1 132 PANJAB CASTES.
2 A reference to my description of tlic Kanets of our hills will show that
3 something of the same sort has gone on in the Paujab Himalayas^ though
4 necessarily in a much lower degree^ since here the Aryan and not the aborigine
5 was predominant ; and the deserijttion of the Hill Rajputs, and still more of the
6 Thakars and Rathis, which will be found in this section under their respective
7 headings, will show how, if the Turanian is not as in Nepal admitted to
8 Kshatriya rank, it is at any rate impossible to draw any line among the Aryan
9 races, all above which shall be Rajputs and all below it non-Rajputs. As the
10 Kdngra proverb runs — " In the seventh generation the Ghirathni becomes a
11 " queen."
12 The Rajputs of the Panjab are fine brave men, and retain the feudal C^- ^^'^
13 instinct more strongly developed than perhaps any other non-menial caste, the
14 tribal heads wielding extraordinary authority. They are very tenacious of
15 the integrity of their commiuial property in the village lands, seldom admit-
16 ting strangers to share it with them. Pride of blood is their strongest
17 characteristic, for pride of blood is the very essence of their Rajputhood.
18 They are lazy and poor husbandmen and much prefer pastoral to agricultural
19 pursuits, looking upon all manual lalioiTr as derogatory and upon the actual
20 operation of ploughing as degrading ; and it is only the poorest class of
21 Rajput who will himself follow the plough. They arc, in most parts of the
22 Panjab plains, cattle-stealers by ancestral profession ; but they exercise their
23 calling in a gentlemanly way, and there is certainly honour among Rajput
24 thieves.
25 44'2. The Rajput tribes of the Panjab. — The Rajputs of the Panjab may
26 be broadly divided into four groups, each of which I shall discuss separately
27 in the following paragraphs. First come the Rajjiuts of the Dehli Tenitory
28 and Jamna valley, for the most part belonging to the two great tribes of
29 Chauhan and Tunwar which gave Dehli its most famous dynasties. Next
30 come the Rajputs of the river valleys of the Western Plains, many of them
31 hardly or not at all to be distinguished from Jats, and belonging for the most
32 ])art to the Bhatti of Jaisalmer and Bi'kaner, and their predecessors the
33 Punwar. The third group is the Rajputs of the western hills including the
34 Salt-range Tract, comprising both dominant tribes of proud position such as
35 the Janjua and mongrel Rajputs from the Jammu hills, and descendants either
36 of the Yadiibansi (Bhatti) dynasty of Kashmir and the mythical Raja Rasiilu
37 of Sialkot so famous in Panjab folklore, or of a group of tiiljes, apparently
38 of Punwar origin, which now hold the hills on cither bank of the Jahlam.
39 Finally we have the Rajputs of the Kangra hills of whom the Katoch may
40 be taken as the typCj so ancient that their very origin and advent to their
41 present abodes are lost in the past ; and the Rajputs of the lower hills which
42 fringe the Panjab Himalayas. With the Rajputs I take the Thakar and
43 Rathi who are lower grades of Rajputs rather than separate castes, and
44 the Rawat whose position is still more difBcult of definition. It will
45 be noticed that I do not mention the Rajputs of the Sikh tract, of the
46 central districts, and of the Phulkian States of the Eastern Plains. As a
47 fact they are few, and the few there are are unimportant. Nor have I men-
48 tioned the Rajputs of the frontier districts, for here again they are insignifi-
49 cant both in numbers and importance. The reason why the Rajput disappeais
50 before the Sikh, llie Pathan, and the Biloch I have already explained in
51 section 422. Abstract No. 71, on page 219,* shows the distribution of ,. ^
52 Rajputs and allied castes. The small number in the Hill States is curious. 98«9,