0000 à1469 : SOCIALOGICAL IMPORTANCE : '5 AAB' : PUNJAB :
ANCIENT LAND OF THE FIVE RIVERS PUNJAB:

To the student of sociology: presents features of peculiar interest.

• In the earliest days of Hinduism the people of the Punjab Proper were a bye-word in the
  mouths of the worshippers of Brahma.
• Brahmanism has always been weaker there than perhaps in any other part of India

Neither

• Islam nor the
• Hindu religion has ever been able to expel from the lives of the people
• their customs and superstitions
• which they brought with them from the homes of their ancestors;
• and the worship of godlings unknown to the Hindu pantheon,
• the social customs which still survive in full force
• among the majority of the nominal adherent of either religion,
• and -the peculiar cults of the inferior and outcast races, offer for investigation an almost virgin field full of the richest promise.

In the Punjab hills

• the Hindu religion and
• the caste system to which it gave birth
• are to be found free in a very unusual degree from alteration by external influences,
• though doubtless much deteriorated by decay from within.. Hariana areas' Bishnois are found to be
• a curious offshoot from the national religion
• which is peculiar to them alone.

For the inquiry into primitive institutions and the early growth of property in land

• the Punjab and  North-West Frontier Provinces afford material of singular completeness and importance. Tribal organisation and tenures are to be found nowhere in India in such primitive integrity as on the western frontier of the North West Frortier Province, In the eastern plains of the Punjab
  
• the village communities are typically perfect in their development. Between the two extremes every step in the gradation from one form to the other is exemplified, In the hills of Kangra and Shimla community of rights, whether based on the tribe or on the village, is unknown. Sikhism must be studied in the Punjab: the land of its Gurus.

The Punjab can show

• no vast cities to rival Calcutta and Bombay
• no great factories,
• no varied mineral wealth ;

The occupations of its people are still not without an interest of their own.

• The husbandmen of the Punjab furnish to the English market supplies of wheat.

The pursuits of

• the nomad pastoral tribes of the western doabs
• and of the river populations of the Indus and Sutlej,
• the POWINDAH traffic of Dera Ghazi Khan
• and the salt mines of Jhelum are all well worthy of investigation and description
• while the silk and pashm fabrics
• and embroideries of Delhi, Ludhiana and Amritsar,
• the enamels of Multan,
• the damascening of Sialkot and Gujrat
• the potterv of Multan,
• and the beautiful jewellery and miniature painting of Delhi,have acquired a fame extending far beyond the limits of the Province.

A GLOSSARY OF THE TRIBES AND CASTES OF THE Punjab and North-West Frontier Province
Based on the Census Report for the Punjab, 1883, by the late Sir DENZIL IBBETSON, K.C.S.i., and the Census Report for the Punjab, 1 892, by the Hon. Mr. E. D. MacLAGAN, C.S.i., and complied by H. A. ROSE. pub. By LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT, PUNJAB 

Home