[1] Traditionally located outside the four-tier ritual varna system, the Poundras have been historically subject to acute discrimination — including untouchability — and remain a marginal group in modern Bengal.
[4][b] The Brahma Vaivarta Purana, notable for a very late Bengali recension c. 14/15th century, records "Paundrakas" to be the son of a Vaisya father and Sundini mother but it is unknown if the groups are connected.
In his 1891 survey of castes, Herbert Hope Risley documented the Pods to be a branch of the Chandala; they were subject to untouchability by the Brahmins as well as the Navasakhas.
[1] In the late nineteenth century, two influential members of the Pod community — Benimadhab Halder and Srimanta Naskar — produced numerous tracts of caste history, as was a common feature of that time.
Arguing a descent from the "Poundras" — mentioned across a spectrum of Brahminical literature — they sought to establish the Pods as Kshatriyas, thereby removing the stigma of untouchability.