90 THE ANTIQUITIES OF MUKHALINGAM. 
Kalinga-man, Aryan as he is by his appearance and by 
his customs social and relisfious, is no better ti-eated than a 
Sudra. He wears a sacred thread like a Brahman, shaves 
his head like a Brahman, and looks almost like a Brahman- 
He belongs likewise to the qotra of some Vedic sage like 
Bharadvaja. He observes some religious rites, among 
others the birth-ceremony, the ui[)an(xyana, the marriage 
and even the simanta which has fallen into disuse among 
the Brahmans of these parts. He has the exclusive right to 
worship in some temples, as in the case of those at Mukha- 
lingam. He then utters Vedic mantras. Like the Brah- 
mans of the North, like his neighbours, the Oriya Brah- 
mans, he eats fish and perhaps flesh also : (I hear the Muk- 
halingam Kalingas have abstained from animal food) but 
he offers none to the gods. And however justly he may 
claim to be a Brahman, he is looked down upon by the pre- 
sent Brahmans find is regarded as no better than a Sudra. 
The majority of the Kalingas, by their profession as culti- 
vators and cart-drivers, though equal in rank to the Oriya 
Brahmans following the same professions, have recently 
come to be in a degraded position, whereby the Brahman 
priest who is now invited to officiate during the celebration 
of any religious ceremony, insolently declines to sanctify it 
by the utterance of the Vedic mantras. The Kalingas, 
like some of the Vaisyas, have, I think, come to forego 
their religious rights by their own indifference and negli- 
gence combined with the jealousy and selfishness of the 
Brahmans. Sir W. W. Hunter, in his Amials of Orissa 
(Vol. I. pp. 242-264) recorded the chief varieties of Brah- 
mans which he met with from the Himalayas to the Cape 
of Comorin. There are fishing Brahmans, ploughing Brah- 
mans, shepherd Brahmans, and so on, not a jot better, but 
in some cases worse than the Kalingas in religion, in social 
position, and in occupation. The older the colony, the less 
