Deva-dasi.--In old Hindu works, seven classes of Dasis are mentioned, viz., (1) Datta, or one who gives herself as a gift to a temple; (2) Vikrita, or one who sells herself for the same purpose; (3) Bhritya, or one who offers herself as a temple servant for the prosperity of her family; (4) Bhakta, or one who joins a temple out of devotion; (5) Hrita, or one who is enticed away, and presented to a temple; (6) Alankara, or one who, being well trained in her profession, and profusely decked, is presented to a temple by kings and noblemen; (7) Rudraganika or Gopika, who receive regular wages from a temple, and are employed to sing and dance. For the following general account I am indebted to the Madras Census Report, 1901:-- "Dasis or Deva-dasis (handmaidens of the gods) are dancing-girls attached to the Tamil temples, who subsist by dancing and music, and the practice of 'the oldest profession in the world.' The Dasis were probably in the beginning the result of left-handed unions between members of two different castes, but they are now partly recruited by admissions, and even purchases, from other classes. The profession is not now held in the consideration it once enjoyed. Formerly they enjoyed a considerable social position. It is one of the many inconsistencies of the Hindu religion that, though their profession is repeatedly and vehemently condemned by the Shastras, it has always received the countenance of the church. The rise of the caste, and its euphemistic name, seem both of them to date from about the ninth and tenth centuries A.D., during which much activity prevailed in Southern India in the matter of building temples, and elaborating the services held in them. The dancing-girls' duties, then as now, were to fan the idol with chamaras (Tibetan ox tails), to carry the sacred light called kumbarti, and to sing and dance before the god when he was carried in procession. Inscriptions [55] show that, in A.D. 1004, the great temple of the Chola king Rajaraja at Tanjore had attached to it four hundred talic' cheri pendugal, or women of the temple, who lived in free quarters in the four streets round about it, and were allowed tax-free land out of the endowment. Other temples had similar arrangements. At the beginning of the last century there were a hundred dancing-girls attached to the temple at Conjeeveram, who were, Buchanan tells us, [56] 'kept for the honour of the deities and the amusement of their votaries; and any familiarity between these girls and an infidel would occasion scandal.' At Madura, Conjeeveram, and Tanjore there are still numbers of them, who receive allowances from the endowments of the big temples at these places. In former days, the profession was countenanced not only by the church, but also by the State. Abdur Razaak, a Turkish ambassador at the court of Vijayanagar in the fifteenth century, describes [57] women of this class as living in State-controlled institutions, the revenue