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 conies 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 Bajpoots 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. 



