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History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c8.s1: Note: Jats, Gujars and Marathas.

History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c8.s1

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Note: Jats, Gujars and Marathas.

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The question whether Jats, Gujars and Marathas are Aryan or Seythian is strangely enough still being controverted. It admits, however, according to our view of one solution only viz., that they cannot but be Aryans. This view is based chiefly on anthropometrical considerations and it is also supported by history. It is indeed strange that even after the publication of Sir H. Risley's views based on anthropometric measurements taken at the Census of India in 1901 their origin should still be a matter of controversy. Those measurements clearly show that the noses of Jats and Gujars are distinctly fine and that their heads are long. It is sometimes argued by Sir H. Risley's opponents that noses might be made fine and heads may be lengthened by manupulation. But this argument cuts off the very ground from under the feet of the science of Anthropometry. If noses could be made fine very few people in India would have had flat noses, for fine noses are prized all over the country and even by the Dravidians. It is because noses and heads cannot be manupulated and have an ineradicable tendency to persist in different races, that anthropometry has any value as a science. We will, therefore, detail the anthropometrical argument first and then see whether history supports or contradicts the inferences derivable from it.

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The following remarks of Sir H. Risley in his Census Report for 1901 (p. 498) are pertinent in this connection. "The broad nose of the Negro or the Dravidian is his most striking feature. This broad type of the nose is most common in Madras, the Central Provinces and Chota Nagpore. Fine noses are confined to the Panjab and Rajputana, while the population of the rest of India tends to fall in the medium class. The pastoral Gujars of the Panjab have an index of 66·9, the Sikhs of 68·9 and the Bengal Brahmins and Kayasthas 70, while the average nasal proportions of the Māl Pahāria type are expressed by the figure 94·5. In other words the typical Dravidian as represented by the Māl Pahāria has a nose as broad in proportion to its length as the Negro; while this feature in the Indo-Aryan group can fairly bear comparison with the noses of 68 Parisians measured by Topinard which gave an average of 69·4."

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From this passage we clearly see that while the people of the Panjab and Rajputana are unquestionably Aryan by race, those of the Bombay Presidency including the Marathas, and of Bengal and the U.P. are distinctly so. And the Gujars of the Panjab stand first with regard to the fineness of the nose their index (66·9) being lower than that of even the Parisians. And yet the Gujars are looked upon by some as Scythians. The similarity of sound has often misled antiquarians into strange theories and the attempt to identify the Gujars with the Khizar is not less strange than the now generally abandoned identification of the Jats with the Gætæ. It is here that anthropometry and also history should step in to correct such wrong identification, That they do serve to dispel such misconception in the case of Jats and Gujars we have not the smallest doubt. The Jats are distinctly included by Sir H. Risley among the Indo-Aryans as their "type approaches most closely to that ascribed to the traditional Aryan colonists of India viz. heads long and noses narrow and prominent but not specially long." (Census R. 1901 p. 500.) Their stature is also tall, and their complexion is fair and as Nesfield has observed if appearance goes for anything, the Jats could not but be Aryans." The case of the Gujars also falls in the same category, They are men with finest noses in India and with long heads and tall statures. They are no doubt dark in complexion but complexion does not count much in the determination of race. "The most important points to be observed in the Indo-Aryan series of measurements are the great uniformity of type, and the very slight differences between the higher and lower groups." And this type is so persistent that the Jats and the Gujars wherever they are found present the same characteristics of head, nose and stature and even complexion. Under these circumstances ethnologically speaking the Jats and the Gujars are decidedly Aryan in race and similarity of sound in names ought not to mislead us into believing them to be descendants of the Gætæ or Khizars who were undoubtedly Mongolian in race.

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The Marathas present less distinctive characteristics, yet they must be classed among the Aryo-Dravidians and not as Scytho-Dravidian as Sir H. Risley strangely enough has done. Their heads are broad; but the head is not the determining factor in the assignment of race. The Mongols have indeed broad heads but some of the Aryan races too have broad heads such as the Celts. The Census Report for 1911 expresses a doubt as to the conclusion of Sir H. Risley that the Marathas are Scythians and adverts to the opinion of ethnologists that they are probably descendants of Alpine Aryans. (Haddon, Wanderings of people) The second race of Aryan invaders of India who principally settled in the U.P. and the Deccan appear to have been Aryans with broad heads. Otherwise it is impossible to explain the medium heads of the people of the U.P. who are looked upon by Sir H. Risley as Aryo-Dravidians. The Dravidians have long heads and if they mixed with the first race of Aryan invaders with long heads who are to be found in the Panjab and Rajputana the mixture of these races, both with long heads, cannot lead to medium heads. We have, therefore, perforce to hold that the second horde of Aryans who came into the U. P. and who mixed themselves with the Dravidian people there were Aryans with broad heads.

