1 JAT, EAJPUT, AND ALLIED CASTES. 101
2 Pathans and Biloches and the general prevalence of Mahomedan feelings and
3 ideas placed recent Indian origin at a discount, and led the leading families
4 who belonged to neither of these two races to claim connection^ not with the
5 Kshatriyas of the Sanskrit classics, but with the Mughal conquerors of India
6 or the Qureshi cousins of the Prophet ; insomuch that even admittedly Rajput
7 tribes of famous ancestry, such as the Khokhar, have begun to follow the
8 example. But in the hills, where RaJ2)ut dynasties with genealogies perhaps
9 more ancient and unbroken than can be shown by any other royal families in
10 P. 221] the world retained their independence till yesterday, and where manv of them
11 still enjoy as great social authority as ever, the twin processes of degradation
12 from and elevation to Rajpiit rank are still to be seen in opei-ation. The Raja
13 is there the fountain not only of honom* but also of caste, which is the same
14 thing in India. Mr. Lyall writes : —
15 " Till lately the limits of caste do not seem to have been so immutably fixed in the hills as in
16 " tbe plains. The Eaja was the foimtaia of honour, and could do muL-h as ho liked. I have heard
17 " old men quote instances within their memory in which a Raja promoted a Girth to be a Rathi,
18 "and a Thakar to be a Rajput, for service done or money given ; and at tlic present day the power
19 " of admitting back into caste fellowship persons put under a ban for some grave act of defilement,
20 " is a source of income to the Jagirdar Rajas.
21 " I believe that Mr. Campbell, tlic present Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, has asserted that
22 " there is no sucli thiug as a distinct Rajput stock ; that in former times before caste distinctions
23 "had become crystallized, any tribe or family whose ancestor or head rose to royal rank became
24 " in time Rajput. This is certainly the conclusion to whicli many facts point with regard to the
25 " Rajputs of these hills. Two of the old royal and now essentially Rajput families of this district,
26 " viz., Kotlehr and Bangahal, are said to be Brahmin by original stock. Mr. Barnes says that in
27 " Kaugra the sou of a Rajput Ijy a low-caste woman takes place as a Rathi : in Seoriij and other
28 "places in the inlerior of the hills I have met families calling themselves Rajputs, and growing
29 " into general acceptance as Rajputs, in their own country at least, whose only claim to tue title
30 " was that their father or grandfather was the otfsprmg of a Kanetni by a foreign Brahmin. On
31 " the border line in the Himalayas, between Thibet and India proper, any one can observe caste
32 " gi'owing before his eyes ; the noble is changing into a Rajput, the priest into a Brahmin, the
33 " peasant into a Jat, and so on down to the bottom of the scale. The same process was, I believe,
34 " more or less in force in Kangra proper down to a period not very remote from to-day."
35 423. The reverse process of degradation from Rajpiit to lower rank
36 is too common to require proof of its existence, which will bo found if needed,
37 together with further instances of elevation, in the section which treats of the
38 Rajputs and kindred castes. In the eastern districts, where Brahminism is
39 stronger than in any other part of the Paujab and Dehli too near to allow of
40 families rising to political independence, it is probable that no elevation to the
41 rank of Rajput has taken place within recent times. But many Rajput
42 families have ceased to be Rajputs. Setting aside the general tradition of the
43 Panjab Jats to the effect that then- ancestors were Rajputs who married Jats
44 or began to practise widow-marriage, we have the Gaurwa Rajputs of Gur-
45 gaon and Dehli, who have indeed retained the title of Rajput because the
46 caste feeling is too strong in those jjarts and the change in their customs too
47 recent for it yet to have died out, but who have, for all purposes of equality,
48 communion, or intermarriage, ceased to be Rajputs since they took to the
49 practice of kareioa ; we have the Sahnsars of Hushyarpur who were Rajputs
50 within the last two or three generations, but have ceased to be so because they
51 grow vegetables like the Arain ; in Karnal we have Rtijputs who within
52 the living generation have ceased to be Rdjputs and become Shekhs,
53 because poverty and loss of land forced them to weaving as an occu-
54 pation ; while the Dehli Chauhan, within the shadow of the city where their
55 ancestors once ruled and led the Indian arinies in their last struggle with the
56 Musalmau invaders, have lost their caste by yielding to the temptations of