116' The Ethnology of India. 



goldsmith class are also Bankers in Bengal. Then there is a class 

 of Sahoos, whose proper profession is spirit-distilling and vending, 

 bnt who have a large share of the general trading business. The 

 common * Modees' or grain-sellers, instead of being almost universally 

 Banees as in Hindustan ; are, I understand, of various castes, and 

 there are separate spice-sellers, oil-sellers, &c. If there are not so 

 many enterprising Banees to make the most of the land, there is at 

 any rate this advantage that, I believe, the ryots are now not nearly 

 so much rack-rented in Bengal as they are in Behar and other parts 

 of Hindustan, where the lands of great landholders are almost in- 

 variably farmed to speculators. 



In Groozerat, Forbes describes the "Wanees as very universal and 

 very grasping. But at any rate the traders of the Coast of Goozerat 

 and Cutch are very enterprising. The Banian of those parts is an 

 important institution all over the coasts of Arabia and Africa on 

 the opposite side of the Ocean. And in Bombay, Premchand and 

 "other Banees have made their names famous. In the Maratta country, 

 the higher trade and banking seems to be done by Marwarees, the 

 village business by local Wanees. Farther south, in the Canarese 

 country, the classes of trading proclivities called, 'Banijagas' seem to 

 be very numerous, but as the name is derived from the Sanscrit 

 'Banij' a trader, I cannot be quite sure that the northern and 

 southern traders are related by blood. Inquiry is necessary on this 

 point. 



Almost all the Banees are strict Hindus, that is, strict in their own 

 form of the faith ; for in some sense Jains and such like may be said 

 not to be proper Hindus. In Hindustan, though there are a good 

 many Jains, the great majority are proper Hindus. They may be 

 considered to be in religion very high Hindus, and carry to a great 

 extreme respect for animal life. This tenet, I think, connects them 

 with the western Jains and others, the foundation of whose faith is 

 really the doctrine of metempsychosis and the transmission of 

 souls from one creature to another. The Banees are, I think, really 

 the most sincerely religious among the Hindus, and much attached 

 to their tenets. Among many other Hindu classes, religion is little 

 better than form. In the west country, Jain tenets very much prevail 

 at the present day .among all the Banee classes, and seem to have 



