fbpx
Wikipedia

Rajput

Rajput (from Sanskrit raja-putra meaning "son of a king"; also called Thakur)[6][7] is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Rajput covers various patrilineal clans historically associated with warriorhood: several clans claim Rajput status, although not all claims are universally accepted. According to modern scholars, almost all Rajput clans originated from peasant or pastoral communities.

Over time, the Rajputs emerged as a social class comprising people from a variety of ethnic and geographical backgrounds. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the membership of this class became largely hereditary, although new claims to Rajput status continued to be made in the later centuries. Several Rajput-ruled kingdoms played a significant role in many regions of central and northern India from seventh century onwards.

The Rajput population and the former Rajput states are found in northern, western, central and eastern India as well as southern and eastern Pakistan. These areas include Rajasthan, Haryana, Gujarat, Eastern Punjab, Western Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Sindh.

Origin

The origin of the Rajputs has been a much-debated topic among historians. Historian Satish Chandra states: "Modern historians are more or less agreed that the Rajputs consisted of miscellaneous groups including Shudra and tribals. Some were Brahmans who took to warfare, and some were from Tribes- indigenous or foreign". Thus, the Rajput community formation was a result of political factors that influenced caste mobility, called Sanskritization by some scholars and Rajputization by others.[8][9] Modern scholars agree that nearly all Rajputs clans originated from peasant or pastoral communities.[10][11][12][13][14]

Alf Hiltebeitel discusses three theories by Raj era and early writers for Rajput origin and gives the reasons as to why these theories are dismissed by modern research. British colonial-era writers characterised Rajputs as descendants of the foreign invaders such as the Scythians or the Hunas, and believed that the Agnikula myth was invented to conceal their foreign origin.[15] According to this theory, the Rajputs originated when these invaders were assimilated into the Kshatriya category during the 6th or 7th century, following the collapse of the Gupta Empire.[16][17] While many of these colonial writers propagated this foreign-origin theory in order to legitimise the colonial rule, the theory was also supported by some Indian scholars, such as D. R. Bhandarkar.[15] The second theory was promulgated by the Vaidya who believed in the Aryan invasion theory and that the entire 9th-10th century Indian populace was composed of only one race - the Aryans who had not yet mixed with the Shudras or Dravidians. Nationalist historians Vaidya and R.B. Singh write that the Rajputs had originated from the Vedic Aryan Kshatriyas of the epics - Ramayana and Mahabharata. Vaidya bases this theory on certain attributes - such as bravery and "physical strength" of Draupadi and Kausalya and the bravery of the Rajputs. However, Hiltebeitel says that such "affinities do not point to an unbroken continuity between an ancient epic period" in the Vedic period (3500 BCE - 3000 BCE according to Vaidya) and the "great Rajput tradition" that started in sixteenth-century Rajasthan instead "raise the question of similarities between the epics' allusions to Vedic Vratya warbands and earlier medieval low status Rajput clans". Hiltebeitel concludes that such attempts to trace Rajputs from epic and Vedic sources are "unconvincing"[18] and cites Nancy MacLean and B.D. Chattopadhyaya to label Vaidya's historiography on Rajputs as "often hopeless".[19] A third group of historians, which includes Jai Narayan Asopa, theorised that the Rajputs were Brahmins who became rulers. However, such "one track arguments" and "contrived evidence" such as shape of the head, cultural stereotypes, etc. are dismissed by Hiltebeitel who refers to such claims and Asopa's epic references as "far-fetched" or "unintelligible".[20]

Recent research suggests that the Rajputs came from a variety of ethnic and geographical backgrounds[21] and various Varnas.[22][23] Tanuja Kothiyal states: "In the colonial ethnographic accounts rather than referring to Rajputs as having emerged from other communities, Bhils, Mers, Minas, Gujars, Jats, Raikas, all lay a claim to a Rajput past from where they claim to have 'fallen'. Historical processes, however, suggest just the opposite".[24]

