | 31
Shâhjahânpur | 1 | 8 | 9
Pilibhît | 1 | ... | 1
Cawnpur | 348 | ... | 348
Fatehpur | 1,070 | ... | 1,070
Bânda | 815 | 8 | 823
Hamîrpur | 199 | ... | 199
Allahâbâd | 7,809 | 25 | 7,834
Benares | 3,363 | ... | 3,363
Mirzapur | 3,374 | ... | 3,374
Jaunpur | 4,356 | 49 | 4,405
Ghâzipur | 2,486 | 2 | 2,488
Ballia | 5,558 | ... | 5,558
Gorakhpur | 9,623 | 207 | 9,830
Basti | 959 | 2,308 | 3,267
Azamgarh | 8,864 | 1,096 | 9,960
Lucknow | 368 | 36 | 404
Unâo | 1,102 | 22 | 1,124
Râê Bareli | 925 | 158 | 1,083
Sîtapur | 481 | 1,028 | 1,509
Hardoi | 74 | ... | 74
Kheri | 275 | 1,001 | 1,276
Faizâbâd | 7,212 | 1,272 | 8,484
Gonda | 27,697 | ... | 27,697
Bahrâich | 1,611 | 1,301 | 2,912
Sultânpur | 1,586 | 658 | 2,244
Partâbgarh | 4,778 | ... | 4,778
Bârabanki | 2,455 | 640 | 3,095
+~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~
Total | 97,492 | 9,827 |107,319
==============+========+============+=======
Bishnoi—(worshippers of Vishnu).—Usually, as at the last Census,
classed as a sub-tribe of Banyas, but really a distinct religious sect.
They are strongest in the Meerut and Rohilkhand Divisions, and as they
are emigrants from the Panjâb, Mr. Maclagan’s interesting account [128]
of them may be quoted:—“The founder of the sect was Jhâmbaji, who lived
towards the end of the fifteenth Century. The following is the account
given by the people regarding him. At Pinpâsar, a village south of
Bikâner, in the Jodhpur territory, there lived a Râjput Panwâr, named
Laut, who had attained the age of sixty years and had no son. One day a
neighbour going out to sow his field met Laut, and deeming it a bad
omen to meet a childless man, turned back from his purpose. This cut
Laut to the quick, and he went out to the jungle and bewailed his
childlessness till evening, when a faqîr appeared to him and told him
that in nine months he should have a son, and after showing his
miraculous power by drawing milk from a calf, vanished from his sight.
At the time named a child miraculously appeared in Laut’s house, and
was miraculously suckled by his wife Hansa. This happened in Sambat
1508 (A.D. 1451). For seven years the boy, who was an incarnation
(avatâra) of Vishnu, played with his fellows, and then for twenty-seven
years he tended cattle, but all this time he spoke no word. His
miraculous powers were shown in various ways, such as producing sweets
from nothing for the delectation of his companions, and he became
gradually known as Achamba (“the Wonder”), whence his name of Jhâmba,
by which he is generally known. After thirty-four years a Brâhman was
sent for to get him to speak, and on confessing his failure, Jhâmbaji
again showed his power by lighting a lamp by simply snapping his
fingers, and uttered his first word. He then adopted the life of a
teacher, and went to reside on a sandhill, some thirty miles south of
Bikâner, where, after fifty-one years, he died and was buried, instead
of being burnt like an ordinary Hindu.
[Legend of Jhâmbaji.] 2. “Another account of Jhâmbaji says that when a
lad of five years old he used to take his father’s herds to water at
the well, and had for each head of cattle a peculiar whistle: the cows
and bullocks would come one by one to the well, drink, and go away. One
day a man named Udaji happened to witness this scene, and struck with
astonishment, attempted to follow the boy when he left the well. He was
on horseback and the boy on foot, but gallop as fast as he would he
could not keep up with the walking pace of the boy. At last in
amazement he dismounted and threw himself at his feet; the boy at once
welcomed him by name, though he then saw him for the first time. The
bewildered Udaji exclaimed,—“Jhâmbaji!” (omniscient), and henceforth
the boy was known by this name. On attaining manhood Jhâmbaji left his
home, and becoming a faqîr or religious mendicant, is said to have
remained sitting on a sandhill called Samrathal in Bikâner for a space
of fifty-one years. In 1485 A.D. a fearful famine desolated the
country, and Jhâmbaji gained an enormous number of disciples by
providing food for all who would declare their belief in him. He is
said to have died on his sandhill at the good old age of eighty-four,
and to have been buried at a spot about a mile distant from it. A
further account says that his body remained suspended for six months in
the bier without decomposing.
