History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c8.s1.26

v1.c8.s1.26

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.