These industries represent a higher degree of civilisation than the village trades, and the workers may probably have been formed into castes at a later period, when the practice of the handicrafts was no longer despised.

The metal-working castes are now usually urban, and on the average their members are as well-to-do as the cultivators.

The Sunars especially include a number of wealthy men, and their importance is increased by their association with the sacred metal, gold; in some localities they now claim to be Brahmans and refuse to take food from Brahmans.

[62] The more ambitious members abjure all flesh-food and liquor and wear the sacred thread.

But in Bombay the Sunar was in former times one of the village menial castes, and here, before and during the time of the Peshwas, Sunars were not allowed to wear the sacred thread, and they were forbidden to hold their marriages in public, as it was considered unlucky to see a Sunar bridegroom.