Note 24 — CHAPTER 17
Reading edition
There are three classes of Mahratta Brahmans: Shenvi, Prabhu, and Mahratta. Of the first was Lakwa, Balabha Tantia, Jiwa Dada, Sivaji Nana, Lalaji Pandit, and Jaswant Rao Bhao, men who held the mortgaged lands of Mewar. [There are four groups of Marātha Brāhmans: Konkanasthas, Deshasthas, Karhādas, and Kanvas. The Prabhus are not Brāhmans, but the writer caste, like the Kāyasths of Hindustān (J. Wilson, Indian Caste, 1877, ii. 17 ff.). The word Shenvi is a corruption of chhiyānavē, ‘ninety-six,’ from the supposed number of their sections.]