as a mark of her veneration
for him. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted. The Sudhs
worship the Panch Khanda or five swords, and in the Central Provinces
they say that these are a representation of the five Pandava brothers,
in whose service their first ancestors were engaged. Their tutelary
goddess is Khambeshwari, represented by a wooden peg (_khamba_). She
dwells in the wilds of the Baud State and is supposed to fulfil
all the desires of the Sudhs. Liquor, goats, buffaloes, vermilion
and swallow-wort flowers are offered to her, the last two being in
representation of blood. The Dehri Sudhs worship a goddess called
Kandrapat who dwells always on the summits of hills. It is believed
that whenever worship is concluded the roar of her tiger is heard,
and the worshippers then leave the place and allow the tiger to come
and take the offerings. The goddess would therefore appear to be the
deified tiger. The Bada Sudhs rank with the cultivating castes of
Sambalpur, but the other three subcastes have a lower position.

Sunar

List of Paragraphs

1. _General notice of the caste_.
2. _Internal structure_.
3. _Marriage and other customs_.
4. _Religion_.
5. _Social position_.
6. _Manufacture of ornaments_.
7. _The sanctity of gold_.
8. _Ornaments. The marriage ornaments_.
9. _Beads and other ornaments_.
10. _Ear-piercing._
11. _Origin of ear-piercing._
12. _Ornaments worn as amulets_.
13. _Audhia Sunars_.
14. _The Sunar as money-changer._
15. _Malpractices of lower-class Sunars_.

1. General notice of the caste

Sunar, [639] Sonar, Soni, Hon-Potdar, Saraf.--The occupational caste
of goldsmiths and silversmiths. The name is derived from the Sanskrit
_Suvarna kar_, a worker in gold. In 1911 the Sunars numbered 96,000
persons in the Central Provinces and 30,000 in Berar. They live all
over the Province and are most numerous in the large towns. The caste
appears to be a functional one of comparatively recent formation,
and there is nothing on record as to its origin, except a collection
of Brahmanical legends of the usual type. The most interesting of
these as related by Sir H. Risley is as follows: [640]

"In the beginning of time, when the goddess Devi was busy with the
construction of mankind, a giant called Sonwa-Daitya, whose body
consisted entirely of gold, devoured her creations as fast as she
made them. To baffle this mon