History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c8.s1.24

v1.c8.s1.24

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.”