Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 3.djvu/70

 RUGNATH SAHAI. (125)

UGNATH SAHAI is a Hindoo inhabitant of Putteealee, in the district of Etah, and of the caste Kayeth Salvsaina. There are several sects of Khayets, who class themselves according to the localities from which they take their origin. They are nearly all well-educated men, who fill the principal subordinate offices under Government is the civil department. They are good accountants and clever men of business. Excepting in some instances where then hereditary right of succession to certain appointments is recognised and they establish themselves in particular places, they usually go long distances to find employment, and do not often confine themselves to the homes of then fathers. They worship the God Vishnu. Occasionally they pledge themselves to abstain from animal food and spirits, but ordinarily they live on mutton, fish, vegetables, bread, rice, &c., avoiding beef, which is held in abhorrence by all Hindoos. They are a peaceable race, and live to the age of sixty or seventy years. The age of Rugnath Sahai is forty-seven years; his height five feet; complexion rather fan, eyes and hair black.

The Khayets were the most universally employed and most faithful and trusted of all Hindoos in the Imperial Mahomedan service of Delhi and the several local dynasties of Northern and Eastern India which in turn became independent. Many of them rose to the highest rank as ministers of finance; and the public departments of the Treasury and of account were ahnost entirely managed by them. They were always good Persian scholars, and were not un-frequently employed also as secretaries, and in the departments of public correspondence, civil and political. One of the most remarkable political characters of modern times, the Maharajah Chundoo Loll, who rose to be prime minister to his Highness the Nizam of Hych-abad, belonged to this caste, and was in many respects an able and devoted servant of the Nizam's family, having served to an advanced age, three successive princes of the dynasty. His ancestors, among many other Khayets, accompanied the first Soubadar of the Deccan in his assumption of that authority, and have remained faithful to their allegiance ever since: a grandson of the Maharajah's being at the present time Péshear, or Finance Minister of the Hydrabad State; and the representatives of many Khayet families hold high offices in the same and other departments of the local administration.