Datatri is a son of the rishi Atri (supposed to have been a triune incarnation of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva). The Gharbari are lay mem bers; the monks and nuns wear clothes stained with lamp-black (kajal). They are admitted into the order by the chief monk cutting off a portion of the hair ; the monks and nuns are clean shaven. They are prohibited drinking the water of any village in which there is a temple to any goddess ; they are not to drink the water of a village in which a man has been murdered or poisoned, or been killed by falling into a well. If a man die a natural death, they must visit a graveyard before they eat or drink. They will not cut or break down a tree, large or small. Tulsi Bai, the mis tress of Jeswunt Rao Holkar, was a Manbhao woman. The Gosawi, Manbhao; and Gondbali recruit their ranks from Sudras of any caste.
Trees.—In Berar, certain families hold in honour certain trees and plants ; and at marriage times branches of those trees are set up in the house. Maroti is a deity of the people of Berar, to whose guardianship they confine their boundaries. Numberless temples, shrines, and images are erected to him, but no specific rites are celebrated to his honour. He is nowhere styled Hallman, and only the educated are acquainted with the legends which suppose him to have been chief of the Langur monkey tribe.
Marriage.—In Berar, a widow is married by the 'pat' form, an inferior ceremony. The groom is not married to the woman, but to the swallow wort plant, or to a ring or a pitcher. The twigs of five plants are used,—the mango, the shami, jambul, apata, and swallow-wort. The trees are worshipped, a twig is cut from each ; in the bride's house they are placed in an earthen pot, around the mouth of which is bound a strip of yellow cloth, torn from a woman's bodice. They are subsequently worshipped at the Deokundi ceremony. After death, when the corpse has been washed, dressed, and anointed, a sprig of holy basil is placed on the dead man's mouth or ear.
In Berar, most Hindu women are allowed to make a second marriage.. Ahir, Gujar, Jat, the younger brother marries the widow of the elder brother.
Vidur and Krishnapakshi are the same. They are the offspring of Brahmans with women of. inferior caste.
MYSORE.—The great central plateau of the Peninsula of India includes the Mysore territory, the British districts of Salem, Bellary, Cuddapab, Kurnool, the Hyderabad dominions of the Nizam, the British districts of Belgaum, Dharwar, Shola pur, Poona, Aurangabad, and the assigned pro vince of Berar. They present vast undulating
plains, of various elevations from 1400 to 3000 feet above the sea, almost entirely devoid of trees, and with but little low jungle. Here and there low ranges of hills appear, and isolated rocks, hills or drugs, mostly bare or springled with a low brushwood. Towards the north and west of this plateau region large steppes occur. The surface is more broken by hills and ravines than in the south, with a greater abundance of low jungle and stunted trees. In many of the ravines are timber trees, and towards the more northern portions there are considerable tracts of long grass lands or rumnahs.' The whole of this tract was formerly named the Dekhan, from the Sanskrit Dakshina, meaning the south. The pre vailing character of the soil in the Salem and Mysore portion of this region is a reddish loam overlying gneiss and granite rocks ; in the Ceded Districts, in the eastern part of Hyderabad, and in the Southern Mahratta country, it is mostly regur or black cotton soil, overlying sandstone, lime stone, and claystone strata, with patches of red soil, but regur is the only soil visible over all the great volcanic outburst of greenstone that covers Berar, Poona, and the west of Hyderabad, and north to the Nerbadda.
When Tipu Sultan fell at the storm of Seringa patam, the British placed on the throne a descendant of a former Hindu ruler, but his administration was not successful, and in 1832 Mysore was placed under a British officer as com missioner. On the 25th March 1881, on the present ruler coming of age, the country was restored ; but, by treaty, Bangalore and its out skirts, 12 miles square, was assigned to the British. It is the British cantonment in Mysore.
Mysore, Maisur, or Maheshwar, as a State is in alliance with the British. Its ruler, H.H. the Maha raja Chamarajendra Wodayar Bahadur, is a Hindu prince, and was adopted by his childless pre decessor. The territory has an area of 24,723 square miles, and in 1881 there was a male population of 2,085,842, and females 2,100,346 total, 4,186,188, being 169 to the square mile. Ten years before, in 1871, a census was taken, which showed males 2,535,924, females 2,519,488-total, 5,055,412, or 204 per square mile. Loss of males, 450,082 ; loss of females, ; total loss, 869,224. The loss of the male population was 18 per cent., and that of the female 16 per cent.