142 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
form of the conclusion that is sought to be derived from it. In the first place, there are indications that this custom of burying the dead is not original. But the original custom among the Mahars was to burn the dead seems to be supported by the fact that even though the Mahars bury the dead they still carry with them to the cemetery cinders and burning coal in an earthen pot along with the corpse.
There must have been some purpose for such an act and there could be no conceivable purpose except to use the fire for burning the dead. Why the custom of burning the dead gave place among the Mahars to the custom of burying the dead, it is difficult to give a precise reason. But it seems that the burying of the dead was a custom which was enforced upon the Mahars at some later date when the Mahars had become fallen in the status and classed as Untouchables. Considerable support can be found for this view from what the Padma-Puran contains. It is stated in the Padma-Puran that certain communities were prevented from burning their dead because burning the dead was a privilege of the three regenerate classes. If this is correct then the custom of burying the dead could not outweigh the everwhelming evidence which goes to show that the Mahars are not aboriginals and they might as well have been in times past part of the Marathas by race and Kshatriyas by status.
II
Why do they live outside the Village ?
It is notorious that the Mahars live outside the village. This is a fact which it is difficult to sense at any rate for foreigners for the reason that the village is generally built on an open site without any indication of its boundaries. But two things demonstrate incontrovertibly that the Mahars are reckoned as being outside the village. Every villager makes a distinction between the village as such and the Maharwada meaning thereby that the Mahar-Wada, that is to say the settlement of the Mahars is not within what is meant by the village. A more occular demonstration is afforded wherever village has its wall. Wherever a village has had a well known in vernacular as ‘Gavkus’ it will be noticed that the settlement of the Mahars is always outside the wall. Now this fact read in the light of what has been said in this paper in connection