Tirtha Purohits तीर्थ पुरोहित

Akhil Bharatiya Tirth Purohit Mahasabha

All India

Said to speak for about 30,000 panda families. Current activity unverified.

Bengal kulajis

West Bengal

Genealogies written by ghataks, held as the property of a subcaste. Ghataks revised them to serve their own ends, and the tradition faded after the mid-20th century.

Bhats (vahi keepers)

भाट

Rajasthan

Bhats keep vahis for Rajasthani and Punjabi families and visit them at home. Komal Kothari's photographs of their vahis are in the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme, with the originals at Rupayan Sansthan.

Brahmin sasan villages of Puri

Puri, Odisha

Sixteen Brahmin sasan villages founded around Puri act as the Odia equivalent of a family's village of origin.

Chintpurni, Jawalamukhi and Jawalapur pandas

Himachal Pradesh

Pandas at the Himachal shrines of Chintpurni and Jawalamukhi, and at Jawalapur near Haridwar, keep records for hill and Punjabi families.

Chitpavan kulavruttanta books

Maharashtra

Chitpavan families publish kulavruttanta books: about 55 of them, covering 47 kulas.

Deoghar (Baidyanath) pandas

Deoghar, Jharkhand

Pandas at Baidyanath serve pilgrims from Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Gangaputra pandas of Kashi

Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

The earliest dated bahi cited anywhere is a Kashi register of 1665. Kashi priests are named in the National Archives pothi project announced in February 2025, which had no public interface by November 2026.

Gayawal pandas, Vishnupad

गयावाल पंडा

Gaya, Bihar

Gaya is the main funerary tirtha for Bihar and eastern India. The Gayawal priests follow the Uttaradi Math. Counts of Gayawal families range from 125 to over 250.

Gokarna Mahabaleshwar upadhivantas

Gokarna, Uttara Kannada, Karnataka

The hereditary priests of Gokarna. Two sit on the committee the Supreme Court appointed to run the temple.

Haridwar panda bahis

हरिद्वार पंडा बही

Haridwar, Uttarakhand

Pandas at Haridwar keep hereditary bahis of their client families from across North India, including families from districts now in Pakistan. Each firm covers particular states, districts and villages. The Shri Ganga Sabha, founded in 1916, speaks for about 2,500 panda families.

Helavaru

ಹೆಳವರು

Karnataka

Singing genealogists who recite lineages for patron households in about ten districts of north Karnataka and Maharashtra. Courts have accepted their records in partition suits.

Jagas

Rajasthan

Genealogists who serve Rajput, Gurjar and Meena families.

Kamakhya pandas

Guwahati, Kamrup Metropolitan, Assam

Kamakhya's pandas keep a genealogical register of devotee families, through the registered Kamakhya Panda and Purohit Samaj.

Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri purohits

Uttarakhand

Tirtha purohits at the four Char Dham shrines, including the Devprayag pandas of Badrinath. The Teerth Purohit Samaj Shri Kedarnath speaks for the Kedarnath priests. Some Kedarnath records were lost in the 2013 flood.

Kurukshetra and Pehowa pandas

Kurukshetra, Haryana

Pandas at Kurukshetra and Pehowa serve Punjabi families from both sides of the border. Pehowa is the tirtha for rites after an untimely death.

Maithil Panji, Saurath Sabha

पञ्जी

Saurath, Madhubani, Bihar

Panjikars record each family's founding ancestor, mool (ancestral village) and gotra, and check seven paternal and six maternal generations before a marriage. Digitisation began in 2017 and families resisted it. One panjikar's records are on FamilySearch.

Mattan and Pahalgam registers

Anantnag, Jammu and Kashmir

Kashmiri Pandit registers kept at Mattan and Pahalgam, active before the insurgency.

Nashik Ramkund purohits

Nashik, Maharashtra

Purohits at Ramkund. The Ganga Godavari Panchkothi Purohit Sangh spoke for them in 2016.

Pandharpur

Pandharpur, Solapur, Maharashtra

The hereditary rights of the Badve and Utpat priests ended under a 1973–74 Act, upheld by the Supreme Court in 2014. Whether family registers survive is not documented.

Prayagwal pandas

प्रयागवाल पंडा

Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh

Pandas at the Sangam. Each panda lineage flies its own hereditary flag (nishan), and families find their panda by the flag.

Puri sevaks and pandas

Puri, Odisha

About 8,000 sevaks in about 1,200 families served the Jagannath temple in 2015. How their client registers are indexed is not documented.

Pushkar, Dwarka, Mathura, Vrindavan, Ayodhya and Patna

All India

Tirthas listed as register sites, with no further detail found.

Rameswaram purohits

Rameswaram, Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu

Priests who perform tarpanam at Rameswaram, the only South Indian tirtha in lists of register sites.

Siddhpur (Matru Gaya)

Siddhpur, Patan, Gujarat

The tirtha for rites for one's mother. Registers not documented.

Sri Kasi Nattukottai Nagara Satram

Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

A lodge for Nagarathar and Tamil pilgrims in Varanasi, founded in 1813 or 1863.

Trimbakeshwar purohits

Trimbak, Nashik, Maharashtra

Purohits at Trimbakeshwar serve pilgrims from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Andhra. A Purohit Sangh's own claims about itself are unverified.

Ujjain tirtha purohits

Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh

Ujjain's priests agreed to add their records to the National Archives pothi project; only the announcement has appeared.

Vahivancha Barots

વહીવંચા બારોટ

Gujarat

Genealogists of Gujarat whose books go back to 1740. Their occupation is described as close to extinction.

Vansh Lekhak Akademi

Rajasthan

A body of genealogists. One Kota member keeps Dhakad and Malav records about 300 years deep, and a Madhya Pradesh district court used such records in a 2023 property case.

Vindhya Panda Samaj

Vindhyachal, Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh

The pandas of Vindhyachal, who run the daily arrangements at Vindhyavasini with the district.