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The head, however, as we have said above and as has been observed by Sir H. Risley himself, is not the most distinctive sign of race. The feature most distinctive of race is the nose. The nose distinguishes the Aryan both from the Dravidian and the Mongolian types. The fine nose of the Aryan is distinct from the broad nose of the Dravidian and the flat nose of the Scythian. The flatness of the Scythian or Mongolian face strikes every observer as the root of the nose does not appreciably rise above the level of the eyes. To measure this rise the orbito-nasal index has been invented by anthropometrists and this index has been used, at Sir William Fowler's suggestion; especially where there is reason to suspect intermixture with the Mongolian type. (Census Report 1901 p. 497). To determine, therefore, if the Marathas have any Scythian or Mogolian blood in them we have to look to this index. Let us see what the indices are in this connection. The flat-faced Mongolians are called platyopic, their index being below 110 Those who have indices between 110 and 112.9 are called mesopic, while those whose index is 113 or above are called pro-opic. The last can have no mixture with Mongolian blood. Now all the members of the Indo-Aryan type are placed by their high averages in the pro-opic group (Census Report for 1901 page 602) and thus it is impossible that the Jats and the Gujars can have any Mongolian blood in them. The case of the Marathas apparently presents some difficulty. Their orbito-nasal index is medium, that is they are mesopic and hence it is difficult to decide whether they have Scythian blood in their veins. For this mesopic nature of their nose may as well be due to mixture with Dravidian blood.* Moreover Aryan characteristics do tend to assert themselves in the Marathas whenever their position unproves as may be observed by every careful observer. the nose getting finer and higher at the bridge. We have treated of this subject at greater length in our book "Epic India" and it is sufficient to further remark here that the Census Report for 1911 has given up the classification of Marathas by Sir H. Risley as Scytho-Dravidians and tends to treat them as Aryo-Dravidians i. e. born of mixture of a broad-headed Aryan type with the Dravidian type.

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Historial considerations, we will now go on to show, support the conclusions thus far set forth on anthropometrical grounds, especially with regard to the doubtful case of the Marathas. The materials for constructing the ancient history of the Marathas are ample and trustworthy. They have already been put together by noted scholars like Sir R. G. Bhandarkar and others. The foremost observation to make is the fact that the Aryans did enter into and settle in the Deccan long before the beginning of the Christain era, is universally accepted by all scholars. On the other hand, history tells us that the Śakas or Scythians invaded the Deccan in the first century A. D. and that their stay in the Deccan was limited to about 25 years only, being finally driven away by Sātavāhana Gautamī-putra of Paithana. If this is so how can the people of the Deccan be Scytho-Dravidian? How is it that the Aryans who settled in the province long before the Scythians came have left no trace of their blood in the population? That they settled here is a fact which can not be gainsaid. The history of this settlement of the Deccan by the Aryans is given by Sir R. Bhandarkar as follows: "The first and the oldest Aryan province in the southern country was Vidarbha or Berar. The Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata show that Vidarbha was inhabited when Daṇḍakāraṇya or Mahārāṣṭra proper was a forest". (Bhandarkar's History of the Deccan page 314.) It may be added that the people who settled in Vidarbha were called Bhoja, that Damayantī was the daughter of a Bhoja king and that Nala when showing, in the Mahābhārata, to Damayantī the way to her father's country, distinctly points to Berars.

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∗ In fact as the Dravidians are not pro-opic, their mixture with Scythians cannot lead to the Mesopic nature of the Maratha nose. If at all the Marathas should have been treated by Sir H. Risley as Scytho-Aryans. As already shown with regard to the head Sir H. Risley was misled with regard to the Marathas apparently owing to his prejudice against them. observable in his remarks about them in the Census Report (1901).

