History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c33.s6.34

v3.c33.s6.34

It may perhaps be asked were there no Kshatriyas in the Panjab at that or any previous time and if there were, why did they not attempt to establish their own kingdoms? That the Panjab is predominantly Aryan is, as stated before, undoubted and there were then as now, thousands of Kshatriyas and Vaiśyas of Aryan blood in the Panjab. But the massacres of fighting populations which Alexander and later conquerors systematically perpetrated deprived the Panjab of almost the whole of the ruling class. The representatives of those valiant clans of Kshatriyas who opposed Alexander, of the Śibis, the Mālavas, the Madras, the Yaudheyas and others then survived (and still survive) in the Panjab. But they had become agriculturists and often heads of villages according to the Āpaddharma rule for the Kshatriyas prescribed in the Smṛitis and specially in the Parāśara Smṛiti (See Vol. II page 183). The Kshatriyas of the Panjab, valiant and able-bodied as they were, had thus long lost their ancient special characteristic viz: the desire and the determination to rule others and not to be ruled by others, the ‘Īśvarabhāva’ noted in the Bhagavadgīta as belonging to Kshatriyas and they ceased to care who ruled, so long as they preserved a sort of semi-independence in their village life. Such zamindars were not disturbed by any ruling power, whether Greek, Kushan, Hun, or Turk nor by Kashmir or Sind which ruled from a distance. This, however, led to a gradual distinction between the ruling Kshatriyas and the agricultural Kshatriyas which is still recognised in the Panjab. The former in fact are the Rajputs, i. e. sons and descendants of ruling families who never cultivated land and who always ruled even if it be in one village if not more. This ruling passion of the Rajputs immortalized in the minimum demand of Yudhishthira from Duryodhana "Give us five villages one for each brother and you may keep the rest of our kingdom," this ruling passion of the Rajputs to rule and never to be ruled led the surviving Rajputs of the Panjab to emigrate to the submontane hills on the eastern border of the Panjab or to the deserts of Rajputana and to countries still southward and eastward. As shown in Volume II, the Rajput ruling families of Rajputana came originally from the Panjab from whence they had to retire in consequence of the inroads of Greeks, Kushans, Huns, and Turks. Notably the Chauhans, the Paramāras, the Bhātis and even the Rathors came from the Panjab, and at the present day the Hindu and even the Mahomedan Rajputs in the Panjab still declare that they belong to these clans. The Bhātis dispossessed of Zabulistan by the Turks spread over the Panjab and founded a kingdom finally in Jaisalmere in Rajputana. The fine Janjuas of the Salt Range (now Mahomedans) are believed to be Anavaes or descendants of Anu and are the most valiant Kshatriyas in the Panjab. These and other warlike modern clans are the ancient Kshatriyas who preserved their independence by becoming headmen of village and even agriculturists.