ABSTRACT
The polite term for a washerman in Bengalí is Sabhá-sundar, and is in common use among the people; but in Sanskrit it is Rajaka.
In Eastern Bengal the caste has two great divisions (`Sre]ní), Sítá, and Rámá; the former claiming to be the descendants of the washermen of Sítá, the latter of the washermen of Rámá. The two divisions eat and drink together, but never intermarry. There is only one title (Padaví) among them, _Sákalya, derived from the name of a Muní, whose sons, owing to a curse, became degraded washermen. In Dacca, moreover, they have only one gotra the Aliman.
