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KHATRIS.
(224)

The Photograph represents members of one of the most intelligent and useful classes of Upper India. They are esteemed Hindoos of the third, or Vaisya grade, in some localities, and of the Sudra, or fourth grade, in others. Those of the third grade are invested with the sacred thread, and are therefore classed among the twice-born. Some divisions of the same class style themselves Khayet, and if there be any difference between the two sects, it is very slight. Khatris and Khayets are merchants, and scribes by profession. In the former class they are not perhaps very remarkable, because wanting in the steady, money-getting qualities which distinguish the Uggurwallas, the Jains, and other purely mercantile sects; but as the scribes of Upper India and Bengal, they are very remarkable, and in universal employ, both by our own governments, and those of native princes, and by individuals. As a class they cannot be said to possess any high degree of education; but they are excellent accountants, whether after the Persian, Hindi, or English methods, and they are able to conduct ordinary correspondence, and to act as clerks and secretaries. They are esteemed very true and faithful in all confidential transactions, and in the times of the Mahomedan emperors, were largely employed in political transactions, as well as in those of the financial and fiscal departments. Many of them rose to be ministers; but it was in administrative measures, particularly in regard to revenue, that they were most distinguished. With few exceptions, those being Mahomedans, the Khatris and Khayets conducted the financial affairs of the entire of Northern India.  They had almost a monopoly of the offices belonging to these departments, and of the offices of putwarries, or village registrars. When Brahmins would not educate themselves for employment, which involved the knowledge of Persian - to them an impure foreign tongue - the Khatris, who did qualify themselves in it, and were the only class that did so, were certain of service, whether in Government or private employ; and the same condition obtains at present, two-thirds, perhaps, of the Hindoo Government employés in the Bengal Presidency being Khatris