Out

of 200,000 Kurgs 180,000 now observe Hindu rites, 140,000 being Siva worshipers (see Kurus). Kurma. See Turtle. Kurmis. Non-Aryan Kols in India, no doubt named as worshipers of Kurma the “turtle.” We have met them in §, Oudh, Central India, Behar, and S.W. Bangal, especially near the Dammuda in the land of the Munds. They are generally quiet cultivators of the soil, and tree worshipers. They are regarded as a branch of the Kumbhis, of Gujerat and Maharashtra; they are numerous about Jabal-pir, and Sagor, along the Narbada, and in Malwa, Some tribes are very dark, and some are fair. They are recorded to have moved S. from the Duab about 1620 a.c. Like ancient Italians, Tartars, and others, they claim descent from virgin trees (as Adonis was also born, and the ancestor of Manchu emperors): they worship in sacred groves (see Col. Dalton, Hthnog. Glo . of Bengal, i); and the bride and bridegroom are each separately married, early in the morning, to mahwa, and mango, trees (see also Basivis); they are decked with garlands from the tree—the mango for the man, and the mabwa for the bride—and they walk seven or nine times round the tree, and sit at its foot, when a relation binds the right hand and ear to it, and they chew its leaves: lights are then lighted, and all present worship the tree. Kural. The great Tamil poem, See Tirnvalluvar. Kurumbas. The singular is Kurwmba, and the plural Kuwrumbar, The Dravidian name of a pastoral Yadu race, on the lower Indus, in the Abiria region of Ptolemy the geographer (see Elliot's Numism, Orient.). They covered most of the S. region of Dravidia (called sometimes Kurumba-bhimi, or “Kurumba land a) from central Kuntala to the Malabar coast, as energetic traders, mostly Jains by faith, Till recently a Kalikut state was ruled by a Kurumba, and a Taluk of Malabar is called by this name. The Kurumbas are numerous in the plains of SW. India, and in its mountains, as foresters, and Yadus or herdsmen. They are expert potters, weavers, and agriculturists, but much despised by Hindus and Moslems, though remarkably truthful. We saw much of them in remote parts of Tamil provinces, and Sir W. Elliot says that they go occasionally to Madras to sell garden produce, Throughout Maisir a Kurumba is required to turn the first furrow in the fields in spring: “the proud Toda, who exacts tribute from all other cla es, presents an offering of first fruits to the despised and hated hill Kurumba. He dreads his magical powers, and sometimes inflicts on him secretly a bloody retribution for visitations of cholera, and small pox,” which are attributed to Kurumba spells. The Kurumba is important at the festival of the village Grama-deva, or household god, the older race then taking precedence of its social superiors. Caste is ignored, for the rites are older than the Vedas; and Brahmans may be seen humbly following the dreaded Pariahs, Kurumbas, or Dhangars, who join in the bloody sacrifices, but who next day revert to their usual social status, The rulers of the Vijaya-nagar state claimed Kurumba descent (1334 to 1488 a.c.); and, in our 4th century, a Kurumba Raja declared himself independent when the extreme S.W. of India (Kerala) threw off the Chera yoke. The Kurumbas once held the E. coast, N. of the Palar river, “some hundred years before our 7th century” (Elliot, Numism. 454