Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 5.djvu/29

 ARORA. (231)

HE Aroras are a caste of Hindoo tradesmen, who are numerous in the towns and villages of the Punjab; and the city of Mooltan is perhaps the principal place of their origin, and present residence. They claim to belong to the Vayash, or Vaishya class of Hindoos, which is the third in the general system of caste rank, and is that to which most merchants and professional characters belong. The Aroras are, however, a weak sect only, and are hardly known in other parts of India. They trade in money and in exchanges, as well as in goods, produce, and manufactures; and, like the Jains, are an industrious, money-getting class, not over scrupulous in regard to usury. Most of the Vaishyas abstain from annual food, and are as strict vegetarians as the Brahmins; but the Aroras, except those under peculiar vows, use the flesh of sheep or goats ordinarily, and on this account are considered as of a somewhat inferior grade among the Vaishya sects. They intermarry exclusively with their own caste, and their mode of life is only varied by acting as public carriers, and taking insurances on the goods they transmit by contract from one part of the country to another; and in some instances, of the poorest orders, to act as labourers. They do not follow agricultural pursuits, nor are they connected with land in any way. The Aroras, for the most part, are worshippers of Vishnu, under the incarnation of Krishna; and they usually mark their foreheads with the broad trident, which appears slightly over the eyebrows in the Photograph. The Aroras make pilgrimages to Muttra, and other shrines sacred to Krishna; but of all, that of Muttra is esteemed the most sacred, as it was his birthplace. Among the many somewhat obscure divisions of the mercantile Vaishyas, the Aroras hold an unobtrusive and respectable position, and many of them are reputed to be Avealthy. The subject of the Photograph is a shroff, or money dealer. He is simply clad in a white muslin dress and turban, with a scarf of the same hanging over his shoulders, and a string of prayer beads about his neck, on which he repeats the names and attributes of the deity he worships. He is seated on a small wooden platform, on