[The name of the sect.] 3. “The name Bishnoi is, of course, connected
with that of Vishnu, the deity to whom the Bishnois give most
prominence in their creed, though they sometimes derive it from the
twenty-nine (bîs-nau) articles of faith inculcated by their founder. In
fact, in our returns it was very difficult to distinguish the Bishnoi
from the Vaishnava, who was often entered as a Baishnav or Bishno. The
Bishnois sometimes call themselves Prahlâdbansi, or Prahlâdpanthi, on
the ground that it was to please Prahlâda Bhagat that Vishnu became
incarnate in the person of Jhâmbaji. The legend is that thirty-three
crores of beings were killed by the wicked Hiranya-Kasipu, and when
Vishnu, as the Narasinha Avatâra, saved the life of Prahlâda and asked
Prahlâda his dearest wish, the latter requested that Vishnu would
effect the salvation (mukti) of the remaining twenty-eight crores. To
do this required a further incarnation, and Jhâmbaji was the result.”
[Tenets of the Bishnois.] 4. “Regarding the doctrines of the sect Mr.
J. Wilson writes:—‘The sayings (shabd) of Jhâmbaji to the number of one
hundred and twenty were written down by his disciples, and have been
handed down in a book (pothi) which is written in the Nâgari character,
and in a Hindu dialect, similar to Bâgri, seemingly a Mârwâri dialect.
The ‘twenty-nine’ precepts given by him for the guidance of his
followers are as follows:—
Tîs din sûtak pânch roz ratwanti nâri,
Sera karo shnân sil santokh suchh pyâri.
Pâni bâni îdhni itna lîjo chhân.
Daya dharm hirdê dharo guru batâi jân.
Chori nindya jûth barjya bâd na kariyo koê.
Amal tamâku bhang lil dûr hi tyâgo.
Mad mâs se dekh ke dûr hi bhâgo.
Amar rakhâo thât bail tani na bâho.
Amâshya barat rûnkh lîlo na ghâo.
Hom, jap samâdh pûja bâsh baikunthi pâo.
Untîs dharm ki âkhri guru batâi soê,
Pâhul doê par châvya jis ko nâm Bishnoi hoê.
Which is thus interpreted: ‘For thirty days after child-birth and five
days after a menstrual discharge a woman must not cook food. Bathe in
the morning. Commit not adultery. Be content. Be abstemious and pure.
Strain your drinking water. Be careful of your speech. Examine your
fuel in case any living creature be burnt with it. Show pity to living
creatures. Keep duty present to your mind as the Teacher bade. Do not
steal. Do not speak evil of others. Do not tell lies. Never quarrel.
Avoid opium, tobacco, bhang, and blue clothing. Flee from spirits and
flesh. See that your goats are kept alive (not sold to Musalmâns, who
will kill them for food). Do not plough with bullocks. Keep a fast on
the day before the new moon. Do not cut green trees. Sacrifice with
fire. Say prayers. Meditate. Perform worship and attain heaven. And the
last of the twenty-nine duties prescribed by the Teacher—‘Baptize your
children, if you would be called a true Bishnoi.’”
[Social life.] 5. “Some of these precepts are not strictly obeyed; for
instance, though ordinarily they allow no blue in their clothing, yet a
Bishnoi, if he is a servant of the British Government, is allowed to
wear a blue uniform; and Bishnois do use bullocks, though most of their
farming is done with camels. They also seem to be unusually quarrelsome
(in words) and given to use bad language. But they abstain from
tobacco, drugs, and spirits, and are noted for their regard for animal
life, which is such that not only will they not themselves kill any
living creature, but they do their utmost to prevent others from doing
so. Consequently their villages are generally swarming with antelope
and other animals, and they forbid their Musalmân neighbours to kill
them, and try to dissuade European sportsmen from interfering with
them. They wanted to make it a condition of their settlement that no
one should be allowed to shoot on their land, but at the same time they
asked that they might be assessed at lower rates than their neighbours
on the ground that the antelope being thus left undisturbed do more
damage to their crops; but I told them that this would lessen the merit
(pun) of their good actions in protecting the animals, and they must be
treated just as the surrounding villages were. They consider it a good
deed to scatter grain to pigeons and other birds, and often have a
large number of half-tame birds about their villages. The day before
the new moon they observe as a Sabbath and fast-day, doing no work in
the fields or in the house. They bathe and pray three times a day, in
the morning, afternoon, and in the evening, saying Bishno! Bishno!
