RAIPUR, a town in the Central Provinces of British India, in lat. 21° 15' N., and long. 81° 41' E., on a plateau 950 feet above the sea-level. It gives its name to a district extending between lat. 19° 48' and 21° 45' N., and long. 80° 28' and 82° 38' E., comprising the larger part of the tract known by the name of Ch'hattisgarh, together with a large area formerly attached to Sumbulpore, and a population of one and a half millions. It is about 150 miles in breadth from east to west, and 135 miles in length from north to south. Like the rest of Central India, Ch'hattisgarh seems to have been inhabited in the earliest times by Bhunjiya and other Kolarian races from the ea.st. The population of Raipur has been rectuited from all quarters ; but the most important immigrants, and the earliest after the first great Gond invasion, came from the north. A few wild wandeters in the jungles came from the east, while froui, \the south and west there has been a considerable influx of population. Of the immigrant tribes, the Kurmi, Teli, Lodhi, Chamar Ahir or Gaira, Ganda, and Kanwar seem to have come from the iorth, though a large section of Teli and some few Curmi have coine from Nagpur. The greater lumber of immigrants from the south and west tre the Halba from Bastar and Chanda, and the Ifahratta race. The principal cultivating castes tre Kurmi, Teli, °hamar, and Halba, though of these only the Kurmi aud Teli are large land iolders. The Brahmans in 1872 numbered 16,800; the mass of the Hindu population consisting of Pell, 161,276 ; Ahir or Gaira, 97,861 ; Chamars, 57,308 ; Dhimars, 53,212 ; ICurmi, 47,845 ; Native Christians in 1877, 319. The Kanwar, who supply the most trusted followers of the Haihai-Bansi kings, in 1872 numbered only 11,214. The Banjara in 1872 only amounted to 5474. The Satnami (113,786 in number) and the Kabir panthi (64,979), Hindu sects who recognise no distinction of caste, are almost cpnfined to Raipur and Bilaspur. They are recruited mainly from the Chatnars, with whom the Satnami are often confused, but also froth the Ahir and other castes.
Like Rai Das, the founder of the Satnami, Kabir, whom the ICabirpanthi follow, was a disciple of Ramauand, and taught a similar doctrine. The Chamar lay claim to a very high antiquity among the inhabitants of the district. They have all joined the Rai,Dasi sect formed by Rai Das, a Chamar or shoemaker, a reformer, and disciple of Ramanand, who is said to have lived about the fifteenth century in the country lying to the south of Oudh and in Rewa. The creed he preached seems to have been that adopted by Ghasi Das, the celebrated Satnami teacher, who started the great movement among the Chamar race about the beginning of the nineteenth century, and who seems rather to have revived the teaching of Rai Das than preached a new religion. The term of Satnami or pure name was that assumed by the followers of Rai Das. As Satnami, they arc scrupulous about their eating, but slovenly and untidy in their habits, and the houses of even the wealthiest of them are usually hovels. They are generally industrious, though careless, cultivators, and frugal in the extreme, indulging in no extra vagance in dress or jewellery. The dress of the men is commonly a single cloth, one end of which encircles their loins and another their head, and the women wear little or no jewellery ; yet they rarely make money, and seem to want the talent of getting on in the world. Their villages are seldom prosperous, though some few malguzar form conspicuous exceptions to the rule. This apparent inability to improve their .position is partly due to Hindu opposition, but one great cause seems to be their individual fickleness and want of perseverance. A very slight cause will send a Chamar cultivator away from his village, and though they generally return after a short interval, yet these migrations necessarily hinder the accumulation of property.