Indian Antiquary Vol 40

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

Page 92

86
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MARCH, 1911.
accepted as "Rajput," while those who took frankly to cultivation, became "Jat" Mr. D. R. Bhandarkar has demonstrated recently that the ancestors of the Ranas of Udaipur (Mewar) were originally classed as Brahmans, and were not recognised as Rajputs until they became established as a ruling family. In fact, there is abundant evidence to prove that the term "Rajput" signifies an occupational caste, which made it its principal business to rule and fight. That being the traditional business of the ancient Kshatriyas, castes known as Rajput were treated by the Brahmans as equivalent to Kshatriyas, and superior in rank and purity to castes engaged in agriculture. We may take it as proved that there is nothing to prevent a Rajput being descended from a Brahman, a Gujar, a Jatt, or in fact from a man of any decent caste.' Consequently the Gujar herdsmen and Ajar shepherds of Swät may well be the poor relations of the Rajput chivalry of Jaipur, and the present divergence in social status may be the result of the difference of the occupations to which their respective ancestors were called by Providence.
If the Swat Gujars and the Jaipur Rajputs come of one stock, it is not so wonderful that they should speak a language essentially one. Certainly there is no difficulty in believing that all the Himalayan tribes, both in Swat and east of Chamba, who speak forms of Rajasthānī, may be largely of the same blood as the Rajputs of Eastern Rajputana. Of course, I do not mean that a pure race is to be found anywhere in India-almost every caste is of very much mixed blood.
Not only are the Jatts, Gujars, Ajars, etc., related in blood to the Rajputs, but we may also affirm with confidence, that that blood is in large measure foreign, introduced by swarms of immigrants who poured into India across the north-western passes for about a century, both before and after 500 A.D. The Gurjaras are not heard of until the sixth century, but from that time on they are closely associated with the Hūnas (Huns) and other foreign tribes, which then settled in India and were swallowed up by the octopus of Hinduism-tribes insensibly, but quickly, being transformed into castes. It is now certain, as demonstrated by epigraphical evidence, that the famous Parihar (Pratihāra) Rajputs were originally Gurjaras or Gujara; or, if we prefer, we may say that certain Gurjaras were originally Pratihāras; and it is practically certain that the three other 'fire-born' Rajput clans-Pawar (Pramar), Solanki (Chaulukya), and Chauhan (Chāhumāna)—were descended like the Parihars, from ancestors belonging to a Gurjara or cognate foreign tribe.
We are not able to identify the locality beyond the passes from which these ancestors came, nor do we know what tribal names they bore before they entered India, or what language they then spoke. Further, it is not possible at present to be certain concerning the road by which the. Gurjaras, Hūnas, etc., entered India. Probably they came by many roads. But the legend locating the origin of the fire-born clans at Mount Abu and much evidence of other kinds indicate that the principal settlements of the foreigners were in Rajputānā, which became the great centre of dispersion.
We know that as early as the first half of the seventh century, Bhinmal (Srimala) to the north-west of Mount Abu, was the capital of a kingdom ruled by Vyaghramukha Chapa. The Chapas were a subdivision of the Gurjaras. A coin of Vyaghramukha was found associated with numerous slightly earlier Huna coins of the sixth and seventh centuries on the Manaswal Plateau in the outer Siwalik Hills, Hoshiyarpur District, Panjab, which at that period undoubtedly was under Huna-Gurjara rule. Early in the eighth century, Nagabhața I, a Gurjara, who had then become a Hindu, established a strong monarchy at Bhinmal, where Vyaghramukha had ruled a hundred years earlier. Nagabhata's son, Vatsaraja, greatly extended the dominions of his house, defeating even the king of Eastern Bengal. In or about 810 A.D., Nagabhața II, son and successor of Vatsaraja, deposed the king of Kanauj and removed the seat of his own government to that imperial city. For more than a century, and especially during the reigns of Mihira-Bhoja and his son (840-908 A. D.), the Gurjara-Pratihāra kingdom of Kanauj was the paramount power of
Notes on
the Rajput Clans' (J.R.A 8., 1899. p. 534). Guhilots' (J.J. Proc, A.S.B., New Ser., Vol. V. (1909), pp. 167-187); Atpur Inscription of Saktikumāra,' (Above Vol. XXXIX (1910), p. 183).
I have a suspicion that they were Iranians, perhaps from Seistan, but I cannot profess to prove that hypothesis.