instead of the ordinary Hindu Râm! Râm! Their clothing is the same as
of other Bâgris, except that their women do not allow the waist to be
seen, and are fond of wearing black woollen clothing. They are more
particular about ceremonial purity than ordinary Hindus are, and it is
a common saying that if a Bishnoi’s food is on the first of a string of
twenty camels and a man of another caste touches the last camel of the
string, the Bishnoi would consider his food defiled and throw it away.
[Ceremony of initiation.] 6. “A number of representative Bishnois
assemble, and before them a Sâdh or Bishnoi priest, after lighting a
sacrificial fire (hom), instructs the novice in the duties of the
faith. He then takes some water in a new earthen vessel, over which he
prays in a set form (Bishno gâyatri), stirring it the while with his
string of beads (mâla), and after asking the consent of the assembled
Bishnois he pours the water three times into the hands of the novice,
who drinks it off. The novice’s scalp-lock (choti) is then cut off and
his head shaved, for the Bishnois shave the whole head and do not leave
a scalp-lock like the Hindus; but they allow the beard to grow, only
shaving the chin on the father’s death. Infant baptism is also
practised, and thirty days after birth, the child, whether boy or girl,
is baptized by the priest (Sâdh) in much the same way as an adult; only
the set form of prayer is different (garbh gâyatri), and the priest
pours a few drops of water into the child’s mouth, and gives the
child’s relatives each three handfuls of the consecrated water to
drink; at the same time the barber clips off the child’s hair. The
baptismal ceremony has the effect of purifying the house, which has
been made impure by the birth (sûtak).
[Customs of the Bishnois.] 7. “The Bishnois intermarry among themselves
only, and by a ceremony of their own, in which it seems the
circumambulation of the sacred fire, which is the binding ceremony
among the Hindus generally, is omitted. They do not revere Brâhmans,
but have priests (Sâdh) of their own chosen from among the laity. They
do not burn their dead, but bury them below the cattle-stall or in a
place frequented by cattle, such as a cattle pen. They observe the Holi
in a different way from other Hindus. After sunset, on that day, they
fast till the next forenoon, when, after hearing read the account of
how Prahlâda was tortured by his infidel father, Hiranya Kasipu, for
believing in the god Vishnu, until he was delivered by the god himself
in his incarnation of the Lion-Man (Nara-Sinha), and mourning over
Prahlâda’s sufferings, they light a sacrificial fire and partake of
consecrated water, and after distributing unpurified sugar (gur) in
commemoration of Prahlâda’s delivery from the fire into which he was
thrown, they break their fast.
“Bishnois go on pilgrimage where Jhâmbaji is buried, south of Bikâner,
where there is a tomb (math) over his remains, and a temple (mandir)
with regular attendants (pujâri). A festival takes place here every six
months in Asauj and Phâlgun, when the pilgrims go to the sandhill on
which Jhâmbaji lived, and there light sacrificial fires (hom) of jandi
wood in vessels of stone, and offer a burnt offering of barley, sesamum
(til), butter, and sugar, at the same time muttering set prayers. They
also make presents to the attendants of the temple, and distribute
grain for the peacocks and pigeons, which live there in numbers. Should
any one have committed an offence, such as having killed an animal, or
sold a cow or goat to a Musalmân, or allowed an animal to be killed
when he could have prevented it, he is fined by the assembled Bishnois
for the good of the temple, and the animals kept there. Another place
of pilgrimage is a tomb called Chhambola, in the Jodhpur country, where
a festival is held every year in Chait. There the pilgrims bathe in the
tank and help to deepen it, and sing and play musical instruments and
scatter grain to peacocks and pigeons. The Bishnois look with special
attention to the fire sacrifice (hom); it is only the rich who perform
this daily; the poor meet together to carry out the rite on the Amâwas
day only. The Gâenas or Sâdhs, who are their priests and are fed by
them like Brâhmans, are a hereditary class and do not intermarry with
other Bishnois; nor do they take offerings from any but Bishnois. The
Bishnois are a regular caste and have been shown as such in our tables;
and the returns of the caste are much more to be relied on than those
of the sect, for the reason given above that many Bishnois by sect must
have been shown in our tables as Vaishnavas, and vice versâ.
