1 JAT, RAJPUT, AND ALLIED CASTES. 131
2 TheDhankaT(No. 12). — I have said that the Dhankar are of the same stock as the Rathi.
3 They are ahiiost coiifiaeil to Jhajjar iu Rohtak, and are perhaps nothing more than a local clan of
4 the Rathi ti'ihe.
5 The Phogat (No. 13). — This trihc possesse' some iiuportance in Jmd, and has spread into the
6 neighbouring portions of Giu'gaon and Rohtak. The only fact I have concerning them is that they
7 will not intermarry with the Deswal ; but the reason is not explained.
8 The SangWan (No. 14).— The Sangwana re descended from the ancestor of the Jakhar already
9 mentioned. Their head-quarters are in Jind ; but they are also found in Rohtak and Hiss^r.
10 The Pawania (No. 15). — The Pawania are a Hissar tribe who are also found in Rohtak, Su'sa,
11 Jind, and the detached portion of Patiala and, curiously enough, in Ambala. I have no information
12 to give regarding them.
13 The Bahniwal (No. 16). — The Bahniwal are found chiefly in the Hissar division and Patiala.
14 Tliey are also found on the Lower Satluj in Montgomery, where they have probably returned them-
15 selves as Bhatti RaJixits, which they claim to be by descent. Mr. Purser says of them: — "In
16 " numbers they are weak ; but in love of robbery they yield to none of the b'ibes." They gave much
17 trouble in 1857. In the 15th century the Bahniwal held one of the si.\ cantons into which Bikaner
18 was then divided.
19 The Nain (No. 17). — The Nain are chiefly found in the detached portions of Patiala, but
20 liave spread into Hissar and Dehli. I have no information regarding them.
21 THE RAJPtT (CASTE No. E).
22 441. The Rajputs of the Panjab.— The distTibiition of the Rajputs
23 * p. and allied races is shown in Abstract No. 71, page 219.* I do not propose
24 98-9- to enter into any detailed description or discussion of the Rajput. He is
25 much the same all over Northern India, and more has been published about
26 him than about any other Indian caste. The great authority is Tod's
27 Bdjdsthdn, while both Elliott and Sherring give miich useful information.
28 I have already expressed in sections 432-3 my views as to the identity of the
29 Jat and Rajput stock as it stands at present, and how the Rajputs merely
30 consist of the royal families of that stock. I might indeed have gone further,
31 and have said that a trilie of any caste whatever which had in ancient times
32 possessed supreme power throughout any fairly extensive tract of country,
33 would be classed as Rajput. It seems to me almost certain that some of the
34 so-called Rajput royal families were aboriginal ; and notably the Chandel.
35 How the aborigines of the Nepal Himalayas rose to be Kshatriya is well told
36 by Hodgson in his Essay on the Military Tribes of Nepal. He points out
37 that when the Brahmans were driven up into the hills by the advancing tide
38 of Mahomedan conquest, they wedded with the aboriginal women whom they
39 found there. But to render this possible it was necessary to conciliate the
40 people among whom they had come to dwell ; and they called their first
41 converts among them Kshatriya, while to their own offspring by the hill
42 women they gave not only Kshatriya rank and privileges, but Brahminical
43 patronymics.
44 " From these tn'o roots mainly sprang the now numerous, predominant, and extensively
45 " ramified tribe of Khas — originally the name of a small clan of creedless barbarians, but now the
46 "proud title of the Kshatriya or military order of Nepal. Tims too the key to the anomalous
47 " nomenclature of so many stirpes of these military tribes is to be sought in the nomenclature of the
48 " sacred order." And even now in spite of the yearly increasing sway of Hinduism, and of the
49 efforts of Brahmans in high office to abolish the" custom, the Khas still, insist that "the fruits of
50 " commerce (for marriage is now out of the question) between their females and males of the
51 " sacred order shall be ranked as Kshatriya, wear the thread, and assume the patronymic title."
52 So again, when the RAjput immigrants from the plains took aboriginal women in concubinage
53 (and concubinage among the hill people is for all purposes of legitimacy and inheritance the same as
54 marriage), "they were permitted to give their childi'en so begotten the patronymic title only, not
55 " the rank of Kshatriya. But their childi'en again, if they married for two generations with the
56 " Khas, became pure Khas, or real Kshatriyas in point of privilege and rank though no longer so in
57 " name. They were Khas, not Ksliatriya, and yet they bore the proud title cognominal of the
58 "martialorder of the Hindus, and were in the land of their nativity entitled to every prerogative
59 " which Kshatriya bii'th confers in Hindustan."
60 TSSL