1350.] Eastern Districts of the Soubah of Rydrabad. 203 



late castes, what we read of in books, of one caste necessarily be* 

 ing engendered by the admixture of two others, is in fact not ap= 

 plicable to the Telinghee population. 



Doubtless these origins are strictly denned in the sacred books, 

 and no Brahmin with any pretensions to learning is unacquainted 

 with them, or ignorant, for instance, of the circumstance that the 

 child of a Brahmin woman by a man of the Sudr caste is a chan- 

 dalah, or sweeper, and in all probability, if an individual sprung 

 from such an alliance repaired to a sacred college for information 

 respecting his origin, he would be told that he was the lowest of 

 the low. But he would be a chandalah only among Brahmins, 

 perhaps only among the brahminical priesthood, there can be lit- 

 tle doubt that such chandalahs properly so called are frequent 

 in a country where the Sudrs, are among the wealthiest and most 

 powerful class in the community, and where the virtue and mo- 

 rality of the Brahmins, are not rated very high, but the offspring 

 in such cases is a Zemindar's son with caste not particularly well 

 defined perhaps, but who would shrink with horror from the of- 

 fices to which the Shasters would consign him. Bastards, except 

 where the woman is a Brahmin, usually follow their mother's caste, 

 but the bastard of a Brahmin, with a woman of his own caste, is 

 looked on as a Brahmin, though with a certain stigma attached to 

 his birth. 



Marriages. — Marriages are commonly celebrated before the par- 

 ties have attained the age of puberty, but to this there are excep- 

 tions, in the marriages of the Yelmas, Kummawars, and Motat 

 Coonbees, who delay the ceremony till that period : among the low- 

 est castes marriages take place in childhood. A certain portion 

 and outfit are expected with the bride, if her parents are in good 

 circumstances, but the poorer classes although they do not purchase 

 their wives from their parents, make them a present of a few ru- 

 pees, in consideration of the expenses of up bringing. The mar- 

 riage portion given by a Brahmin in moderate circumstances to his 

 daughter is twelve and a half tolas of gold, sixty tolas of silver, 

 and a hundred rupees worth of clothes. The parents or near re- 

 lations among the higher castes arrange the marriage, but among 

 the lower, the headman of the caste is often called in to settle the 

 preliminaries, — a true lord chancellor's marriage. As soon as the 

 parties are agreed a ceremony, called the KoolaDeota, which con- 



VOL. XVI. NO. XXXVIII. C 1 



