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Rajput clans

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rajput (from Sanskrit raja-putra, "son of a king") is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Rajput covers various patrilineal clans historically associated with warriorhood: several clans claim Rajput status, although not all claims are universally accepted. According to modern scholars, almost all Rajputs clans originated from peasant or pastoral communities.[1][2][3][4][5]

Lineages

The Rajputs claim to be of the Kshatriya or warrior varna. However Modern historians are more or less agreed that the today Rajputs are also consisted of some miscellaneous groups including shudras and tribals with no Rajput background mainly after the process of Rajputisation in 18th and 19th century.[6][7][8]

There are three basic lineages (vanshas or vamshas) among Rajputs. Each of these lineages is divided into several clans (kula) (total of 36 clans).[9] Suryavanshi denotes descent from the solar deity Surya, Chandravanshi (Somavanshi) from the lunar deity Chandra, and Agnivanshi from the fire deity Agni. The Agnivanshi clans include Parmar, Chaulukya (Solanki), Parihar and Chauhan.[10]

Lesser-noted vansh include Udayvanshi, ,[11] and Rishivanshi[citation needed]. The histories of the various vanshs were later recorded in documents known as vamshāavalīis; André Wink counts these among the "status-legitimizing texts".[12]

Beneath the vansh division are smaller and smaller subdivisions: kul, shakh ("branch"), khamp or khanp ("twig"), and nak ("twig tip").[13] Marriages within a kul are generally disallowed (with some flexibility for kul-mates of different gotra lineages). The kul serves as the primary identity for many of the Rajput clans, and each kul is protected by a family goddess, the kuldevi. Lindsey Harlan notes that in some cases, shakhs have become powerful enough to be functionally kuls in their own right.[14]

Suryavanshi (Ikshvaku) lineage of Rajputs

Solar dynasty or the Ikshvaku dynasty was founded by the King Ikshvaku.[15] The dynasty is also known as Sūryavaṁśa ("Solar dynasty" or "Descendants of the Sun").[16] Shri Ram was also belonged to the Ikshvaku Dynasty,[17] The 21 Tirthankars of Jainism were born in this dynasty.[18][19] According to Buddhist texts and tradition, Gautama Buddha descended from this dynasty

Suryavanshi Rajput Clans

Chandravansh lineage of Rajputs

The Chandravanshi lineage (Somavanshi or Lunar Dynasty) claims descent from Chandra, The lineage is further divided into Yaduvansh dynasty decendents of King Yadu and Puruvansh dynasty decendents of King Puru.[16]

Chandravanshi Clans

Yaduvanshi Clans

Agnivanshi lineage of Rajputs

The Agnivanshi lineage claim descent from Agni, the Hindu god of fire.[16]

Agnivanshi Clans

Battalion (Regiment) Clans of Rajputs

In Medival Indian History , Rajputs made several regiments , special battalions and mercenaries specially during Rajput Era to fight against foreign Invaders which consisted of Rajput soldiers from some or all Rajput clans , Their decendents still use those regiment Rajput surnames [20][21][22]

Regiment Clans

This battalion was formed in 10th century to fight against Gaznavid Turks[23]
The only 6 Rajput Clans were included in this group namely Kachhwaha , Guhil/Sisodia , Chauhan , Parmar , Tomar , Yaduvanshi Rajputs

Purbiya (or Purabia) are Rajput led mercenaries and soldiers from the eastern Gangetic Plain – areas corresponding to present-day western Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh.[22][24]