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The Aryans hereafter settled in the Daṇḍakāraṇya or Mahārāṣṭra proper the chief river of which is the Godavari. The original inhabitants being few, the language of the new settlers became the language of the people generally though in a corrupt or Prākrit form. As the country to the south of the Krishna was more populously inhabited by Dravidians, it became the boundary, so to speak, of the Aryan settlement as also of the Aryan language. Bands of settlers no doubt penetrated further south down to Cape Comorin and impressed their Aryan civilization and religion on the people but being few they could not impose their language upon them. On the contrary they adopted the language of the people there and even some of their customs. This in a nutshell is the account of the Aryan advance into the south. The Deccan being originally a forest and being settled principally by people of the Aryan race became Aryan in population and in speech while the portion to the south of the Krishna remained Dravidian in population and speech, a fact which squares in exactly with the ethnological aspect of the two parts of the southern peninsula.

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The date of this settlement of the Aryans in the Deccan is placed by Sir R. Bhandarkar in about the 7th Century B. C. on incontrovertible grounds, especially on the fact that while places to the south of the Vindhya are not mentioned by Pāṇini they are added by Kātyāyana in his Vārtikas. We come to still firmer ground when we come to the inscriptions of Aśoka of the 3rd century B.C. as they distinctly mention the Rāstikas the Pettanikas and the Aparantas. The last is Northern Konkan and its then capital was Śūrpāraka. (It may be added that Buddhistic sacred books speak of Śūrpāraka and Paithana even before this time). Pettanikas are the people of Paithana or Pratiṣṭhāna and Rāstikas are the Rāṣṭrikas, who are clearly the ancestors of the modern Marathas. Aśoka's inscriptions also speak of the Bhojas. Now as the Kuden inscription speaks of Mahābhojas also, in the same way the Rāshtrikas must have spoken of themselves as Mahārāshtrikas and the country in which they lived came to be called Mahārāshtra. "Thus a hundred years before Patanjali, the whole of the southern peninsula was in direct communication with the north. Mahārāshtra or Deccan had kingdoms governed by Rattas and Bhojas."

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These Aryan settlers in Berar and the Deccan were Aryans of the Lunar race i. e. of the second race of Aryan invaders who came through the Gangetic basin and who principally occupied the hot lands of the Madhyadeśa to the south of the Ganges and the Jumna. We have this tradition preserved in the story of Śrīkrishna given in the Harivamśa which is certainly the oldest Purāna extant. The Harivamśa says that when Śrīkrishna fled from Mathura against the threatened invasion of the city by Jarāsandha he was asked to go to the four countries in the Deccan which were founded by four sons of Yadu. These four sons of Yadu by Nāga wives it is said had founded four kingdoms one in Māhishmatī, another on the tableland of Sahyādri, a third in Banavāsi and the fourth in Ratnapura on the southernmost sea. This tradition clearly indicates that the people who settled in the Deccan and southwards along the west coast were people born of Aryan fathers and Dravidian mothers. With regard to the Bhojas of Berar, the Mahābhārata says that Rukmī was king of the Dākshinātyas and was a Bhoja king. Thus Puranic tradition clearly indicates that the Bhojas and the Rattas were born of Aryans of the Lunar race. Foreign evidence also substantiates the same theory. In the Periplus, this part of the country is described as Ariake or the country of the Aryas, a name given probably on set purpose to distinguish it from Damarike i. e. the country of the Dravidians immediately to the south of it.

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We are not concerned here with the political history of Mahārāshtra which we will detail in the next book but we may advert to it in a general way in order to show how this tradition of the Bhojas and Rattas being descended from Aryans and Aryans of the lunar race continued to be entertained among the people down to the 7th century A.D. In the time of Agnimitra (2nd Century B.C.) Vidarbha was ruled by Mādhava Sena and Yajna Sena names clearly Aryan and Kshatriya. From the 2nd century B. C. to the 3rd century A. D. Mahārāshtra was ruled by the Sātavahanas who called themselves Āndhrabhrityas but the people were called Rattas and Maharāthīs as inscriptions of their time testify. After these Āndhrabhrityas who themselves were Aryo-Dravidians as we shall show hereafter, the Rāshtrikas again asserted their independence and it seems certain that from the 3rd century A. D. down to the 6th Rāshtrakūta kings ruled in the Deccan, for the Chālukyas in their inscriptions say that they established their power by conquering a Rāshṭrakūṭa. Now the Rāshṭrakūṭas are in inscriptions represented as descendants of Sātyaki, a Yadava well-known in the Purāṇas, while the Jādhavas or Yādavas represent themselves as descendants of Srīkṛishṇa himself. Thus the two leading Maratha families who ruled Mahārāshtra entertained the tradition that they were Yādavas. Hence it may be said that the Marathas by long tradition believed themselves to be Aryans by descent.

