Gavli, Gawli or Gavali (Marathi: गवळी) is a Hindu caste found in the Indian states of Maharashtra and Madhya pradesh.[1][2] They a part of the Yadav community.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]

Gavli are distributed all over Maharashtra. Although Reginald Edward has classified Gawlis as sub-caste of many different castes Ahir Gawli (sub-caste of famous Yadav caste of North India) whereas Hanbar Gawli, Singaji Gawli and Lingayat Gawli are different from Yadav-Ahir Gawli.[10][11][12] Along with Maratha and Kunbis, Ahir Gawlis are considered one of the allied castes of Maratha caste and have been included in the Maratha Regiment in the past.[13][14]

Origin

The Yadav (Gavli) community claims descent from the Great Yadav families to one of which lord Krishna the eighth incarnation of Vishnu belonged.[15][16] The whole of the North India, Gujarat and Deccan were ruled by the Kings of the Yadav families. They have kept up their Kshatriya caste traditions, customs and occupations. They have given considerable recruits to the government and included in the Maratha regiments.[17]

Relationship with Deccan Yadavas

The hill of Devagiri, the capital of Yadavas

The word Yāḍava is formed from yāḍu and yāḍu means Sheep or Goat in Tamil. In the Deccan region, the original worshippers of pastoralist god Vitthal – the Gollas and Kurubas of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and Gawlis and Dhangars of Maharashtra, especially southern Maharashtra – are continued to be called "Yāḍavas". Similar to them, several royal families who enhanced the magnificence of Vitthal's worship are called "Yādavas". The difference here is "ḍ" and "d", where "Yāḍavas" represents Dravidian version and "Yādavas" is the Sanskritized version of it. Linguistically this difference is subtle, and so "Yāḍavas" became "Yādavas", i.e., most of these royal dynasties arose from pastoralist groups and took the name Yādava in order to raise their status by connecting themselves with Krishna's clan, Yadu dynasty of the Puranas. They elevated their traditional pastoralist god (Vitthal) into a form of Vishnu-Krishna and accorded high prestige to his worship.[18]

The Seuna Yadava dynasty, which ruled present-day Maharashtra and north Karnataka, arose out of the valorous deeds of Dridhaprahara, founder of the dynasty, who protected cattle. According to the traditional sources, Devagiri, the capital of Seuna Yadavas, was founded by a king who was a Golla/Gavli.[12][19][20] The idea that the Seunas were a Gavli dynasty survives to this day in folk traditions of the Nashik-Khandesh area, where they are traditionally called "Gavli Kings".[21][22] During the reign of Seuna Yadavas and their rival Hoysala Yadavas, the temple of Vitthal at Pandharpur, under their purview, grew from a small pastoral deity site to a major temple complex.[23]

Notable people

References

  1. ↑ Malhotra, K. C. (March 1982). "Ecology of a pastoral caste: Gavli Dhangars of peninsular India" (PDF). Human Ecology. 10 (1): 107–143. doi:10.1007/BF01531107. S2CID 154253698.
  2. ↑ Mehta, B. H. (1994). Gonds of the Central Indian Highlands. Vol. II. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company. pp. 568–569.
  3. ↑ Saraswati, Baidyanath (1998). The Cultural Dimension of Ecology. Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. ISBN 978-81-246-0102-0.
  4. ↑ Tribes, Karnataka (India) Legislature Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled. Report. Karnataka Legislature Secretariat.
  5. ↑ Commission, Third Karnataka Backward Classes (1990). The Justice-journey of the Karnataka Backward Classes. Government of Karnataka.
  6. ↑ Karnataka State Gazetteer: Shimoga. Director of Print., Stationery and Publications at the Government Press. 1975.
  7. ↑ General, India Office of the Registrar (1962). Census of India, 1961. Manager of Publications.
  8. ↑ Maharashtra State Gazetteers: Buldhana. Director of Government Printing, Stationery and Publications, Maharashtra State, 1976. 1976. p. 224.
  9. ↑ Singh, K. S.; India, Anthropological Survey of (1998). India's Communities. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-563354-2.
  10. ↑ Rao (1979), p. 129.
  11. ↑ Enthoven (1990), p. 368.
  12. 1 2 Feldhaus (1989), p. 101.
  13. ↑ Constable, Philip (2001). "The Marginalization of a Dalit Martial Race in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Western India". The Journal of Asian Studies. 60 (2): 439–478. doi:10.2307/2659700. JSTOR 2659700. PMID 18268829. S2CID 40219522. Retrieved 2020-11-28.
  14. ↑ Jaffrelot (2003), p. 163.
  15. ↑ commission, Great Britain Indian statutory (1930). Report of the Indian Statutory Commission ... H. M. Stationery Office. The Yadav Gavli community claims descent from the Great Yadav families to one of which Shri Krishna the eighth incarnation of Vishnu belonged.
  16. ↑ Jaffrelot (2003).
  17. ↑ Kerkar, Rajendra (2019-01-11). "Tribal tag for Dhangars long pending". Goa. Archived from the original on 24 October 2020.
  18. ↑ Dhere (2011), p. 234,238,241.
  19. ↑ Wink (2001), p. 231.
  20. ↑ Müller, Friedrich Max; Kultur-Referat, Germany (West) Botschaft India (1976). German Scholars on India: Contributions to Indian Studies. Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office.
  21. ↑ Dhere (2011), p. 237,246,247.
  22. ↑ Dhavalikar (2014), p. 274.
  23. ↑ Novetzke (2016), p. 93.

Bibliography

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