The root word "rajaputra" (literally "son of a king") finds mention in some ancient Hindu scriptures like Rigveda, Ramayana and Mahabharata.[25][26][27] The term has been used to designate some ministers and nobles in Sanskrit inscriptions belonging to the Licchavi kingdom (5th to 7th century CE).[28][29] According to some scholars, it was reserved for the immediate relatives of a king; others believe that it was used for a larger group of high-ranking men.[30] The derivative word "rajput" meant 'horse soldier', 'trooper', 'headman of a village' or 'subordinate chief' before the 15th century. Individuals with whom the word "rajput" was associated before the 15th century were considered varna–samkara ("mixed caste origin") and inferior to Kshatriya. Over time, the term "Rajput" came to denote a hereditary political status, which was not necessarily very high: the term could denote a wide range of rank-holders, from an actual son of a king to the lowest-ranked landholder.[31][32][33][34]

According to scholars, in medieval times "the political units of India were probably ruled most often by men of very low birth" and this "may be equally applicable for many clans of 'Rajputs' in northern India". Burton Stein explains that this process of allowing rulers, frequently of low social origin, a "clean" rank via social mobility in the Hindu Varna system serves as one of the explanations of the longevity of the unique Indian civilisation.[35][36][37]

Gradually, the term Rajput came to denote a social class, which was formed when the various tribal and nomadic groups became landed aristocrats, and transformed into the ruling class.[38] These groups assumed the title "Rajput" as part of their claim to higher social positions and ranks.[39] The early medieval literature suggests that this newly formed Rajput class comprised people from multiple castes.[40] Thus, the Rajput identity is not the result of a shared ancestry. Rather, it emerged when different social groups of medieval India sought to legitimise their newly acquired political power by claiming Kshatriya status. These groups started identifying as Rajput at different times, in different ways. Thus, modern scholars summarise that Rajputs were a "group of open status" since the eighth century, mostly illiterate warriors who claimed to be reincarnates of ancient Indian Kshatriyas – a claim that had no historical basis. Moreover, this unfounded Kshatriya status claim showed a sharp contrast to the classical varna of Kshatriyas as depicted in Hindu literature in which Kshatriyas are depicted as an educated and urbanite clan.[41][42][43][44][45] Historian Thomas R. Metcalf mentions the opinion of Indian scholar K. M. Panikkar who also considers the famous Rajput dynasties of medieval India to have come from non-Kshatriya castes.[46]

During the era of the Mughal empire, hypergamous marriage "marrying up", combined with service in the state army was another way a tribal family could "become" Rajput. This process required a change in dress, diet, worship, and other traditions, ending widow remarriage, for example. Such a marriage between someone from a tribal family, and a member of an acknowledged - but possibly poor - Rajput family, would ultimately enable the non-Rajput family to rise to Rajput status. This marriage pattern supports the fact that Rajput was an "open caste category", available to those who served the Mughals.[47]

Rajput formation continued in the colonial era. Even in the 19th century, anyone from the "village landlord" to the "newly wealthy lower caste Shudra" could employ Brahmins to retrospectively fabricate a genealogy and within a couple of generations they would gain acceptance as Hindu Rajputs. This process would get mirrored by communities in north India. This process of origin of the Rajput community resulted in hypergamy as well as female infanticide that was common in Hindu Rajput clans. Scholars refer to this as "Rajputization", which, like Sanskritization, was a mode for upward mobility, but it differed from Sanskritization in other attributes, like the method of worship, lifestyle, diet, social interaction, rules for women, and marriage, etc. German historian Hermann Kulke has coined the term "Secondary Rajputization" for describing the process of members of a tribe trying to re-associate themselves with the former chief of their tribe who had already transformed himself into a Rajput via Rajputization and thus become Rajputs themselves.[48][49][50][22][23]

Emergence as a community

 
Rajputs of Central India

Scholarly opinions differ on when the term Rajput acquired hereditary connotations and came to denote a clan-based community. Historian Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya, based on his analysis of inscriptions (primarily from Rajasthan), believed that by the 12th century, the term "rajaputra" was associated with fortified settlements, kin-based landholding, and other features that later became indicative of the Rajput status.[30] According to Chattopadhyaya, the title acquired "an element of heredity" from c. 1300.[51] A later study by of 11th–14th century inscriptions from western and central India, by Michael B. Bednar, concludes that the designations such as "rajaputra", "thakkura" and "rauta" were not necessarily hereditary during this period.[51]

