Indian Antiquary Vol 40

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 91

THE OUTLIERS OF RAJASTHANI
MARCH, 1911.]
Khâfi Khan-"Muntakhab-ul-lubab, " Bbl. Ind., 2 vols. Calcutta, 1869, 1874 (Vol. I, 395-760; Vol. II, pp. 1-565).
pp.
G. F. Gemelli-Careri-" Il Giro del Mondo," 1699 or French translation, 6 vols., 1715.
F. Bernier Travels" ed. A. Constable, 1891.
·
N. Manucce "Storia do Mogor, 1656-1708," ed. W. Irvine, 4 vols., 1907, 1908. Jadunath Sarkar-"The History of Auranzib," 1910 (in progress).
For the Mahrattas
J. Grant Duff History of the Mahrattas," 3rd edition, Bombay, 1873, pp. 68 to 182. For the Coins
85
S. Lane Poole-"The Coins of the Moghul Emperors in the British Museum," 1892, Pp. 138 to 148.
H. Nelson Wright" Catalogue of the Coins in the Indian Museum, Calcutta," Vol. III (Mughal Emperors of India), 1908, pp. 131 to 190.
OF RAJASTHANI.
THE OUTLIERS BY VINCENT A. SMITH.
THE surprising fact that the pastoral, semi-nomad Gujar graziers and Ajar shepherds, who roam over the lower Himalayan ranges from the Afghan frontier to Kumaon and Garhwal, speak a dialect of Hindi' quite distinct from the Pashtu and other languages spoken by their neighbours, has been long familiar to officers serving in the Panjab and on the North-Western Frontier. In 1908 the Linguistic Survey made public the more precise information that the grammar of the speech of the still more remote Güjars of the Swat Valley is almost identical with that of the Rajputs of Jaipur in Rajputana, distant some 600 miles in a direct line. In the intervening space totally different languages are spoken. Why, then, do the Muhammadan Güjar herdsmen of Swat use a speech essentially the same as that of the aristocratic Hindu Rajputs of Jaipur ? The question is put concerning the Gujars of Swat, because they are the most remote tribe at present known to speak a tongue closely allied to the Jaipuri variety of Eastern Rajasthani.
But dialects, which may be described as corrupt forms of Eastern Rajasthani, extend along the lower hills from about the longitude of Chamba through Garhwal and Kumaon into Western Nepal, so that the problem may be stated in wider terms, as: Why do certain tribes of the lower Himalaya in Swat, and also from Chamba to Western Nepal, speak dialects allied to Eastern Rajasthanl, and especially to Jaipuri, although they are divided from Eastern Rajputana by hundreds of miles in which distinct languages are spoken ?'
It is not possible to give a fully satisfactory solution of the problem, but recont historical and archaeological researches throw some light upon it. All observers are agreed that no distinction of race can be drawn between the Gujars and the Jats or Jätts, two castes which occupy a very prominent position in North-Western India. It is also agreed that several other castes in the same region, such as Ajars, Ahire and many more, are racially indistinguishable from the Jatts and Gujars. The name Gujar appears in Sanskrit inscriptions as Gurjara, and nobody can doubt that the modern Gujars represent the ancient Gurjaras. Long ago the late Sir Denzii Ibbetson recognized the fact that in the Panjab it is impossible to draw distinctions in blood between Gujars and many clans of Rajputs, or, in other words, local enquiry proves that persons now known as Rajputs may be descended from the same ancestors as are other persons known as Gujars. Mr. Baden Powell observed that "there is no doubt that a great majority of the clan-names in the Panjab belong both to the "Rajput" and the "Jut" sections. And this indicates that when the numerous Bala, Indo-Scythian, Gujar and Huga tribes settled, the leading military and princely houses were
1 Ibbetson, Outlines of Panjab Ethnography (1888), p. 265.
Linguistic Survey, Vol. IX, Part II (1908), p. 323. This paper has been written at the request of Dr. Grierson for ultimate incorporation in the appropriate volume of the Linguistic Survey But that volume cannot appear for a long time, and meantime Dr. Grierson thinks it desirable to offer the paper to the Indian Antiquary.
Ibbetson, op. cit., p. 235.