Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/380

KOMATI the harbour. Every vessel, passing the harbour inwards and outwards, salutes him by hoisting and lowering its flag three times. He is considered all potent over the elements in the Bay of Bengal, and many a silver dhoney (boat) is presented at his shrine by Hindu ship-owners after a successful voyage. We remember a suit between a Kōmati, the owner of a dhoney, and his Muhammadan captain, who was also the super-cargo, for settlement of accounts. In a storm off the coast of Arakan, the skipper stated that he had vowed a mudupu or purse of rupees to the Durga, and had duly presented it on his return. This sum, among other sets-off, he charged to the owner of the vessel, the plaintiff, whose sole contention was that the vow had never been discharged; the propriety of conciliating the old Fakir in a hurricane he submissively allowed." Even now, the Kōmatis, though no longer boat-owners, revere the saint, and make vows to him for the success of civil suits, and recovery from all sorts of maladies. The Kōmatis employ Brāhmans for the performance of their ceremonial rites, and recognise a Brāhman as their guru. He is commonly called Bhāskarāchārya, after the individual of that name who lived at Penukonda prior to the sixteenth century A.D., and translated the Sanskrit Kanyaka Purāna into a Telugu poem. He made certain regulations for the daily conduct of the Kōmatis, and made the 102 gōtras submit to them. A copy of an inscription on a copper plate, in the possession of one Kotta Appaya, the Archaka or priest of the Nagarēswaraswāmi temple at Penukonda, is given in the Mackenzie manuscripts. It records a grant (of unknown date) to Bhāskarāchārya, the guru of the Vaisyas, by the 102 gōtrams, according to which each family agreed for ever afterwards to give half a rupee for every marriage.