Rajputs were involved in nomadic pastoralism, animal husbandry and cattle trade until much later than popularly believed. The 17th century chronicles of Muhnot Nainsi i.e. Munhata Nainsi ri Khyat and Marwar ra Paraganan ri Vigat discuss disputes between Rajputs pertaining to cattle raids. In addition, Folk deities of the Rajputs - Pabuji, Mallinath, Gogaji and Ramdeo were considered protectors of cattle herding communities. They also imply struggle among Rajputs for domination over cattle and pasturelands. [52] The emergence of Rajput community was the result of a gradual change from mobile pastoral and tribal groups into landed sedentary ones. This necessitated control over mobile resources for agrarian expansion which in turn necessitated kinship structures, martial and marital alliances.[24][14][53]

During its formative stages, the Rajput class was quite assimilative and absorbed people from a wide range of lineages.[38] However, by the late 16th century, it had become genealogically rigid, based on the ideas of blood purity.[54] The membership of the Rajput class was now largely inherited rather than acquired through military achievements.[51] A major factor behind this development was the consolidation of the Mughal Empire, whose rulers had great interest in genealogy. As the various Rajput chiefs became Mughal feduatories, they no longer engaged in major conflicts with each other. This decreased the possibility of achieving prestige through military action, and made hereditary prestige more important.[55]

According to David Ludden, the word "Rajput" acquired its present-day meaning in the 16th century.[56] During 16th and 17th centuries, the Rajput rulers and their bards (charans) sought to legitimise the Rajput socio-political status on the basis of descent and kinship.[57] They fabricated genealogies linking the Rajput families to the ancient dynasties, and associated them with myths of origins that established their Kshatriya status.[51][58][23] This led to the emergence of what Indologist Dirk Kolff calls the "Rajput Great Tradition", which accepted only hereditary claims to the Rajput identity, and fostered a notion of eliteness and exclusivity.[59] The legendary epic poem Prithviraj Raso, which depicts warriors from several different Rajput clans as associates of Prithviraj Chauhan, fostered a sense of unity among these clans.[60] The text thus contributed to the consolidation of the Rajput identity by offering these clans a shared history.[30]

However, there are historical indications of the group calling themselves Rajputs by sixth century AD which settled in Indo-Gangetic Plain.[61] Historian J.N Asopa in his research quoted various reference to the term Rajput in various inscriptions and contemporaneous texts of 11th-13th century A.D.[62]

Thus, the other scholarly opinion asserted that the term Rajput began to be more commonly used from twelfth century onwards and the Rajput caste established itself well before the thirteenth century. The reference to the clan structure of Rajputs in contemporary historical works like Rajatarangini by Kalhana along with other epigraphic evidences indicates their existence as a community by twelfth century.[63][64][65][66]

Despite these developments, migrant soldiers made new claims to the Rajput status until as late as the 19th century.[54] In the 19th century, the colonial administrators of India re-imagined the Rajputs as similar to the Anglo-Saxon knights. They compiled the Rajput genealogies in the process of settling land disputes, surveying castes and tribes, and writing history. These genealogies became the basis of distinguishing between the "genuine" and the "spurious" Rajput clans.[67]

History

History of Rajput Kingdoms

 
During their centuries-long rule, the Rajputs constructed several palaces. Shown here is the Junagarh Fort in Bikaner, Rajasthan, which was built by the Rathore Rajput rulers[68]
 
A royal Rajput procession, depicted on a mural at the Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur[69]

The Rajput kingdoms were disparate: loyalty to a clan was more important than allegiance to the wider Rajput social grouping, meaning that one clan would fight another. This and the internecine jostling for position that took place when a clan leader (raja) died meant that Rajput politics were fluid and prevented the formation of a coherent Rajput empire.[70]

