Who Are Bhaṁḍārī

Thurston describes bhaṁḍārī under the title of kelasi in volume 3 of his Castes And Tribes Of Southern India; in volume 1 of the work, he does have the entry bhaṁdāri; but he does not elaborate on it; he directs the reader to kelasi, implying thereby that the two terms refer to the same community. [Thurston, 1909 : Castes And Tribes Of Southern India, Vol. I, 223] However, the term bhaṁḍārī is currently more often used than the term kelasi, except in the tulu territory. Thurston introduces the latter as the barber caste of South Canara. This is based largely on the usage of the term by the tulu; the tulu barbers were called kelasi or bhaṁḍārī; the konkani barbers were known by name mhālô. The other barbers – hindustani, lingāyat, māpilla or moplah and malayāli – were not referred to as bhaṁḍārī. [Thurston, 1909 : Vol. III, 268] Russel mentions neither bhaṁḍārī nor kelasi. [Russel, 1916 : The Tribes And Castes Of The Central Provinces Of India] Though we cannot conclude definitively from this that the community was not found in the Central Provinces (north-eastern Marathi territory and north-western Telugu territory), it seems most likely. The community seems to be confined to the coastal belt of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala – in the Paraśurāma Kṣētra if you may like to call it so. Iyer too does not include bhaṁḍārī in his list, though he includes some other communities from Karnataka coast like billava and tulu brahman. [Iyer, 1935 : The Mysore Tribes And Castes] Risley does elaborate on bhaṁḍārī in volume 1 of his Tribes and Castes of Bengal. [Risley, 1891 : Tribes and Castes of Bengal, 92] Risley is talking about the barber community of Orissa. What emerges from Risley’s description of the community is the intrinsic connection between the barbers’ trade and the role as a store keeper. Risley attributes it to ‘the position of trust and influence that a barber often occupies in the household of a Hindu landholder.’ Though Thurston does not refer to it, in Konkan too the barbers enjoy some respect on account of the service they render to the brāhmana; their role as treasure keepers, however, has been attributed to their martial qualities.