History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v2.c28.s1.1

v2.c28.s1.1

It seems certain that from ancient times the Rajputs consider themselves as consisting of 36 Kulas or clans which are allowed to give and take daughters from one another. This confining themselves to a close group must have taken place about the end of the second or the beginning of the third sub-period of the Mediæval Hindu age, as we know that caste in the three Aryan higher grades was fluid during the first sub-period. For though the list of 36 clans cannot be traced earlier than the poem of Chand yet the number 36 is mentioned before him by Kalhaṇa who wrote his Rājatarangiṇī in 1148 A. D. (VII 1617 wherein it is said that the Rajputs in their pride would not concede a higher position to even the sun). And the enumeration by Chand seems to be as old as the days of Pṛithvīrāja and cannot be treated a later interpolation as we shall presently show. Tod has given five lists of which one dates earlier than the Rāsā but he does not say how old this first list is; it was obtained from a Jati in the old city of Nadol in Marwad but since it gives some names such as Jhālā which are of later date, it appears that the list in the Rāsā is really the oldest we have. The third list is from Kumārapāla-charita a contemporary work of Chand but it does not give 36 names. In short it seems that the Rāsā first enumerated the 36 and the enumeration together with the number has become traditional inasmuch as the Rāsā became to the Rajputs what Homer's Iliad was to the Greeks.