The term "Rajput" has been used as an anachronistic designation for leading martial lineages of 11th and 12th centuries that confronted the Ghaznavid and Ghurid invaders, although the Rajput identity for a lineage did not exist at this time, these lineages were classified as aristocratic Rajput clans in the later times.[71][72][73][74][75]

However, other scholarly opinion staged emergence of Rajput clans as early as seventh century AD. when they start to make themselves lords of various localities and dominate region in current day Northern India.[76][77][78][79][80][81][10][82][83] These dynasties were Pratiharas of Kannauj, the Chahamanas (of Shakambhari, Nadol and Jalor), the Tomaras of Delhi, the Chaulukyas, the Paramaras, the Gahadavalas, Chandela, Sisodias , Guhilas etc.

The Rajput ruled kingdoms repelled early invasions of Arab commanders after Muhammad ibn Qasim conquered Sindh and executed last Hindu king of the kingdom, Raja Dahir. Rajput family of Mewar under Bappa Rawal and later under Khoman fought off invasions by Arab generals and restricted them only until the border of Rajasthan but failed to recapture Sindh.[84] By the first quarter of 11th century, Turkic conqueror Mahmud Ghaznavi launched several successful military expeditions in the territories of Rajputs, defeating them everytime and by 1025 A.D, he demolished and looted the famous Somnath Temple and its Rajput ruler Bhimdev Solanki fled his capital.[85] Rajput rulers at Gwalior and Kalinjar were able to hold off assaults by Maḥmūd, although the two cities did pay him heavy tribute.[86] By last quarter of 12th century, Muhammad of Ghor defeated and executed the last of Ghaznavid rulers and captured their region along with plundering Ghazna, the capital of Ghaznavids. After capturing the northwest frontier, he invaded Rajput domain. In 1191, Prithviraj Chauhan of Ajmer led a coalition of Rajput kings and defeated Ghurid forces near Taraori. However, Muizzuddin returned a year later with an army of mounted archers and crushed Rajput forces on the same battlefield of Taraori, Prithviraj fled the battlefield but was caught near Sirsa and was executed by Ghurids.[87][88] Following the battle, the Delhi Sultanate became prominent in the Delhi region.[89]

The Rajputs fought against Sultans of Delhi from Rajasthan and other adjoining areas. By first quarter of 14th century, Alauddin Khalji sacked key Rajput fortresses of Chittor (1303), Ranthambor (1301) and other Rajput ruled kingdoms like Siwana and Jalore. However, Rajputs resurgence took place under Rana Hammir who defeated Tughlaq army of Muhammad bin Tughluq in Singoli in 1336 CE and recaptured Rajasthan from Delhi sultanate.[90] In the 15th century, the Muslim sultans of Malwa and Gujarat put a joint effort to overcome the Mewar ruler Rana Kumbha but both the sultans were defeated.[91] Kumbha's grandson renowned Rana Sanga inherited a troubling kingdom after death of his brothers but through his capable rule turned traditional kingdom of Mewar into one of the greatest power in northern India during the early 16th century.[92] Sanga defeated Sultans of Gujarat, Malwa and Delhi several times in various battles and expanded his kingdom. Sanga led a grand alliance of Rajput rulers and defeated the Mughal forces of Babur in early combat but was defeated at Khanua through Mughal's use of Gunpowder which was unknown in Northern India at the time. His fierce rival Babur in his autobiography acknowledged him as the greatest Hindu king of that time along with Krishnadevaraya.[93][94][95] After a few years Maldev Rathore of Marwar rose in power and became lord of practically all of western India from Kutch to Punjab.[96][failed verification]

Legendary accounts state that from 1200 CE, many Rajput groups moved eastwards towards the Eastern Gangetic plains forming their own chieftaincies.[97] These minor Rajput kingdoms were dotted all over the Gangetic plains in modern-day Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.[98] During this process, petty clashes occurred with the local population and in some cases, alliances were formed.[97] Among these Rajput chieftaincies were the Bhojpur zamindars[99] and the taluks of Awadh.[100]

The immigration of Rajput clan chiefs into these parts of the Gangetic plains also contributed the agricultural appropriation of previously forested areas, especially in South Bihar.[101] Some have linked this eastwards expansion with the onset of Ghurid invasion in the West.[101]