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Sir R. G. Bhandarkar in his history of the Deccan says the same thing. "We have seen from cave inscriptions," says he, "that from remote times, tribes of Kshatriyas calling themselves Bhojas and Rāshṭrikas or Rattis were predominent in the country. In the northern part of the Deccan they called themselves Mahārathis. But in other parts the name was Rattis, since we know that many modern chiefs of the Southern Maratha Country call themselves Raṭṭis. Some of these tribes must have called themselves, Rāshṭrakūṭa. The Rāshṭrakūṭa family was in all likelihood the main branch of the Kshatriyas who gave their name to the country and who were found in it even in the time of Aśoka (P. 62.) "The Rāshṭrakūṭas," Sir Bhandarkar goes on to add "the real native rulers of the country were sometimes eclipsed by enterprizing princes of foreign origin such as the Sātavāhanas and the Chālukyas." We have already adverted to the Sātavāhanas and they were from Andhra and therefore foreign to Mahārāshtra, but they were Aryo-Dravidians as we shall show and we may now on to see who the Chālukyas were. These too appear of foreign origin, but they were Aryans and Sir R. Bhandarkar by foreign merely means foreign to Mahārāshtra.

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The Chālukyas ruled principally form Badāmi in the Southern Maratha Country but they were not Dravidians; they were pure Aryans from the north and belonged to the solar race of Ayodhya. This tradition has been preserved by Bilhaṇa in the Vikramānkadevacharita and is also mentioned in the inscriptions of the Eastern Chālukyas. Hiuen Tsang clearly says that Pulakeshin II whom he visited was a Kshatriya and belonged to the Mahārāshtra country. The inscriptions of these Chālukyas themselves state that they were born in the Mānavya gotra and were Hāritīputras. What Hāritīputras meant we will try to elucidate when we come to their political history, but the Mānavya-gotra indicates the tradition that they belonged to the Solar race. The Chālukyas of the north are represented by Chanda bard of Prithvirāja as belonging to the Agnikula. The theory of Chanda about Agnikulas has been proved to be unfounded (we believe that the Rāsā itself is misunderstood on this point as we shall have to show in our next volume) and that the four Agnikula families really belong to other races the only Agnikula family being the Paramārs with the Vasishta gotra. For the Chālukyas of Mahārāshtra are shown in inscriptions to have married into the Rāshṭrakūṭa family. In a grant of Danlidurga of the Rāṣṭrakūta family (J. B. R. A. S. Vol. II) it is said that the queen of Indra belonged to the Lunar race on the mother's side and to the Shalikya race on the father's (राज्ञी सोमान्वयी तस्य पितृश्च शलिक्यजा ). This opposition indicates the fact that the Chālukyas were looked upon as belonging to the Solar race. The eastern Chālukyas represented themselves as born of the Lunar race. Whether they belonged or not to the Lunar race it is certain that inscriptions of date earlier than Chand show that they were not looked upon as Agnikulas which affords to some a ground to believe that they were foreigners admitted into the Kshatriya caste by purification in fire. Chālukyas are in our view clearly Aryans and of the Solar race.

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It is remarkable indeed that this tradition of race is still preserved among the Marathas of even modern days. It is well-known that the 96 kulis of Marathas believe in three vanśas viz., Soma, Surya, Śesha plainly proving that the Marathas are Aryo-Dravidians, and not Scytho-Dravidians. Now strangely enough the Chālukyas or Chalakes who are still one of the leading Maratha families are still assigned to the Suryavamśa, see the noted pothi issued from Kolhapur and called क्षात्रवंशसागर or मराठा शाहाण्णव कुळी. Now another Maratha family viz., the Kadams who are plainly the Kadambas of ancient inscriptions assigned in them to the same मानव्य gotra as the Chālukyas (Ind. Ants VI page 24) are also assigned to the Suryavamśa in the above book of the modern Marathas. These facts prove that these 96 families' traditions of the Marathas are not imaginary productions but are supported by inscriptional records which go back to the fifth and sixth centuries A. D. According to both of them the Chālukyas and the Kadambas are Solar race Kshatriyas while the Jādhavas and the Rāṣṭrakūtas (Ratakute in the modern Maratha books represented by भाळे, खण्डाराळे &c., see क्षात्रवंश सागर page 45) are believed to be Lunar race Kshatriyas.

