KAYASTIL Kayastha, Kait or Kaest, mimbered in India 2,159,813 in 1881. The tribe has twelve divisions, of which the Gaur Kayasth is one. Their habitual language of correspondence is the Persian ; t hey are largely etnployed as clerks and accountants about native courts. They say that they spring from Chatrgoputr, the secretary of Dharmaraja. They are Hindus, generally worshippers of Siva. They allow their daughters to grow up before wedlock. Many of them drink to excess and gamble. Their features, physical form, and colour are more varied than those of any other section of Hindus. They are acute in business, active, and painstak ing. In Northern India, they have adapted them selves to the British forms of administration, and are useful servants. They have become In places considerable landed proprietors. In Bengal, they are more numerous, and form an aristocratic class, have proprietary rights in the soil, and cultivate a great deal. The Chandrasena Kayasth of Bombay and Poona claim to be descendants of raja Chandrasena, a Kshatriya raja of Malabar, but the Brahmans declare them to be of menial origin. They have, however, the honorific name
of Puroob (Purvoe, Prabahu, or Master), and are distinguished as Patavi and Dawani Prabahu. The race were employed by the Indian princes in the collection and records of their revenues, and their character for a spirit of extortion became proverbial. They appear to have been particularly obnoxious to the Brahmans. Kayastha is the Sanskrit name, from Kaya, the body, and Stha, to be situated.
Mathura Knits aro allowed by all to be a chief class. The Unai is h according to Elliot; but is not admitted by the Kayasthas as a ICayaStlia class at all. The Brahmans allege that the Unal are Bralintana who by trade lost their caste. Kayasthas are perhaps the most clearly demarked of exiating castes, both as a whole and in their subdivisions.—Toy Cart ; 1Vilson's Glossary ; Tr. of a 'Enda ; Sherriny's Tribes ; Dalton's Elfin.