consequence of which the soul of the dead attains a spiritual
body, limb by limb, till on the thirteenth day it is enabled to start
on its journey. In twelve months the journey ends, and a _shraddh_
ceremony is performed on an extensive scale on the anniversary of
the death. Most of the Prabhus are in Government service and others
are landowners. In the Bombay Presidency [452] they had at first
almost a monopoly of Government service as English writers, and the
term Prabhu was commonly employed to denote a clerk of any caste who
could write English. Both men and women of the caste are generally
of a fair complexion, resembling the Maratha Brahmans. The taste of
the women in dress is proverbial, and when a Sunar, Sutar or Kasar
woman has dressed herself in her best for some family festival, she
will ask her friends, '_Prabhuin disto_,' or 'Do I look like a Prabhu?'

Raghuvansi

1. Historical notice

_Raghuvansi, Raghvi._--A class of Rajputs of impure descent, who have
now developed in the Central Provinces into a caste of cultivators,
marrying among themselves. Their first settlement here was in the
Nerbudda Valley, and Sir C. Elliott wrote of them: [453] "They are
a queer class, all professing to be Rajputs from Ajodhia, though on
cross-examination they are obliged to confess that they did not come
here straight from Ajodhia, but stopped in Bundelkhand and the Gwalior
territory by the way. They are obviously of impure blood as they marry
only among themselves; but when they get wealthy and influential they
assume the sacred thread, stop all familiarity with Gujars and Kirars
(with whom they are accustomed to smoke the huqqa and to take water)
and profess to be very high-caste Rajputs indeed." From Hoshangabad
they have spread to Betul, Chhindwara and Nagpur and now number 24,000
persons in all in the Central Provinces. Chhindwara, on the Satpura
plateau, is supposed to have been founded by one Ratan Raghuvansi,
who built the first house on the site, burying a goat alive under
the foundations. The goat is still worshipped as the tutelary deity
of the town. The name Raghuvansi is derived from Raja Raghu, king of
Ajodhia and ancestor of the great Rama, the hero of the Ramayana. In
Nagpur the name has been shortened to Raghvi, and the branch of the
caste settled here is somewhat looked down upon by their fellows
in Hoshangabad. Sir R. Craddock [454] states that their religion
is unorthodox and they have _gur