Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I, Part I: History of Gujarat c8.62

c8.62

as late as the twelfth century, and further is the North Indian name [Rathor] not tribal but derived from the title head of a district. Several considerations make both of these solutions unlikely if not impossible. First there is the remarkably widespread existence of the name Rahtor, Ratha, or Ratti, and endless variations of these names, in almost all parts of the Panjab, among all castes from the Brahman to the Chamar, and in religions Musalman, Sikh, Jain, and Brahmanic.¹ No doubt the practice of a waxing tribe adopting the name of a waning tribe has always been common. No doubt also the fame of the name during the last 600 years must have tempted other tribes to style themselves Rathor. Still it is to be noted that (Ibbetson, page 259) variations of the Panjab though widespread are not numerous; and second that the list of such names has this merit that with a few exceptions the holders of the names are not known by it but by some general or craft name. The evidence of this inter-caste tribal name seems therefore to support the view that some very early tribe in the Panjab population represents an important tribe or nation of which we have some residual and perhaps the higher class Rajputs of Kangra and Chamba (pages 249 and 251) and from some connection with whom the Marwar Rathors of the thirteenth century may have taken their name. Among other traces of non-Aryan Rashtras in the middle ages may be mentioned the twelfth and thirteenth century Rashtrakutas of Badaun in the North-West Provinces (E. Thomas in *Journal R. Asiatic Soc.*, I. 51 and 52) and (A.D. 1150) in the Kumarapala Charitra (Forbes' *Râs Mâlâ*, 1878) the mention of Rashtra-kuta near the Sivalik hills. Among other and more doubtful references are the Arattas whom probably correctly (indeed from time A.D. 247 one main trade route to Central Asia passed up the Indus) the author of the *Periplus* (McCrindle, 120) places between Ablaris or lower Sindh and Arachosia or south-east Afghanistan that is in north Sindh or south Panjab. Another and still more doubtful reference is Pliny's (A.D. 77) Oraturs (Hist. Nat. VI. 53) who in V. de St. Martin (Geog. Grecque et Latine de l'Inde, 303) is identified with the Rathors. The fact that while claiming descent from Rama the Marwar Rathors (Tod's *Annals*, II. 2 etc.) preserved the legend that their founder was Shes-naga from the northern city of Kanauj supports the view that the tribe to which they belonged was one of non-Indian or Central Asian origin, and that this is the tribe of which we remain in the Rathi Rajputs of the Kangra hill country and less purely in the Wattu, Rathi, Rara, Rattas, and Ratis of the Panjab plains. The examples among Panjab caste names for Arora (Ibbetson's 1881 Census, page 297), Har or Har-Tinan, (236-275), and Hari for Aheri (Ditto, 310) suggest that the Panjab Rathors or Rattas may be the ancient Arattas whom the Mahabharata (Chap. XLIV. Karn. P. J. R. Soc. VII. Pt. 1. 387 and Vivien de St. Martin Geog. Grecque et Latine de l'Inde, 149) ranks with Prasthalas, Madras, and Gandharas, Panjab and frontier tribes whose identification with the Rathors (Karnatravan, 20838) rests on probability, a common Central Asian origin. Remembering that the evidence (Rathors Chapter, pages 23 and 33) favours the view that the Kshatrapa family who ruled the Panjab between A.D. 70 and A.D. 78 were of the same tribe as Sahasanka, and also that Shahi is so favourite a prefix in Samudra Gupta's (A.D. 280) list of Panjab tribes, the suggestion may be offered that Rishabrata is the earlier form of Shah-ratra and is the tribe of foreigners afterwards known in the Panjab as Ratta and of which traces survive in the present widespread tribal names Rata, Rathi, Ratha, and Rathor.