OF BHARATAVAKSA OR INDIA, 
237 
On the Kurmis, Kumbis or Kunbis. 
I have already intimated that a considerable portion of 
the agricultural population of Northern India is, as I believe, 
of Graudian origin. When saying this, I had in view the 
widely -spread and well-known tribe of the Kurmis, Kumbis 
or Kunbis, who according to the last Census Report number 
12,199,531 souls. The agricultural population forms in most 
countries the bulk of the nation, and, in an agricultural laud 
like India this large number need not create any astonish- 
ment. The late Bev. Dr. John Wilson proposed to derive 
the word Kurmi (Kumbi or Kunbi) from the Sanskrit root 
krs, to plough, and to take A »/•/«?' for a modification of kr.pni, 
ploughman, a word which, however, so far as I know, does 
not exist in Sanskrit. '^^ 
I regard this etymology as wrong and prefer to explain 
the terms Kurmi and Kambi as contractions of Kurumi and 
Kurumbi; in fact, as stated previously, we actually meet with 
the term Kunna for Kuruma.^^^ The interchange between 
r and d modifies Kurumba into Kudumba and most peculiarly 
a part of the agricultural population of Tanjore bears to 
this day the name Kiidumban which is identical with 
Kudumbi, and from which the Marathi Kunihi or Kunhi is 
derived. The expression Kudvmbi is still occasionally used 
in this sense, as I have been informed on good authority, 
by some natives of Baroda and its neighbourhood ; and even 
in the Mysore territory the Maratha Kunbis are called, as 
I hear, at times Kudumbis. The existence of terms like 
See the Rev. Dr. John Wilson's " Tribes and Languages of the Bombay- 
Presidency " in the Indian Antii/i/aiy, vol. Ill, p. 22'2 : " The largest tribe 
of the Maratha people is that of the Kunbis, corresponding with the Gujarati 
JTu/awils or cultivators. The derivation of the name is as follows : Krlshmi 
(S.) a ploughman, Euimi (Hindi), KulambI (CTujaratll, and Ktmabi or Kunbi 
(Marathi). They are called ' Mara^hfts ' by way of distinction. Some of their 
oldest and highest families (as that of Sivaji, the founder of the Maratha Em- 
pire) hold themselves to be descended of Kshatriyas or Bdjputs ; and, though 
they eat with the cultivating Marathas, they do not intermarry with them. 
All the Mm'dthds, however, are viewed by the BrahmuDS as Sudras." 
See the text and n. 151 on p. '2:36 
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