Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s1.5.4

c48.s1.5.4

In Lower Bengal, for instance, such claims are remarkably frequent, and this is attributed to the adoption of the ready-made caste-system by a number of different racial stocks without its graduation being authoritatively regulated by a powerful Chief under the guidance of a council of influential Brāhmans. In Madras, again, caste was engrafted upon an already well-established civilisation to which it had to accommodate itself according to circumstances. In the former, therefore, the Rājput, except as before stated in Bihār, is redolent of the local soil, and takes rank therefore below certain other castes which have come to the front under the peaceful conditions of a Province where arms have long succumbed to the tongue and pen. These classes, therefore, do not lay claim to the title of Rājput, but to that of Kṣatriya, implying a position less definite and less likely to be disputed by existing communities. Similarly in the South, whither the Rājput never penetrated, unless it might be in the form of representatives of more or less evanescent dynasties, the rank of Kṣatriya is claimed almost exclusively by members of the labouring and toddy-drawing castes, who justify their pretensions by the undisputed fact that their ancestry furnished the rank and file of the archers and other infantry of the local potentate.