Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c11.s3.12

c11.s3.12

The two works just mentioned, as well as other contemporaneous ones, designate the writers also by the term *kāyastha*, which first occurs in the Yājñavalkya-Smṛti, 1, 335, and even at present is common in Northern and Eastern India. The Kāyasthas, however, form a strictly separate caste, which, though according to the Brahmanical account it is mixed with Sūdra blood, yet claims a high rank,³ and in reality frequently has possessed a great political influence. In the inscriptions, the Kāyasthas occur since the 8th century, first in the Kaṇasva inscription of A. D. 738-39 from Rājputāna.⁴