r in Central India. Nothing is known of Raja Dang except a
rude couplet which records how he was cheated by a horse-dealer:

Jitki ghori tit gayi
Dang hath karyari rahi,

'The mare bolted to the seller again, leaving in Dang's hand nothing
except the reins.'

The Dangis have a more heroic version of this story to the effect
that the mare was a fairy of Indra's court, who for some reason had
been transformed into this shape and was captured by Raja Dang. He
refused to give her up to Indra and a battle was about to ensue,
when the mare besought them to place her on a pyre and sacrifice her
instead of fighting. They agreed to do this, and out of the flames
of the pyre the fairy emerged and floated up to heaven, leaving only
the reins and bridle of the mare in Raja Dang's hand. Yet a third
story is that their original ancestor was Raja Nipal Singh of Narwar,
and when he was fighting with Indra over the fairy, Krishna came to
Indra's assistance. But Nipal Singh refused to bow down to Krishna,
and being annoyed at this and wishing to teach him a lesson the god
summoned him to his court. At the gate through which Nipal Singh
had to pass, Krishna fixed a sword at the height of a man's neck,
so that he must bend or have his head cut off. But Nipal Singh saw
the trick, and, sitting down, propelled himself through the doorway
with his head erect. The outwitted god remarked, '_Tum bare dandi
ho_,' or 'You are very cunning,' and the name Dandi stuck to Nipal
Singh and was afterwards corrupted to Dangi. There can be little
doubt that the caste are an offshoot of Rajputs of impure blood,
and with a large admixture of other classes of the population. Some
of their sept names indicate their mixed descent, as Rakhya, born
of a potter woman, Dhoniya, born of a washerwoman, and Pavniya, born
of a weaver woman. In past times the Dangis served in the Rajput and
Maratha armies, and a small isolated colony of them is found in one
village of Indora in the Nagpur District, the descendants of Dangis
who engaged in military service under the Bhonsla kings.

2. Caste subdivisions.

The Dangis have no subcastes distinguished by separate names, but they
are divided into three classes, among whom the principle of hypergamy
prevails. As already seen, there were formerly twenty-five clans, of
whom the three highest, the Nahonias, Bhadonias and Nadias, claimed
to be pure Rajputs. The other twenty-tw