Deshastha Brahmin - Demographics

Demographics

Brahmins constitute 4 percent of the population of Maharahstra, and 60 percent of them are Deshastha Brahmins. The valleys of the Krishna and the Godavari rivers, and the plateaus of the Sahyadri hills, are collectively called the Desha – the original home of the Deshastha Brahmins. Traditional social studies and recent genetic studies show Deshastha Brahmin to be ethnically indistinguishable from the population of Maharashtra. In his report on the 1901 census, Sir Herbert Hope Risley classified many castes from Western India including Maratha Brahman and Kunbis as belonging to the Scytho-Dravidian type.

The Deshastha Brahmins are equally distributed all through the state of Maharashtra, ranging from villages to urban areas. Marathi speaking Deshastha can also be found in large numbers outside Maharashtra such as in the cities of Indore, Gwalior, Baroda and Thanjavur, which were a part of or were influenced by, the Maratha Empire. The Deshastha Brahmins of Baroda are immigrants who came from the Desh for State service during the rule of Gaekwads.

The military settlers (of Tanjavur) included both Brahmans and Marathas, and by reason of their isolation from their distant home, the sub-divisions which separated these castes in their mother-country were forgotten, and they were all welded together under the common name of Deshasthas. Today's Marathi speaking Thanjavur population are descendants of the Marathi speaking immigrants who immigrated to Tamil Nadu in the 17th and 18th centuries. The isolation from their homeland has almost made them culturally alien to Brahmins in Maharahstra. For example, Thanjavur Marathi is better understood by a Tamilian than a Maharashtrian in Pune. Though inter-marriages between Madhwa Deshastha Brahmins and Smartha Deshastha Brahmins of Tanjavur are common, both these sub-groups do not inter-marry with the Kshatriya Marathas of Tanjavur. However, Madhwa Deshastha Brahmins and Smartha Deshastha Brahmins of Tanjavur inter-marry with Madhwa Kannada Brahmins and Smartha Kannada Brahmins. In 2000, a 90-year old community member estimated that there had been 500 Marathi families in a particular neighbourhood of Tanjavur in 1950, of which only 50 remained in 2000.