Risley, Herbert H.; Crooke, William [Hrsg.]: The people of India: being an attempt to trace the progress of the national mind in its various aspects, as reflected in the nation’s literature from the earliest times to the present day ; with copious extracts from the best writers (Calcutta [u.a.], 1915)

APPENDIX I

307

brought me here and called me a Brahman. (An Assam proverb, apparently
alluding to the manufacture of Brahmans from Bengali Muhammadans.) He
posed as a Brahman, but his name was Piroz Khan. The Ahir's (herdsman's)
belly is deep ; but the Brahman's is a bottomless pit. The Brahmans' bellies are
full ; they lie about like gorged buffaloes. A Brahman has faith only after a meal.
A Brahman risks everything for a dinner. A scanty loin-cloth and an empty
stomach ; by these you may know the Brahman. Rice on his plate and his sacred
thread in his hand. When the Brahman's stomach is over-full a dish of curds sets
't aching. Life is clear to us Brahmans ; we have eaten our fill; give us money to
take us home. Other people's flour and butter, what do they cost the Brahmans ?
The Brahman gets cake to eat; the children of the house may lick the mill-stone.
The pony grows fat in Asarh (June-July, when it is too hot to ride), the Brahman
ln Bhadra (July-August, when ancestors are worshipped and Brahmans fed).
The Brahman wanted both Hindu sweets and Muhammadan loaves, and got
neither. You will repent, Brahman, and eat the same pulse after all. A hungry
Brahman is like a tiger. Vishnu gets the empty litany ; the Brahman takes the
sacred food. (The offerings to Hindu idols are eaten by the priests.) " Brahman,
Brahman, here is uncooked food for your dinner." " That will do to take home,
but first give me a dinner here." After dinner a Brahman rubs his belly and a
J°gi (ascetic) his head. The vegetables are rotten, give them to the Brahman.
A degraded Brahman, give him a dead cow. The Brahman wore flowers and the
gardens were stripped bare. A Brahman's cow eats little, but gives much milk.
0 God, let me not be born a Brahman, who is always begging and is never
satisfied. A Brahman will beg with a lakh (Rs. 100,000) in his pocket. A one-
eyed cow for the Brahman (Give him what is useless). A black cow for the
Brahman (Give him of your best, as the scriptures enjoin). Vultures and Brah-
mans spy out corpses. What is written in the Brahman's book (the duty of alms-
giving) is tied up in his wife's shawl. The Brahman asks, the Baniya pays. The
Brahman's son lives by begging. To a clerk a bribe, to a Brahman a gift. A cat
that will not lap milk, and a Brahman who refuses a bribe. A Brahman's hand
and an elephant's trunk are never at rest. A Brahman will wriggle and twist till
be has done you out of both interest and principal. Give the Brahman a corner of
your veranda and he will soon have the whole house. Is the ridge-pole of the
Brahman's house made of bamboo? (Proverb of the improbable.) The trader
has lost his capital : the'Brahman claims his percentage of the profits. (Baniyas
\n western India set apart a pice in the rupee of their profits to give to Brahmans.)
The Patel (village headman) and his wife may die, but the Brahman must have
his fee. The son of the house cannot afford a wife, but his father must pay for the
wedding of the Brahman's son.

Ask a Brahman for alms. (Blood from a stone.) If you dine with a Brahman,
y°u go away hungry. A Bnlhman's servant is worked like an oil-presser's bullock,
and gets nothing but stale bread. A Brahman out of work lives on pulse. Give a
rahman waste flour or bran, and he will make bread with it. When four
rahmans meet, they dine off sweets or starve (Caste scruples and ceremonial
observances). It is poison to a Brahman to dine at home. A Brahman's guest ;
a Prostitute's wedding. If a sheep comes into a Brahman village each one will
Set a hair. The pulse is in the market (not yet bought), but the Brahman beats
nis wife and asks " will you make it thick or thin ?" The Sudra prostrated himself:
the Brahman dunned him for his father's debt.