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AUGUST, 1914.]
THE PAHARI LANGUAGE
163
dialects of Rajputânå, just as in Quebec French is more archaic than current Parisian.c5 I do not see any other way of explaining the existence of the Rajasthani 'outliers,' if I may borrow a convenient term from the geologists. The historical indications do not favour the notion that the Gurjaras, etc., came via Kábul and thence moved southwards, dropping settlements in the Lower Himalayas; they rather suggest immigration from the west by the Quetta and Kandahir routes or lines of march still further south. Settlements dropped among the Himalayan Hills by invaders speaking a Central Asian language could not possibly have picked up the tongue of eastern Rajputânâ. The ancestors of the Swât Gujurs must have spoken Rajasthânî and have learned it in a region where it was the mother tongue. The far northern extensions of that form of speech must apparently be attributed to the time when the Gurjara kingdom attained its greatest expansion. We know from inscriptions that the dominions of both Mihira-Bhôja and his son, Mahendra pâla (cir. 840-908 A, D.), included the Karnal district to the north-west of Delhi.
"My answer to the problem proposed at the beginning of this note, therefore, is that the Gujurs, etc., of the lower Himalayas, who now speak forms of Rajasthani, are in large measure of the same stock as many Rajpât clans in Rajputânâ, the Panjab, and the United Provinces; that their ancestors emigrated from Rajputânâ after they had acquired the Rajasthani speech ; and that the most likely time for such emigration is the ninth century, when the Gujara-Rajpût power dominated all northern and north-western India, with its capital at Kanauj.cc"
Turning now to the other explanation, we may prenaise by stating that the Gurjaras may possibly have entered Rajputânâ from two directions. They invaded the Sindh Valley, where they have practically disappeared as a distinct caste, the Gakkhars, Janjûâs, and Pathans being too strong for them. But their progress was not stopped, and they have probably entered the Gujarat Province and Western Rajputâna by this route. In Gujarât they became merged into the general population, and there is now in that province no Gûjar caste, but there are Gâjar and simple Vaniis (traders), Güjar and simple Sutars (carpenters), Gâjar and simple Sonårs (goldsmiths), Güjar and simple Kumbhars (potters), and Gujar and simple Salâts (masons).
Gâjars, as distinct from Rajpûts, are strong in Eastern Rajputâna, their greatest numbers being in Alwar, Jaipur, Mewâr, and the neighbourhood. Here they are a distinct and recognised class, claiming to be descended from Rajputs. These must have come along the other supposed line of advance from the north. Several Gujar-Rajpût tribes, such as the Châlukyas, Châhamânas (Chauhans), and Sindas, came to Rajputana from a mountainous country called Sapadalaksha.
65 [As a matter of feat Gujurt is more archaio in its forms than its nearest congener, modern Méwåti. See the Gujuri section below.-G. A. G.) 66 For historical, epi raphical, and numismatic details, see V. A. Smith
"The Gurjaras of Rajputana and Kanauj (J. R. A. S., Jan., April, 1909); * White Hun Coins from the Panjab " (ibid., Jan. 1907); * White Hun Coins of Vyâghramukha” (Ibid., Oct. 1907);
"The History of the City of Kanau, etc." (Ibid., July 1008). D. R. Bhandarkar
"Foreign elements in the Hindu Population" (Ind. Ant., 1911, pp. 7-37). Mr. Bhandarkar
(p. 30) thinks that Eastern Rajasthani is derived from Pahari Hindi : but I do not think he can
be right. 67 Ibbetson, 7. c., p. 263. Mr. Vincent Smith is of opinion that the position of their principal settlement, that at Bhinmal. North-West of Mount Abu, indicates that the Gurjaras came from the West, across Sindh. and not from the North down the Indus Valley. They could have entered Sindh either vid Makran, as the Arabs did later in the end of the 7th century, or through Baluchistan by roads further north. If they came from Sistan and spoke an Eranian language, they would soon have picked up an Indian tongue. On this theory, tho Gujars of the Panjab would have entered that province from the south, proceedling up the Indus Valley. Mr. Smith points out that the Panjab Gurjaras probably are later settlement. Wo hear of them first in the Kashmir chronicles in the 9th century.
€8 Bhandarkar, l. c., p. 22.
69 In 1901, the total number of Gojars in Rajputana was 462,739. Of these, 46,046 were enumerated in Alwar, 184,404 in Jaipur, and 50,574 in Mewâr. Bharatpur, adjoining Alwar, had 44,876.