[Organization.] 8. “It is said that a member of any of the higher Hindu
castes may become a Bishnoi; but as a matter of fact they are almost
entirely Jâts or carpenters (Khâti), or less frequently, Râjputs or
Banyas, and the Banya Bishnois are apparently not found in the Panjâb,
their chief seat being Morâdâbâd, in the North-West Provinces. The man
who becomes a Bishnoi is still bound by his caste restrictions; he no
longer calls himself a Jât, but he can marry only Jât Bishnois, or he
is no longer a Khâti, and yet cannot many any one who is not a Khâti;
and further than this the Bishnoi retains the gotra of his original
tribe and may not marry within this. Karewa is practised among them,
but an elder brother cannot marry a younger brother’s widow.
[Connection with Vaishnavism.] 9. “There is not perhaps very much in
the teaching of Jhâmbaji to distinguish him from the orthodox pattern
of Hindu saints, and in some points his doctrine, more especially with
regard to the preservation of life, is only an intensification of the
ordinary Vaishnava tenets. But in the omission of the circumambulation
(phera) at marriage, the cutting off of the scalp-lock, the special
ceremony of initiation, and the disregard for the Brâhmanical
priesthood, we find indications of the same spirit as that which moved
the other Hindu reformers of the period.”
[The Bishnois of the North-Western Provinces.] 10. Mahant Âtma Râm,
known as Mahârâj or Mahant, the present leader of the Morâdâbâd
Bishnois, gives an account of them which, as far as the legends
connected with Jhâmbaji, agrees exactly with the Panjâb legend. He
names nine endogamous sub-divisions of them—Jât; Bishnoi; Banya
Bishnoi; Brâhman Bishnoi; Ahîr Bishnoi; Sunâr Bishnoi; Nâi Bishnoi;
Chauhân Bishnoi; Bayhar Bishnoi. The rule of exogamy is that they do
not intermarry in their own gotra or in that of their relatives as long
as any tie of relationship is remembered.
[Customs.] 11. The Morâdâbâd branch settled there when the District was
in the hands of the Nawâb Wazîr of Oudh, about one hundred and fifty
years ago. They do not admit outsiders except into their special
sub-division as given above. Polygamy is allowed; polyandry repudiated.
The marriage ceremonies are performed in the orthodox Hindu fashion.
Widows can re-marry by the sagâi form. Besides the special worship of
Jhâmbaji, they have, now following the example of their Hindu
neighbours, adopted also the worship of Siva and Bhawâni. When a child
is born the mother is secluded for forty days, when the Mahant sends
one of his disciples who makes her throw some butter into the fire.
This ceremony is known as basandar chhûna or “fire touching.” When a
man dies the nearest male relative of the deceased draws water from the
well in an unused earthen vessel, and places it at the door of the
house with the opening at the top covered with a piece of new cloth.
Upon this are placed some cakes (pûri). Just as the sun is setting some
of the clansmen assemble, and each takes a handful of water and pours
it on the ground in the name of the dead man. This is repeated on the
third, tenth, twentieth, and fortieth day, and after three, six, and
twelve months. The corpse is thrown into the Ganges with a pitcher full
of sand tied round the neck. They perform the srâddha in honour of the
sainted dead in the month of Kuâr, as ordinary Hindus do. Those who die
without issue have the srâddha performed by other relations, and on
this occasion clothes, etc., are given to Brâhmans. They will eat from
the hands of none but their own clansmen.
[Social life.] 12. They strictly abstain from spirits, meat, and
tobacco. Wherever they are numerous they erect by subscription a shed
which is known as a Vishnu temple (Vishnu mandir). There they assemble
on the fifteenth of every Hindu month, and the songs of Jhâmbaji are
chanted by the Mahant or some other Sâdh or priest. This meeting is
known as jumala. In the months of Kuâr and Chait they assemble in large
numbers and offer sweetmeats and money. Part of the offerings is taken
by the Mahant and the rest is divided among the worshippers present.
The Mahant and his Sâdhs practise celibacy. The Bishnois of Bijnor
appear to differ from those of the Panjâb in using the Musalmân form of
salutation, salâm alaikum, and the title of Shaikhji. They account for
this by saying that they murdered a Muhammadan Qâzi who prevented them
from burning a widow and were glad to compound the offence by
pretending to adopt Islâm.