1 MINOR LAND-OWNING AND AGRICULTURAL CASTES. 173
2 that the annals of Jaisalmer given by Major Tod narrate the quarrels
3 between the Khokhars and the Bhattis of Jaisalmer long before the time of
4 Mahomet ; though I should add that Major Tod thinks Khokhar may be a
5 misreading for Gakkhar. Major Tod gives Khokra as one of the clans of the
6 Rathor Rajputs. In Bahawalpur I find that ii,412 of the Khokhar Rajputs
7 have returned their main tribe as Bhatti. On the whole it would appear
8 most probable that they are really Rajputs, perhaps not of the purest descent ;
9 while the low repute in which Rajputs are held on the frontier would account
10 for the rise of the claim to Qureshi origin, which would quickly spread among
11 a Musalman tribe. In Sirsa, where the prohibition against marriage out of
12 the caste is very strictly observed, the Khokhars intermarry with the local
13 Rajpiit tribes. Sir Lepel Griffin indeed separates the Khokhar Rajputs from
14 those Khokhars who claim kindred origin with the Awans; but it is doubtful
15 whether this is allowable, for the Awan tradition is appai'enlly spreading,
16 even among those Khokhars who are still recognised as Rajputs throughout
17 the country side. At the same time the Khokhars are so widely spread, and
18 have been at one time or another so powerful that Khokhar is almost as
19 favourite a name as Bhatti for the clans of the lower castes in the Panjab ;
20 and it may be that there is a distinct Khokhar caste apart fi-om the Khokhar
21 Rajputs, just as both are certainly distinct from the Khokhar Chuhras.
22 Colonel Davies notes ,that many of the social customs of the Khokhars of
23 Shahpur denote Hindu origin ; and this would be quite decisive against the
24 Qutb Shahi myth.
25 469. The Khokhars are most numerous along the valleys of the Jahlam
26 and Chanab, and especially in the Jhang and Shahpm- districts ; but tliey are
27 also found, though in smaller numbers, on the lower Indus and the Satluj,
28 and especially in Lahore, and also all along the foot of the hills from the
29 Jahlam to the Satluj. Find Dadan Khan is said to have taken its name from
30 a Khokhar Chief who founded it and was Raja of those parts in the time of
31 Jahangir ; and the history of the family, which at one time possessed some
32 importance, and of the struggles between the Janjuas and the Khokhars for
33 the possession of the tract, is told at pages 589/f of Griffin's Panjab Chiefs.
34 In Jhang too they once ruled over an extensive tract lying east of the Jahlam.
35 The Khokhars of Gujrat and Siiilkot have a tradition that they were origin-
36 ally settled at Gai-h Karanah, which they cannot identify,' and were ejected
37 by Tamerlane ; and that they then went to Jammu, whence they spread along
38 tlie hills ; and the concentration of the Khokhars of the plains on the Jahlam
39 and the Chanab, and :the wide diffusion of those of the sub-montane tract,
40 lend some colour to the theory that they spread downwards from the hills,
41 and not upwards from the south. In Akbar's time the Khokhars were shown
42 as the principal tribe of the Dasiiya pargauah of Hushyarpur ; and the
43 Mahomedan historians tell us that the Khokhars held Lahore and were power-
44 ful in the Upper Bai'i I)odb at the time of Taimur's invasion. ^
45 The Khokhars of Shahpur are said to be split up into innumerable clans,
46 among whom the Nissowana, notorious for their thieving propensities and
47 generally lawless character, are alone important ; but in Jhang Mr. Steedman
48 describes the Khokhars as among the best of the agricultm'al classes, hard-
49 working, thrifty, and not given to crime.
50 • Mr. Steedman suggests Koh Kerana, lying south of Shabpur, in the Jhang district.
51 " The English Editors generally suggest Gakkhar as an emendation -. prohably because they do
52 not know the word Khokhar,