Lehal Library

- HISTORY OF THE SIKHS The wandering Changars. The religions of the coun- Sikh try. The Lamaic Buddhists of Ladakh. The Shiah Muhammadans of Bultee. The Sunni Muhammadans of Kashmir, Peshawar, and Multan. The Brahmanist hill tribes. The Sikhs of the central plains mixed with Brahman ists and Muhammadans. Hindu shopkeepers of Muhamma^dan cities. CHAP. I Of the wandering houseless races, the Changars are the most numerous and the best known, and they seem to deserve notice as being probably the same as the Chinganehs of Turkey, the Russian Tzigans, the German Zigueners, the Italian Zingaros, the Spanish Gitanos, and. the English Gypsies. About Delhi the race is called Kanjar, a word which, in the Punjab, properly implies a courtezan dancing girl.' The limits of Race and Religion are not the same, otherwise the two subjects might have been considered together with advantage. In Ladakh the people and the dependent rUlers profess Lamaic Buddhism, which is so widely diffused throughout Central Asia, but the Tibetans of Iskardo, the Dardus of Gilgit, and the Kukas and Bambas of the rugged mountains, are Muhammadans of the Shiah persuasion. The people of Kashmir, of Kishtwar, of Bhimbar, of Pakhli, and of the hills south and west to the salt range and the Indus, are mostly Sunni Muhammadans,' as are likewise the tribes of Peshawar and of the valley of the Indus southward, and also the inhabitants of Multan, and of the plains northward as far as Pind-Dadan-Khan, Chiniot, and Dipalpur. The people of the Himalayas, eastward of Kishtwar and Bhimbar, are Hindus of the Brahmanical faith, with some Buddhist colonies to the north, and some Muhammadan families to the south-west. The Jats of 'Manjha' and 'Malwa' are mostly Sikhs, but perhaps not one-third of the whole population between the Jhelum and Jumna has yet embraced the tenets of Nanak and Gobind, the other two-thirds being still equally divided between Islam and Brahmanism. In every town, excepting perhaps Leh, and in most of the villages of the Muhammadan districts of Peshawar and Kashmir, and of the Sikh districts of .Manjha and Malwa, there are always to be found Hindu traders and shopkeepers. The Kshattriya prevail in the northern towns, and the Aroras are numerous in the province of Multan. The Kashmiri Brahmans emulate in intelli- gence and usefulness the Maratha Pandits and the of Bengal; they are a good deal employed in Babus [1 For the whole question of Indian gipsies the reader is referred to an article on 'The Indian Origin of the Gipsies in 'Europe', by Mr. A. C. Woolner, which appears in vol. ii of the Journal of the Punjab Historical Society.] - The author learns from his brother. Major A Cunnin- gham who has twice visited Kashmir, that the Muhammadans of that valley are nearly all Shiah, instead of Sunni, as stated in the text.-^.D.C.