The men and women
who survived the slaughter fled and settled in nearby regions in Rajasthan (towns
of Udaipur, Chittor Saventa - Mewad and Marwad region) and Central India (Malwa
region and towns of Garoth,
Indore, Ujjain, Rampura,
Bhanpura....) and Nimad. It is noteworthy
that the Dashora Mahajan Community also worships the same Sati Mata Shrine
and recollects the same incident. One of the likely speculation about the
origin of the Dashora Mahajan community is that some of those who
were not able to escape far during the attack decided to relinquish their Brahmin identity (
by taking off the Jenaeu which was the symbol of being a Brahmin) and the Brahmin profession.
This group joined the local business community. There is strong
feeling in both Dashora Brahmin and Dashora Mahajan communities that
possibly there is genealogical links between the
two communities. However this can be substantiated only if if one is able to
collect genealogical info that goes back to the period before the Mandsaur
event.
Another similar event happened in in our immediate family in
Rampura where
we have our Family
Sati Mata Shrine. This
event happened at the time of annual Dashhara Prayer Ceremonies. Many
other Dashora Families have
Sati Mata Shrines specific to their family
origin in different places.
Present Day Dashora Population
Major concentration of of Dashoras is in the citys
of Indore Madhya Pradesh. It is not
clear when the Dashoras began to settle in Indore or the nearby Malwa
Region. We were born there and we have tried to capture
as many names of people originating from Indore area as we could recollect.
We also acknowledge information received from those who have helped
advance this project.
Indore is relatively newer city. It is not fully known as to when
Dashora Families actually stated living there.
The other major concentration is in the city of Udaipur Rajasthan. Nandlal
Dashora's books trace
the genealogy of (male) Dashoras settled in Udaipur and nearby areas for many generations to the
present generation with
great authenticity.
The main languages spoken by modern day Dashoras
are Hindi and English.
The Dashoras of Indore ancestry consider Malwi as their first language
whereas those with Mewad ancestry use Mewadi / Marwadi dialects of Rajasthan
as their first language. The Malwi language spoken by some of the Dashora
families with Indore ancestry includes shades of Nimadi, Gujarati and Marathi
depending upon their family migratory and professional history. Dashoras use
Sanskrit as the language for religious ceremonies and worship and are
followers of Shukla Yajurveda.
For generations Dashoras remained a closed community marrying only with other Dashoras.
This resulted in many inter-marriages although cross-breading has been carefully avoided and rare. Only in the recent generations individuals started
marrying outside the Dashora Community, The cross marriages happened first to
other Nagar Brahmins then to other Brahmin communities and
other Hindus. Even now relatively extremely few people have married to persons of
other religions, faiths and cultures. However, now, in the 21st century members of
the Extended Dashora Community are spread all over the
globe.
To this generation, Dashoras have retained a sense of community. They support each other.
Most of them are ethical, religious, peaceful, nonviolent, selfless, honest, simple
living, middle class, dedicated hard working individuals engaged in
a variety of white collar and intellectual
professions. They are trust worthy and respected by the society around them. They believe in superiority of moral and spiritual values over
material riches.
