Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/61

II.] function in the Dharma temple at Mainā, are known as Dom Pandits and not Brahmins; besides, there have been so many attempts in Bengal to raise a low-born saint to the rank and status of a Brahmin, evidently with a view to remove the stigma of humble origin laid on his descendants, that we can hardly accept this account of interested parties as true. Haridāsa, the great saint of the Vaiṣṅava community, was a Mahammadan; but he is now declared by some Vaiṣṅavas to have been originally a Brahmin. Even in the accounts furnished from the temple of Mainā by the descendants of Rāmāi Pundit, there are points to throw a doubt on the pretensions to a high pedigree advanced by them. Dharma-thākur therein is said to have cursed Rāmāi, saying that the people of higher castes would not touch water given by the Saint. Rāmāi Pandit himself is said to have cursed his son Dharmadās for a fault, not clearly stated, by which he lost his caste and turned a Dom Pandit. These stories are evidently got up to establish the point that they were originally Brahmins, though so degraded now. The writer of the sketch very forcibly states that the Dom Pandits do not belong to the Doma caste. His very enthusiasm in establishing this point betrays the weakness of his position; for the people of Bengal know Domas and Dom Pandits to belong to the same caste. The word দ্বিজ (twice-born) which occasionally occurs in the Bhanitā of Rāmāi Pandit, is a later interpolation and the Çunya Purāṅa, in its present shape, bears traces of many subsequent hands, as Nagendra Babu has himself admitted.