Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/239

Rh time afterwards, committed raids in all directions, extending their operations to Southern India. It is on record that "in a raid made upon the coast extending from Masulipatam northward, the Pindāris in ten days plundered 339 villages, burning many, killing and wounding 682 persons, torturing 3,600, and carrying off or destroying property to the amount of £250,000."* They were finally suppressed, in Central India, during the Viceroyalty of the Marquis of Hastings, in 1817.  Pindi (flour). — An exogamous sept of Māla.  Pinjari (cotton-cleaner). — A synonym for Dūdēkula. Pinjala' (cotton) occurs as an exogamous sept of Dēvānga.  Pippala (pepper: Piper longum). — An exogamous sept or gōtra of Gamalla and Kōmati.  Pishārati.— The Pishāratisor Pishārodis are summed up in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as being a sub-caste of Ambalavāsis, which makes flower garlands, and does menial service in the temples. As regards their origin, the legend runs to the effect that a Swāmiyar, or Brāhman ascetic, once had a disciple of the same caste, who wished to become a Sanyāsi or anchorite. All the ceremonies prior to shaving the head of the novice were completed, when, alarmed at the prospect of a cheerless life and the severe austerities incidental thereto, he made himself scarce. Pishāra denotes a Sanyāsi's pupil, and as he, after running away, was called Pishārōdi, the children born to him of a Parasava woman by a subsequent marriage were called Pishāratis. In his 'Early Sovereigns of Travancore,' Mr. Sundaram Pillay says that the Pishārati's " puzzling position among the Malabar castes, half monk and half layman, is far from being accounted for by the silly and fanciful modern derivation 