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History and tradition, therefore, does not contradict the inference drawn from the features of the Marathas that they are Aryo-Davidians. There can be no Scythian blood in their veins and their Aryan blood is prominent. Sir R.G. Bhandarkar has shown that the ancient Aryans settled and founded kingdoms in Mahārāshtra, that there was one incursion of the Scythian or Śakas about the beginning of the Christian era but within a few years Gautamīputra defeated and drove them away and ‘left no rumnant of the race of Khagārāta’. Inscriptional records of the Chālukyās, the Rāṣṭrakūtas and the Yādavas show that they belonged to the Solar or Lunar races of Kshatriyas, and the modern representatives of these Maratha families the Jādhavas, the Chālkes or Salankhis, the Kadams, the Bhaleraos and others still maintain the same tradition of race We are justified in holding that a tradition continuing after so many centuries must be accepted and it proves in our view indisputably that the Marathas are Aryans. If there is any mixture in their blood it is of the original people belonging to the Nāga vamśa or the Dravidian race.

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We will now pass on to consider how far the history of the Gujars contradicts the inference drawn from their physical characteristics viz., that they must be treated unquestionably as Aryans. A great deal of unhistorical bias has confused historians on this point and has misled them to consider them as foreigners and Mongolians. There is no doubt that historically speaking the word Gujar or Gurjara occurs from about the 7th century A. D. and prominently in the work of Bāṇa and Hiuen Tsang. The former mentions them as being conquered by Prabhākaravardhana, much in the same way as he conquered the Huns; while the latter mentions two Gurjara kingdoms one in Rajputana at Bhinmāl and the other at Broach From this, historians suddenly jump to the conclusion that the Gujars were foreigners who came into India along with the Huns in about the 6th century. (V. Smith E. H. 3rd Edn. pages 322 and 412). But Smith is candid enough to admit that the Gurjaras are believed to have entered India either along with or soon after the White Huns and to have settled in large numbers in Rajputana, but that there is nothing to show what part of Asia they came from or to what race they belonged (p. 412). If there is no mention any where in history as to where from, when and whether the Gujars came into India from outside, why should historians have believed that they came at all from outside? It seems that this is merely a suggestion made by bias and in defiance of the ethnological argument which clearly proves that the Gujars belong to the Aryan race.

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But the bias has so far predominantly acted on Sir Vincent Smith's views in spite of the above can did statement, as to make him observe elsewhere that the Parihar Rajas of Kanauj were the descendants of 'barbarian' foreign immigrants into Rajputana in the fifth or sixth century and first cousins of the Gujars, a theory of Mr. D. R. Bhandarkar elucidated in his article on the "Foreign elements in the Hindu population" in Indian Antiquary Vol. XL. in which he puts forth the suggestion that the Gujars are the descendants of Khazars who must have come into India along with the Huns. It is, therefore, necessary to examine the arguments of Mr. D. R. Bhandarkar in detail and to see how far they are correct. Let us first see from the Encyclopædia Britannica who the Khazars are. "The Khazars are historic figures on the border-land of Europe and Asia for at least nine hundred years (A. D. 190-1100.) Their home was on the spurs of the Caucasus. They were the Venetians of the Caspian Sea and the Euxine, the universal carriers between the East and the West. The origin of the Khazars is much disputed but they are regarded as akin to Georgians, Finns Ugrians and Turks. The Khazars were fair-skinned, black-haired and of a remarkable beauty. The Kara (black) Khazars were however ugly, short and almost as black as Indians". Now from this description of the Khazars, it is absurd to identify the Gujars with the Khazars. There were black Khazars indeed but they were ugly and short, The Indian Gujars are all tall and with fine features, though dark in complexion. The tall beautiful Khazars are on the other hand very fair and not dark like the Gujars. They again are allied to the Finns and the Urgas, and must be Mongolian in face as indeed the Huns were. But the Gujars can never be said to be Mongolian in face, their features especially the nose being distinctly Aryan.