  • Khavas

See also

References

  1. ^ Eugenia Vanina 2012, p. 140:Regarding the initial stages of this history and the origin of the Rajput feudal elite, modern research shows that its claims to direct blood links with epic heroes and ancient kshatriyas in general has no historic substantiation. No adequate number of the successors of these epically acclaimed warriors could have been available by the period of seventh-eights centuries AD when the first references to the Rajput clans and their chieftains were made. [...] almost all Rajput clans originated from the semi-nomadic pastoralists of the Indian north and north-west.
  2. ^ Daniel Gold (1 January 1995). David N. Lorenzen (ed.). Bhakti Religion in North India: Community Identity and Political Action. State University of New York Press. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-7914-2025-6. Paid employment in military service as Dirk H. A. Kolff has recently demonstrated, was an important means of livelihood for the peasants of certain areas of late medieval north India... In earlier centuries, says Kolff, "Rajput" was a more ascriptive term, referring to all kinds of Hindus who lived the life of the adventuring warrior, of whom most were of peasant origins.
  3. ^ Doris Marion Kling (1993). The Emergence of Jaipur State: Rajput Response to Mughal Rule, 1562–1743. University of Pennsylvania. p. 30. Rajput: Pastoral, mobile warrior groups who achieved landed status in the medieval period claimed to be Kshatriyas and called themselves Rajputs.
  4. ^ André Wink (1991). Al-Hind the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest : 11Th-13th Centuries. BRILL. p. 171. ISBN 90-04-10236-1. ...and it is very probable that the other fire-born Rajput clans like the Caulukyas, Paramaras, Cahamanas, as well as the Tomaras and others who in the eighth and ninth centuries were subordinate to the Gurjara-Pratiharas, were of similar pastoral origin, that is, that they originally belonged to the mobile, nomadic groups...
  5. ^ Richard Eaton 2019, p. 87, [1]In Gujarat, as in Rajasthan, genealogy proved essential for making such claims. To this end, local bards composed ballads or chronicles that presented their patrons as idea warriors who protected Brahmins, cows and vassals, as opposed to the livestock herding chieftains that they actually were, or had once been. As people, who created and preserved the genealogies, local bards therefore played critical roles in brokering for their clients socio-cultural transitions to a claimed Rajput status. A similar thing was happening in the Thar desert region, where from the fourteenth century onwards mobile pastoral groups gradually evolved into landed, sedentary and agrarian clans. Once again, it was bards and poets, patronized by little kings, who transformed a clan's ancestors from celebrated cattle-herders or cattle-rustlers to celebrated protectors of cattle-herding communities. The difference was subtle but critical, since such revised narratives retained an echo of a pastoral nomadic past while repositioning a clan's dynastic founder from pastoralist to non-pastoralist. The term 'Rajput', in short, had become a prestigious title available for adoption by upwardly mobile clan in the process of becoming sedentary. By one mechanism or another, a process of 'Rajputization' occurred in new states that emerged from the turmoil following Timur's invasion in 1398, especially in Gujarat, Malwa and Rajasthan.
  6. ^ Satish Chandra (2008). Social Change and Development in Medieval Indian History. Har-Anand Publications. p. 44. Modern historians are more or less agreed that the Rajputs consisted of miscellaneous groups including shudras and tribals
  7. ^ Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar; Reena Dube (1 February 2012). Female Infanticide in India: A Feminist Cultural History. SUNY Press. pp. 59, 257. ISBN 978-0-7914-8385-5.
  8. ^ name="Banerjee-Dube-Mayaram-Shail2010"/>
  9. ^ Jai Narayan Asopa (1990). A socio-political and economic study, northern India. Prateeksha Publications. p. 89. Retrieved 26 May 2011.
  10. ^ Maya Unnithan-Kumar (1997). Identity, Gender, and Poverty: New Perspectives on Caste and Tribe in Rajasthan. Berghahn Books. p. 135. ISBN 978-1-57181-918-5. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
  11. ^ Makhan Jha (1 January 1997). Anthropology of Ancient Hindu Kingdoms: A Study in Civilizational Perspective. M.D. Publications Pvt. Ltd. pp. 33–. ISBN 978-81-7533-034-4. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
  12. ^ André Wink (2002). Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7Th-11th Centuries. BRILL. pp. 282–. ISBN 978-0-391-04173-8. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
  13. ^ Shail Mayaram 2013, p. 269.
  14. ^ Lindsey Harlan 1992, p. 31.
  15. ^ Geography of Rigvedic India, M.L. Bhargava, Lucknow 1964, pp. 15–18, 46–49, 92–98, 100-/1, 136
  16. ^ a b c Barbara N. Ramusack (2003). The Indian Princes and their States, The New Cambridge History of India. Cambridge University Press. p. 14. ISBN 9781139449083.
  17. ^ Zimmer 1952, p. 218
  18. ^ Jain, Champat Rai (1929). "Riṣabha Deva, the Founder of Jainism".
  19. ^ Zimmer 1952, p. 220
  20. ^ History of Tomars, Part1 – Tomars of Delhi by Harihar niwas Dwivedi. Gwalior: Vidyamandir publications. 1983.
  21. ^ Tarikh-i-Firishta, tr. Briggs, Vol.1. p. 26.
  22. ^ a b Waltraud Ernst; Biswamoy Pati (18 October 2007). India's Princely States: People, Princes and Colonialism. Routledge. p. 57. ISBN 978-1-134-11988-2.
  23. ^ History of the Paramara Dynasty by D.C. Ganguly. 1933.
  24. ^ M. S. Naravane (1999). The Rajputs of Rajputana: A Glimpse of Medieval Rajasthan. APH Publishing. p. 23. ISBN 978-81-7648-118-2.

Bibliography


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