26 THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY. [January, 1873. memoirs—precious models of exposition and philo¬ sophical analysis—in which the- European scholar withdraws himself to allow us almost constantly to converse with the Indian writers, which secures for these abridged expositions of the philosophical systems of India the highest amount of confi¬ dence and accuracy possible.” Colebrooke himself published a selection of his Miscellaneous Essays in two volumes in 1837, but the work soon became scarce, and in 1858 a reprint in small type appeared simultaneously at Leipzig and London, containing thirteen of them, or the whole of the first volume, and three essays—On Indian Classes, the Jains, and the Muhammadans— from the second. Messrs. Higginbotham & Co. of Madras have now issued a careful reprint of Cole- brooke’s own edition, which, except in the Sanskrit, is not only page for page but lino for liue and lite¬ ratim the same as the original. This will render the work very useful to those who have occasion to turn up the references to these Essays by more recent writers. We cannot help regretting, however, that references to other sources of information have not been added. A memoir of the author from the Asiatic Journal is prefixed. CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANEA. KHATRIS. To the Editor of the Indian Antiquary. Sir,—I have perused the letter about Khatris, con¬ tributed by Mr. J. White, Assistant Collector of Futtehpur,0 and being myself a member of that caste (Dehliw&l Khatri), I beg to offer a few remarks. The story of Parasuram and the escape of a pregnant Kshatriya woman in the house of a Brah¬ man is generally believed as the origin of the Khatris. Every one of that caste looks to the Panj&b as his home, and up to the present time it contains the largest proportion of the Khatri popula¬ tion, which gradually lessens as you descend towards the east, until it almost totally disappears beyond Patna. Only very recently a number of Panj&bi Khatris have, for purposes of trade, settled in Calcutta. Khatris are dispersed throughout almost all the large towns of Upper India, but a Khatri family will scarcely be found south of the Vindhya range. Half a century ago a few families settled at Hydrabad when Chandu L&l Khatri was the Nizam’s prime minister. Judgingfrom their physiognomy, they are of pure Aryan blood. Next to Kashmiris they are the fairest race in Hindustan ; next to Brahmans they are the most religious class, reading much of the Hindu scrip¬ tures. As Guru N&nak belonged to this caste, he is regarded as tho patron or national saint of the Khatris. His and his successors’ compositions (*PT UlYf) are looked upon with great reverence and respect, and generally read. The dcistical doctrines and tenets inculcated by the great Khatri reformer have considerably influenced their morals, manners, and customs, weaning them to a great degree from many superstitions still clung to by other Hindu tribes. This leads some to suspect their being genuine Hindus. Not only Lahna but almost all the ten successors of N&nak were Khatris. Nanak- shahi fakirs are reverentially received in our families. Chandu LAI used to feed thousands of fakirs every day. When he had reached the height of his prosperity at the Nizam’s Court, he presented to the Akhada of Nirmal fakirs some lakhs of rupees. Its management rests with the Mahant and P&nchs of that large body. They lend the money on good security to R&jas and Mahar&jas. The ex¬ penses of food, &c., of the whole body, which contains several thousand members, dispersed all over Hin¬ dustan, are defrayed from the proceeds at the Allaha¬ bad and II arid war fairs. Mr. White says—“ Khatris themselves allow that they have comparatively lately come from westward, and this is conclusively proved by the distribution of their sub-divisions” (the Pauj&bi, Lahori, Dehliw&l, Purbi, and, I may add, by one more—the Agr&wftl). Panj&b, meaning towns beyond Labor, and Purab, meaning towns in tho east of Allahabad, Mirzapur, Banaras, Patna, &c., which are mostly inhabited by Purbi Khatri8, arc all situated in Hindustan Proper. There is no ground for Mr. White’s conjecture that they have, like the Jats, come from some country beyond the Indus. Had such been the case, Khatris, like Jats, would have been denominated by the Brahmans S'udras or Mlechhas. No pious Brahman eats food cooked by a Jat, but most will if prepared by a .Khatri. I once asked an elderly member of our family why we, though living at Agra, are called Dehliw&ls. He explained that his great-great-grand¬ father, having fled from Dehli with his family on the general massacre of its inhabitants by Nadir Shah, settled at Agra, consequently by the way of distinction people called them ‘ Dehliwdls.’ It may be fairly conjectured that Khatris, among whom—in order to preserve purity of blood—family relations are still most scrupulously enquired into before forming marriage connections, might split into divisions, when, from the want of facility of com¬ munication, intercourse with one another had par¬ tially stopped for hundreds of years. Khatris of Labor, Dehli, Agra, and Purab married, dined, attend¬ ed social ceremonies with those of their own or adjacent towns only, and in the lapse of time have grown into distinct divisions. They all have the same stories and traditions of their origin, the same
- Jnd. Ant., vol. I., p. 289,
