Note 95 — Glossary (continued 2)

Sikligar, Bardhia, Saiqalgar.95—A small caste of armourers and knife-grinders. The name Saiqalgar comes from the Arabic saiqal, a polisher, and Bardhia is from bārdh, the term for the edge of a weapon. They number only about 450 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār, and reside mainly in the large towns, as Jubbulpore and Nāgpur. The caste is partly Hindu and partly Muhammadan, but very few members of it in the Central Provinces profess the latter religion. In Bombay96 the Muhammadan Sikligars are said to be Ghisāris or tinkers who were forcibly converted by Aurāngzeb. The writer of the Belgaum Gazetteer97 says that they are scarcely more than Muhammadans in name, as they practically never go to the mosque, keep Hindu gods in their houses, eschew beef, and observe no special Muhammadan rites other than circumcision. The Hindu Sikligars claim to be Rājpūts and have Rājpūt sept names, and it is not unlikely that in old times the armourer’s calling should have been adopted by the lower classes of Rājpūts. The headquarters of the caste is in Gwālior, where there is probably still some scope for their ancient trade. But in British territory the Sikligar has degenerated into a needy knife-grinder. Mr. Crooke98 describes him as “A trader of no worth. His whole stock-in-trade is a circular whetstone worked by a strap between two posts fixed in the ground. He sharpens knives, razors, scissors and sometimes swords.”