A Letter by Mahishya Samiti to include their name in the census Document
To
HIS HONOUR THE LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF BENGAL
MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HONOUR
The humble memorial of the undersigned members of the Mahishya Samiti for themselves and behalf of the other members of the caste to which they belong most respectfully showeth:
1- That your memorialists beg humbly to approach your Honour with the prayer that in the forthcoming census the caste to which they belong may be styled Mahishya and not Kaibarta, as has been done in the previous census.
2- That the reasons for which your memorialists beg to submit their prayer are the following:
(a) There are two castes in Bengal distinct to their origin and occupying very different position in society who are commonly designated by the name of Kaibarta;
(b) One of these two castes belong to the class of fisherman, and is included among castes from whom the higher class Hindus such as Brahmins, Baidyas and as well as the members of the caste to which your memorialists belong, will not take water.
(c) The caste to which your memorialists belong are ordinarily designated by the names Kaibarta Das, Parasar Das, Mahishya Das & c. and has the same rights in Hindu society which the other high castes such as the Vaidyas and Kayasthas possess;
(d) The inclusion of the caste to which your memorialists belong in the class Kaibarta has considerably lowered them in the estimation of the other castes among the Hindus and created grave erroneous notions with regard to their social position.
3- That your memorialists have therefore adopted there ancient class or caste name of Mahishya, so that there may not arise any more confusion in future in classifying them under the common and misleading name of Kaibarta.
4- That with regard to the evidences based on Hindu Sastras regarding the origin and social position of the castes to which your memorialists belong, your memorialists beg respectfully to submit herewith two books, one entitled Mahishya Bibriti and the other called Ambastha Darpan ( pages 11-14, 63-72, 73, 78-79 ) embodying all the arguments in support of this memorial.
5- That in the 3rd Chapter of the book called Mahishya Bibriti herewith submitted , the opinion of the leading Pandits of Bengal in support of this memorial will be found embodied.
6- That in the book called Sambandha Nirnaya by Pandit Lalmohan Vidyanidhi, the author erroneously included the members of the caste to which your memorialists belong in the Fisherman or Kaibarta caste. But on his mistake being pointed out by better informed critics, the author has been at last obliged to acknowledge his error in an article in the Education Gazette of the 19th Chaitra 1304 B.S.
7- That your memorialists humbly pray that your honour will be graciously pleased to issue orders to the officers in charge of the census work in Bengal for the inclusion under the name of Mahishya of the members of the caste to which of your memorialists belong.
8- That your memorialists, as in duty bound, shall ever pray.
We have the honour to be
SIR,
Your most obedient Subjects.
Source: Kanti Prasanna Sen Gupta, The Christian Missionaries in Bengal (Kolkata: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1971), p. 142-143.
Note: Pandit Swami Dharmananda Mahavharati in an article published in the Bengal Magazine Janmabhumi for Falgun says, `The celebrated commentator of ancient books Kesavacharipa and Ganapati Bhatta who compiled the Drihat Darma Puran use the word Kaivartta as a synonym for Mahishya.
The priests of the Chasi Kaivarttas, as is well known, are Brahmins who form a class by themselves. Whether they were originally a Sudra caste invested with the holy thread and authority by Bellal Sen (a fiction of which there is not the slightest foundation in facts) or whether they were the earliest Brahmin settlers of Bengal who thrown into the shade by the advent of the Kanauj Brahmins and afterwards boycotted because of their unwillingness to submit to the authority of the new-comers (a view which is held by every impartial enquirer into the early history of the Bengal Brahmins), it is an undeniable fact that their Brahmins are family priests only of the Chasi Kaivarttas, and not of the Jaliya Kaivarttas.
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