Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India.djvu/339

Rh They will eat with the Kāpus and Velamas. Their ceremonies of birth, death and marriage are more or less the same as those of the Kāpus. Rāzu is the general name of the caste." The Bhatrāzus, Mr. W. Francis writes,* "are also called Bhāts or Māgadas. They have two endogamous sub-divisions, called Vandi, Rāja or Telagānya, and Māgada, Kani or Agrahārekala. [Some Bhatrāzus maintain that Vandi and Māgada were individuals who officiated as heralds at the marriage of Siva.] Each of these is again split up into several exogamous septs or gōtras, among which are Atrēya, Bhāradwāja, Gautama, Kāsyapa and Kaundinya. All of these are Brāhmanical gōtras, which goes to confirm the story in Manu that the caste is the offspring of a Vaisya father and a Kshatriya mother. Bhatrāzus nevertheless do not all wear the sacred thread now-a-days, or recite the gāyatri.† They employ Brāhman priests for their marriages, but Jangams and Sātānis for funerals, and in all these ceremonies they follow the lower or Purānic instead of the higher Vēdic ritual. Widow marriage is strictly forbidden, but yet they eat fish, mutton and pork, though not beef. These contradictions are, however, common among Oriya castes, and the tradition is that the Bhātrazus were a northern caste which was first invited south by King Pratāpa Rūdra of the Kshatriya dynasty of Wārangal (1295-1323 A.D.). After the downfall of that kingdom they seem to have become court bards and panegyrists under the Reddi and Velama feudal chiefs, who had by that time carved out for themselves small independent principalities in the Telugu country. As a class they were fairly educated in the Telugu