Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s1.5.3

c48.s1.5.3

It was on this basis that in the Panjāb the Jāṭ was differentiated from the Rājput, and certain castes in Oudh and its neighbourhood rose above their fellows. In other cases, the above requisites being established, the elaboration of the claim to affiliation to one of the recognised Rājput clans is left to the ingenuity of a competent Brāhman with the aid of an experienced bard or genealogist. For example, on the adoption of Brāhmanism by a large portion of the Mongoloid population of Manipur, the chief and his military retainers passed into the rank of Kṣatriya, and to the number of about 180 000, appear under that title in the last Census returns. The leading families of various Kōl tribes of Chuṭiā Nāgpur, again, are constantly, in Col. Dalton's phrase, "being refined into Rājputs" and sometimes do not wait for 'times' effacing fingers" to conceal the change, and too often ignore the essentially Rājput system of clan-exogamy in favour of their pristine tribal arrangements. There is, in fact, no section of the Brāhmanic hierarchy into which recruitment from the outside has been more extensive or to which the claims to membership have been so numerous. The latter is especially the case in the tracts where the caste system has been imposed as an exotic in comparatively modern times.