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The history again of the Khazars as detailed in this article does not show that they ever left their country, like the Śakas, the Yue-chi or the Huns. "Throughout the 6th century Khazaria was a mere highway for the wild hordes, to whom the Huns had opened the passages into Europe and the Khazars took refuge (like the Venetians from Attila) "among the seventy months of the Volga" Then again we are told that their county bordered on Persia and Byzantine, the southern boundary of which never greatly varied and they were for the most part restricted within the couped up area". It is therefore difficult to believe that the Khazars ever came to India. It is certain that history contains no mention of their having done so.

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The disposition and the occupation of the Khazars seem also to differ diametrically from those of the Gujars. As above quoted "they were the Venitians of the Caspian and the Black Sea, a civil commercial people and founders of cities" The Gujars on the other hand are nomadic peoples and cattle breeders by profession. They in fact never trade and are not a city settled people with elaborate civil organisation. It seems clear, therefore, that the Khazars could not have been the forefathers of the Gujars of India. Mr. D. R. Bhandarkar has certainly been misled by similarity of sound and by the mere mention of Khazars along with Huns in western history.

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Mr. D. R. Bhandarkar's other arguments adduced in his paper need not be scrutinized, as they do not pertain to historical considerations. We need not stop to see whether Gurjara, the Sanskrit word, has been coined from Gujar by Sanskritists though apparently there is no reason why they should have done so, for they could have pronounced Gujar as well as Gurjara, or whether Gujar, Gūjar, Gurjara names still surviving are the natural Prakrit forms coming out of an original Sanskrit word Gurjara. But it is necessary to examine his opinion carefully whether Gujars being known as foreigners could have, owing to their success in conquest, been admitted by Hindus to the rank of Kshatriyas. Hiuen Tsang distinctly mentions that the king of Gurjara (Bhinmāl) was a Kshatriya. "This is interesting" observes Mr. Bhandarkar "that as early as the first half of the seventh century i. e. about a century after their coming into India the Gujars had become Hindus and had actually acquired the rank of Kshatriyas" Ordinarily the inference should have been the opposite of this viz. that the Gujars could not have been foreigners as they could not have succeeded in gaining the status of Kshatriyas within a hundred years of their coming into India. For we are historically certain that caste was not so fragile in the sixth and seventh centuries A. D. The inscriptions of the Guptas and even of Harsha's father show that kings were particular in preserving the purity of caste (see Varṇavyavasthāpanapara applied to Prabhākara Vardhana Ep. In. Vol. V. p. 200.) Mr. Bhandarkar similarly twists a third fact into an argument in support of his theory, though it is in reality an argument against him. The Gujara Gauda Brahmins are also foreigners according to Mr. Bhandarkar. The argument that foreigners becoming kings could enter the Kshatriya caste might be plausible though even that is weak but they could not become Brahmins for there could not have been any incentive to admit them as Brahmins. Moreover the Khazars do not appear to have had castes among them. Hence why should some Khazars become Brahmins? The fact that there is an ancient class of Brahmins called Gujar Gaud is an argument for holding that the Gujars were an Aryan people with their usual four castes. This also explains how there are Gujar Bānias and Gujar cultivators or Gujar Sutārs (carpenters) and so on. The existence of a Gujar Karhada Brahmin family is also of no importance as it may have got that name by even residence in Gujar country as the addition of the surname पटवर्धन suggests.

