Volume 4 — Prabhu
Reading edition
1. Historical notice
Prabhu, Parbhu.—The Marātha caste of clerks, accountants and patwāris corresponding to the Kāyasths. They numbered about 1400 persons in the southern Districts of the Central Provinces and Berār in 1911. The Prabhus, like the Kāyasths, claim to be descendants of a child of Chandra Sena, a Kshatriya king and himself a son of Arjun, one of the five Pāndava brothers. Chandra Sena was slain by Parasurāma, the Brāhman destroyer of the Kshatriyas, but the child was saved by a Rishi, who promised that he should be brought up as a clerk. The boy was named Somrāj and was married to the daughter of Chitra Gupta, the recorder of the dead. The caste thus claim Kshatriya origin. The name Prabhu signifies ‘lord,’ but the Brāhmans pretend that the real name of the caste was Parbhu, meaning one of irregular birth. The Prabhus say that Parbhu is a colloquial corruption used by the uneducated. The gotras of the Prabhus are eponymous, the names being the same as those of Brāhmans. In the Central Provinces many of them have the surname of Chitnavīs or Secretary. Child-marriage is in vogue and widow-remarriage is forbidden. The wedding ceremony resembles that of the Brāhmans.
Little girls playing
Gujarati girls doing figures with strings and sticks