70 The Ethnology of India. 
not seem to speak of them as forming any large portion of the culti- 
vating classes. ‘They trace their descent from Kashyupa, and are 
divided into a large number of tribes and sub-divisions. In a secular 
capacity they seem to have a good share of office (although there 
also they encounter an energetic writer-caste) and also to trade. 
The Jains of Western India have Bramins among them, and these 
would seem to be for the most part Goozerat men. 
Next to Goozerat comes the Maratta country, extending from 
Damaun to the neighbourhood of Goa, and from Bombay to Nagpore 
and the Wyuganga. ‘The Maratta Bramins are the most famous and 
successful of their race. That their fortune is due to their talent and 
energy, is shown by their success beyond their own bounds, in fact 
throughout Southern and Central India. But in their own country 
and among their own people, they are also favoured by circumstances. 
The lower caste men of the pen, who have ousted the Bramins in 
some countries of the north and more than rivalled them in others, 
are not found in the Maratta social system (those now found in the 
Bombay country are Goozerattees, and Bombay itself is in a mercan- 
tile sense very much a Goozerattee city). The mass of the Maratta 
people are of a comparatively humble class, without the pride and 
jealousy of Bramins shown by Rajpoots and Jats. Hence wherever 
there is a Maratta people or Maratta rule, Maratta Bramins are the 
brains and directing power. At first they contented themselves with 
the highest administrative offices under Maratta rulers, but later, as 
is well known, the Peshwa and other Bramins usurped the supreme 
power itself, assumed the command of armies, and openly ruled the 
confederacy. In truth, so miscellaneous, and so loosely held together 
by any other tie, were Maratta confederacies and armies, that these 
Bramins may be considered to be the real source of the power and 
fame of the Marattas as rulers in India. ‘They were the heads of a 
body of which others were but the hands guided by them. Even 
to the present day in many States and places beyond their own limits, 
they have the chief power. 
In fact perhaps no race, certainly no Indian race, has ever shown 
greater administrative talent and acuteness. The native country of 
the Maratta Bramins is chiefly to the west, and especially the 
Concan, south_of Bombay, the hilly strip near the Western Coast. 
