Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s2.80

v2.c27.s2.80

³ The priests of Kanhaiya, probably so called from the chob or club with which, on the annual festival, they assault the castle of Kansa, the tyrant usurper of Krishna’s birthright, who, like Herod, ordered the slaughter of all the youth of Vraj, that Krishna might not escape. These Chaubēs are most likely the Sobii of Alexander, who occupied the chief towns of the Panjab, and who, according to Arrian, worshipped Hercules (Hari-kul-es, chief of the race of Hari), and were armed with clubs. The mimic assault of Kansa’s castle by some hundreds of these robust church militants, with their long clubs covered with iron rings, is well worth seeing. [The Chaubē Brāhmans of Mathura do not take their name from Chob, ‘a club,’ but from Skt. Chaturvedin, ‘learned in the four Vedas.’ By the Sobii the Author means the Sibi or Sivaya, inhabiting a district between the Hydaspes and the Indus (McCrindle, Alexander, 366). They have no possible connexion with the Mathura Chaubēs.]