DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31218#0150
THE CASTE SYSTEM OF NORTHERN INDIA
twelve subcastes, and only 1391 Rajputs in all, out of
700,000, to one or other of the forty-three clans. These
figrires sufficiently prove that the hill Brahmans and Raj-
puts are sui generis.
‘About these hills,’ writes the Moghul ruler Babar, ‘are
other tribes of men. With all the investiga-
3. Origin of the 10011 and encluiry, I could make among the
hill Brahmans natives of Hindustan, I could get no sort
and Rajputs. The 0f description or authentic information re-
garding them. All that I could learn was
that the men of these hills were called Kas.
It struck me that as the Hindustanis frequently confound
(the letters) shin and sin, and as Kashmir is the chief . . .
city in these hills, it may have taken its name from that
circumstance.’ Babar’s shrewd conjecture is supported by
more evidence than he knew, for the recurrence of the word
Kas or Kash in the nomenclature of the hills is too strik-
ing to be the result of mere chance. We have, for instance,
Kashgar, Kashmir, Karakash, Hindu Kush,2 the Khasa
tribe in Kashmir, the Khasiva Rajput and Brahman in
Kumaun, and the Khas sept in Nepal. The word is usu-
ally derived from the name of the old Khasa race. The
existence of this race is well established. It is referred to
in the Vishnu and Vaya Puranas, and in the Mahabharata,
where it is described as a northern tribe which brought
presents of pai/pilika goid—that fabulous gold so frequent-
ly mentioned by classical writers3 which was collected by
ants (pipilaka)—a fact that possibly indicates that the
Khasas were carriers of Tibetan gold dust. The Kha-
sas are probably the Cesi of Megasthenes; the Mudra
Rakshasa names them as one of the confederacy of mlech-
cha tribes arrayed against Chandragupta; and Manu puts
them amongst his vrisala castes of degraded Rajputs.
The hill Brahmans and Rajputs are usually regarded as
being partly the original inhabitants of the hills, partly as
1 Panwars 102, Chauhans 36, Bundela 1.
2 Others supposed Hindu Kush to be a corruption of ‘Indicus Cauca-
sus’. McCrindle, Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian
(1877), pp. 181-2, note.
3 Herodotus, III. 102-5; Arrian, Anabasis, V. 4, 7; Strabo, XV;
Aelian, Pliny, Propertius and many others,—for list see McCrindle,
op. cit., p. 96, note.
twelve subcastes, and only 1391 Rajputs in all, out of
700,000, to one or other of the forty-three clans. These
figrires sufficiently prove that the hill Brahmans and Raj-
puts are sui generis.
‘About these hills,’ writes the Moghul ruler Babar, ‘are
other tribes of men. With all the investiga-
3. Origin of the 10011 and encluiry, I could make among the
hill Brahmans natives of Hindustan, I could get no sort
and Rajputs. The 0f description or authentic information re-
garding them. All that I could learn was
that the men of these hills were called Kas.
It struck me that as the Hindustanis frequently confound
(the letters) shin and sin, and as Kashmir is the chief . . .
city in these hills, it may have taken its name from that
circumstance.’ Babar’s shrewd conjecture is supported by
more evidence than he knew, for the recurrence of the word
Kas or Kash in the nomenclature of the hills is too strik-
ing to be the result of mere chance. We have, for instance,
Kashgar, Kashmir, Karakash, Hindu Kush,2 the Khasa
tribe in Kashmir, the Khasiva Rajput and Brahman in
Kumaun, and the Khas sept in Nepal. The word is usu-
ally derived from the name of the old Khasa race. The
existence of this race is well established. It is referred to
in the Vishnu and Vaya Puranas, and in the Mahabharata,
where it is described as a northern tribe which brought
presents of pai/pilika goid—that fabulous gold so frequent-
ly mentioned by classical writers3 which was collected by
ants (pipilaka)—a fact that possibly indicates that the
Khasas were carriers of Tibetan gold dust. The Kha-
sas are probably the Cesi of Megasthenes; the Mudra
Rakshasa names them as one of the confederacy of mlech-
cha tribes arrayed against Chandragupta; and Manu puts
them amongst his vrisala castes of degraded Rajputs.
The hill Brahmans and Rajputs are usually regarded as
being partly the original inhabitants of the hills, partly as
1 Panwars 102, Chauhans 36, Bundela 1.
2 Others supposed Hindu Kush to be a corruption of ‘Indicus Cauca-
sus’. McCrindle, Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian
(1877), pp. 181-2, note.
3 Herodotus, III. 102-5; Arrian, Anabasis, V. 4, 7; Strabo, XV;
Aelian, Pliny, Propertius and many others,—for list see McCrindle,
op. cit., p. 96, note.