History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v2.c28.s1.65

v2.c28.s1.65

The Śūdra Kamalākara was composed at Benares and by a Deccani Brahmin. It, therefore, reflects the sentiment of the south and the east. Kshatriyas of the central part where the word Rajput came into special vogue looked down upon Kshatriyas of the south and east, not in the 9th and 10th centuries but later, as we shall show that marriage relations between these continued to take place in these centuries. It seems, therefore, that this view arose in later centuries and it arose in the east and the south. Legal writers took it up and worked it to its natural consequences. Even the Rajputs who then prided and still pride themselves upon being good Kshatriyas were consequently looked upon by these writers as Ugras and the theory further grew that Kshatriyas had no gotras of their own but took the gotras of their Purohitas. It is not necessary here to pursue the subject further; but we may conclude by saying that the dictum that the Rajputs are Ugras is not only not correct but is further based upon a view of later growth that there were no Kshatriyas in the Kali age. The text कलावायन्तयोः स्थितिः is historically speaking an interpolation. At best it must be explained by interpreting it to mean not that there would be no Kshatriyas in the Kali age throughout, but from some time in later centuries when the Kali age would be at its extreme point. We have for the present to ignore this text and to hold that Kshatriyas do exist still and that the Rajputs are the purest portions of them, the word Rajput meaning a high-born Kshatriya.