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Mr. Bhandarkar's fourth argument is still more strange and based on wrong information and wrong inference. (Padihāra is the usual Prākrit form of प्रतिहार and yet Mr. Bhandarkar takes the opposite line and says that Pratihara is the Sanskritzed form of पाडिहार. Why again we ask should Sanskrit change पाडिहार into Pratihara? But this is by the bye) An inscription from Jodhpur gives the origin of Padihars as follows. There was a Brahmin who married two wives a Brahmin woman and a Kshatriya woman. The descendants of the Brahmin woman are called Brahmin Padihars while the descendants of the Kshatriya woman are called Kshatriya Padihars. "The marriage of a Brahmin" says Mr. Bhandarker, "with a Kshatriya woman with the result as related in this inscription is curious and can only be accounted for as being of foreign importation. How this inference follows from the first premise will be a puzzle to many. Moreover the marriage of a Brahmin with a Kshatriya woman is not curious. It is provided for in Smritis and it once was a living practice in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries as many inscriptions (see Corp In III) as stated further on show. And the result was exactly as stated here; the sons of the Brahmin women became Brahmins and of the Kshatriya women became Kshatriyas. As Brahmins and Kshatriyas ate the same food even up to the 7th century such marriages were not offensive. The history of the development of the caste system in India may be given here in a nutshell. The race being the same, caste in ancient times among the Aryans was merely occupational. Hence Brahmins often married Kshatriya wives. In oldest times their progeny was treated as of the Brahmin caste. By degrees, however, caste became rigid and the progeny of such marriages was treated as intermediate between Brahmins and Kshatriyas. In further process of rigidification of caste the progeny followed the caste of the mothers. Such was the case in about the 6th century A. D. Lastly from about the 8th or 9th century onward marriage was restricted to the same caste only. This history is easily deducible from a comparison of the Smritis and from inscriptions. As this is not the place to discuss the subject, we stop here. But what has been said here is enough to show that the progeny of a Brahmin man and a Kshatriya woman being treated as Kshatriya is not curious (see Manu स्त्रीष्वनन्तरजातासु द्विजैरुत्पादितान् सुतान् । सदृशानैव तानाहुर्मातृदोषविगर्हितान् ॥ VI. 10). But supposing it was so, the curiosity is not great, nor does it follow that therefore the Padihars were foreigners.

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We shall discuss the origin of each of the Rajput families in India in our next volume. Here it is, however, necessary to state that Mr. Bhandarkar has attached too much weight and importance to the legends about the progenitors of many families given in inscriptions or in traditions. The legends of Kshatriyas being born of fire or of Lakshmana brother of Rama, or of the Mānavya Ṛiśi are all imaginary and very little historical information is derivable from these stories. Mr. Bhandarkar's treating the Chālukyas and Kadambas as of priestly origin is indeed ridiculous. Because in one inscription Mānavya Ṛiśi is said to be the progenitor of the Kadambas it does not follow that the Kadambas were at any time Brahmins, for the progenitors of all castes or peoples in India are believed to be Ṛiśis especially the seven Ṛiśis. But this origin is imaginary. Again Manu is also looked upon as the progenitor of all human beings and hence it cannot be argued that all peoples were Kshatriyas in origin. In short, it is strange that Mr. Bhandarkar should seek to derive any historical inference from these imaginary legends about the progenitors of peoples. Such legends are important only as traditions and if traditions are long current they may be treated as proof of race. The Chālukyas of the Deccan looked upon themselves in their oldest documents as born of the Mānavya gotra and hence they should be looked upon as Aryan in race. The Kadambas also thought they were born of the same gotra and hence they also might be looked upon as Kshatriyas and allied in race to the Chālukyas. The Sindas looked upon themselves as born of Sesha and hence they may be looked upon as Dravidians by race. Mr. Bhandarkar admits that the Sindas were a class of the Nāga tribe and yet begins a para (p. 27 ditto) with the sentence: "Another foreign tribe which came from the north to the south is Sindas." The word foreign plainly means foreign to India and cannot therefore fitly be applied to the Sindas nor does any thing show that the Sindas came from the north. Mr. Bhandarkar seems so far obsessed by his theory of foreign origin of noted peoples of India that even Brahmins if mentioned as coming from Ahicchatra in the north appear to him to be foreigners. If Chāhumāns and Padhihars and Paramars and Chālukyas are said to have come from Ahichhatra they appear to him to be foreigners. But Ahichhatra was a famous centre of Aryan settlement and civilization being the capital of the Pāñchālas so well-known in the Vedic literature and it is not at all strange that Kshatriyas and Brahmins should represent themselves as coming from Ahichhatra. One fails to see, however, how this tradition of coming from Ahichhatra can make any people foreigners. One is constrained to set down Mr. R. D. Bhandarkar's theory especially about the Gujars as absurd and there is, to sum up, nothing in history to show that Gujars were foreigners or Khazars, or that they came into India from outside along with the Huns of the fifth or sixth century A. D. Their anthropometrical characteristics are purely Aryan, and history does not at all contradict this inference.

