Brewer's: Parias

or Pariahs. The lowest class of the Hindu population, below the four castes. Literally drummers, from parai, a large drum.

“The lodgers overhead may perhaps be able to take a more comprehensive view of public questions; but they are political Helots, they are the Pariahs of our constitutional Brahminism.” —The Times, March 20, 1867.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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