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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[AUGUST, 1914,
The Gurjaras who established the kingdoms at Bhinmal and Bharôch probably came from the West, as Mr. Bhandarkar suggests. The founders of the Panjab Gurjara kingdom which existed in the 9th century presumably reached the Indian plains by a different route. There is no indication of any connection between the Gurjara kingdom of the Panjab and the two kingdoms of the widely separated Province of Gujarat.58
As may be expected, the Gäjar herdsmen (as distinct from the fighting Gurjaras who became Râjpûts) are found in greatest numbers in the north-west of India from the Indus to the Ganges. In the Panjab they are mainly settled in the lower ranges and submontane tracts, though they are spread along the Jamna in considerable numbers, Gujrat District is still their stronghold, and here they form 134 per cent. of the total population. In the higher mountains they are almost unknown.
In the plains tracts of the Panjab they are called 'Gujars' or Gujjars' (not Gujars). and they have noerly all abandoned their original language and speak the ordinary Panjabi of their neighbours.
On the other hand, in the mountains to the north-west of the Panjab, i.e., throughout the hill country of Murree, Jammu, Chhibhal, Hazara, in the wild territory lying to the north of Peshawar as far as the Swat river, and also in the hills of Kashmir, there are numerous descendants of the Gurjaras still following their pastoral avocations. Here they are called * Gujurs' (not Gujar' or 'Gujar') and tend cows. Closely allied to them, and speaking the same language, is the tribe of Ajars who tend sheep.
The ordinary language of the countries over which these last mentioned people roam is generally Pushtô or Kashmîrî, though there are also spoken various Pisacha dialects of the Swât and neighbouring territories. In fact, in the latter tract, there are numerous tribos, each with a Pišâcha dialect of its own, but employing Pushtô as a lingua franca. The Gujurs are no exception to the rule. While generally able to speak the language, or the lingua franca, of the country they occupy, they have a distinct language of their own, called Gujuri, varying but little from place to place, and closely connected with the Mewâtî dialect of Rajasthânî, described on pp. 44 ff. of Vol. IX, Pt. II of the Survey. Of course their vocabulary is freely interlarded with words borrowed from Puşhts, Kashmîrî, and what not; but the grammar is practically identical with that of Mêwati, and closely allied to that of Mêwâți.
The existence of a form of Mêwâtî or Mewâri in the distant country of Swat is a fact which has given rise to some speculation. One sept of the Gujurs of Swat is known as
Chauhan,' and it is known that the dominant race in Mewar belongs to the Chauhan sept of Raipats. Two explanations are possible. One is that the Gujurs of this tract are immigrants from Mêwat (or Alwar) and Mewâr. The other is that the Gurjaras in their advance with the Hûnas into India, left some of their number in the Swât country, who still retain their ancient language, and that this same language was also carried by other members of the same tribe into Rajputânâ.
The former explanation is that adopted by Mr. Vincent Smith, who has kindly supplied the following note on the point :
“The surprising fact that the pastoral, semi-nomad Gujur graziers and Ajar shepherds, who roam over the lower Himalayan ranges from the Afghân frontier to Kumaon and Garhwal, speak a dialect of Hindi,' quite distinct from the Pushtô and other languages spoken by their neighbours, has been long familiar to officers serving in the Panjab and on the North-Western Frontier 59 In 1908 the Linguistic Survey made public the more precise information that the grammar of the speech of the still more remote Gujurs of the
58 The above account of the early history of the Gurjaras is based on information kindly placod at my disposal by Mr. V. Smith.
59 Ibbetson, Outlines of Panjab Ethnography (1883), p. 265.