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Lastly we have to speak about the Jats. Their ethnological characteristics also, as we have already seen, are clearly Aryan. They are fair, tall, high-nosed and long-headed. Does their history contradict their being Aryans? It may be stated at once that the Jats have very little history of their own till we come to quite recent times when the present Jat kingdoms both Hindus and Sikhs in the U. P. and the Panjab were founded. But the Jats have the oldest mention of the three. They are mentioned in the Mahābhārata as Jartas (जर्ताः) in the Karṇaparva. The next mention we have of them is in the sentence अजयजटर्ी हूणान् in the grammar of Chandra of the fifth century. And this shows that the Jats were the enemies of the Huns and not their friends. The Jats opposed and defeated the Huns; they must, therefore, have been the inhabitants of the Panjab and not invaders or intruders along with the Huns. Does the above sentence indicate that Yaśodharma of Mandsaur inscription who decisively defeated the Huns was a Jat? He may have been so as Jats have been known to have migrated into the country of the Mālavas or Central India as into Sind. But this is not material to our inquiry. The sentence amply shows that the Jats were not invaders along with the Huns but were their opponents. Nay it may be taken for certain that the Jats are the Viś of the Vedas. They are even now preeminently agriculturists. Agriculturists in Vedic times were Aryan and classed as the Vaiśya caste.* The warrior class or Kshatriyas frequently married Vaiśya wives being immediately below them. This custom has obtained throughout ancient times and is still preserved and Rajputs frequently take Jat wives. The almost innate sense of caste prejudice in India has greatly prevented the mixture of races (Rajputs and Jats are of the same Aryan race) and the Jats have preserved their Aryan race almost uncontaminated. Though treated as Śūdras by modern opinion owing to their being agriculturists, and the practice of widow marriage they are the purest Aryans in India and belong to the first race of Aryan invaders according to our view, the Solar race of Aryans who originally invaded and settled in the Panjab, being the first settlement of the Indo-Aryans in this country. The following remarks of R. G. Letham in ‘Ethnology of India’ page 254 may here be usefully quoted; “As a general rule a Rajput is a Hindu and a Jat a Mahomedan. As a general rule a Jat is also a peaceable cultivator. For all this, the Jat is in blood neither more nor less than a converted Rajput and vice versa ; a Rajput may be a Jat of the ancient faith. That other diffierences might have been effected by this difference of creed is likely; the difference between arms and tillage as profession, between haughty autonomy and submissive dependence are sure in course of time to tell upon temper and the features.” It may be added “that conversion from Hinduism to Islam has not necessarily the slightest effect upon caste and that the Mahomedan Jats are still as caste-ridden at the Hindu Jats.”

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∗ Al-Beruni says that Nanda the reputed father of Krishna was a Jat.

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We may in conclusion quote some remarks of Sir D. Ibbetson from his “Punjab castes” (1916) regarding Jats and Gujars. “It may be that the original Rajput and the original Jat entered India at different periods, though to my mind, the term Rajput is an occupational rather than an ethnological expression. But if they do represent two separate waves of immigration, it is exceedingly probable, both from their almost identical physique and facial character and from the close communion which has always existed between them that they belong to one and the same ethnic stock.” “It is certain that the joint Jat Rajput stock is in the main Aryo-Scythian if Scythian be not Aryan”. (Page 100). So again about Gujars he writes : “The Gujars are the eighth largest caste in the Punjab, only the Jats, Rajputs, Pathans, Arāins and Brahmins among the higher and Chamars and Chuhras among the lower exceeding them. They are fine, stalwart fellows of precisely the same type as the Jat. He is of the same social standing as the Jat perhaps slightly inferior and the two eat and drink in common without any scruple” (p. 184). It is, therefore, strange that inspite of the fact that every person who has had intimate acquaintance with the peoples of the Panjab has marked the ethnic identity of the Jats, Gujars and Rajputs plainly Aryan and not Scythian, theories have usually been propounded by scholars about their being Scythian, Getœ, Yue-chi, Khizar and what not and about their having come into India within historical times, nay, on this side even of the Christian era. There is not a scrap of historical evidence even to suggest much less to prove such immigration (there is neither foriegn mention of their coming into India nor have they any tradition of their own of sometime coming into India nor is there any historical Indian record, stone-inscription or other, of their so coming) and we can only ascribe such theories to that unaccountable bias of the minds of many European and native scholars, to assign a foreign and Scythic origion to every fine and energetic caste in India.

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