From as early as the 16th century, Purbiya Rajput soldiers from the eastern regions of Bihar and Awadh, were recruited as mercenaries for Rajputs in the west, particularly in the Malwa region.[102]

Mughal period

Akbar's policy

After the mid-16th century, many Rajput rulers formed close relationships with the Mughal emperors and served them in different capacities.[103][104] It was due to the support of the Rajputs that Akbar was able to lay the foundations of the Mughal empire in India.[105] Some Rajput nobles gave away their daughters in marriage to Mughal emperors and princes for political motives.[106][107][108][109] For example, Akbar accomplished 40 marriages for himself, his sons and grandsons, out of which 17 were Rajput-Mughal alliances.[110][111] Akbar's successors as Mughal emperors, his son Jahangir and grandson Shah Jahan had Rajput mothers.[112] Although Rajput rulers provided the brides to the Mughals, neither Akbar nor his successors provided brides to the Rajput rulers. For example, Akbar got this sisters and daughters married to Timurids and prominent Muslims from central and west Asia. Historian Michael Fisher states that the bards and poets patronised by the Rajput rulers who served Akbar raised Akbar to a "semi-divine" status and gives an example of Akbar being projected as a "divine master" in the "Hindu cosmic order". The writer also finds correlation between the increasing numbers of Hindu Rajput wives in Akbar's household and Hindu Rajputs as well as non-Rajput Hindus in his administration to the religious and political policy followed by him towards non-Muslims which included ending the prohibition on the construction of new temples of non -Muslim faiths like Hindu, Jain etc. In 1564 AD, Akbar had also stopped collection of jaziya from non-Muslims, a tax considered as discriminatory by several non-Muslims which also consisted of his Hindu Rajput officials.[113] The ruling Sisodia Rajput family of Mewar made it a point of honour not to engage in matrimonial relationships with Mughals and thus claimed to stand apart from those Rajput clans who did so.[114]Once Mewar had submitted and alliance of Rajputs reached a measure of stability, matrimonial between leading Rajput states and Mughals became rare.[115]

Shah Jahan's period

One of the most conspicuous event of Shah Jahan's period was rebellion of Bundela rajputs, which was crushed by prince Aurangzeb with iron hand.[116][need quotation to verify]

Aurangzeb's policy

Akbar's diplomatic policy regarding the Rajputs was later damaged by the intolerant rules introduced by his great-grandson Aurangzeb. A prominent example of these rules included the re-imposition of Jaziya, which had been abolished by Akbar.[105] However, despite imposition of Jaziya Aurangzeb's army had a high proportion of Rajput officers in the upper ranks of the imperial army and they were all exempted from paying Jaziya.[117] The Rajputs then revolted against the Mughal empire. Aurangzeb's conflicts with the Rajputs, which commenced in the early 1680s, henceforth became a contributing factor towards the downfall of the Mughal empire.[118][105]

Later

Historian Lynn Zastoupil states that the Mughal Emperors manipulated the appointment of the successor of the Rajput rulers.[clarification needed] In the early 18th century, when the Mughal power declined, Rajput states enjoyed a brief period of independence. But soon the Maratha Empire (or confederacy) started collecting tribute from and harassing some Rajput states. Some Rajput states, in the 1780s appealed to the British East India Company for assistance against the Marathas but their requests for assistance were denied at the time.[119][120][121][clarification needed][122]

By 1765, Awadh had become ally of the British East India Company and the increase in demand for revenue led to a continuous tussle in between the Nawab of Awadh and Rajput leadership bringing political instability in the region.[123]

In one 18th century example given by Pinch, Rajputs of Awadh countered the upward mobility of some of the peasant castes, who by virtue of their economic prosperity sought higher status by wearing Janeu, a sacred thread or claimed Kshatriya status. The records indicates that during the tenure of Asaf-ud-Daula in Awadh, when a section of Awadhiya Kurmi were about to be bestowed with the title of Raja, the Rajput constituency of Asaf's court caused stiff opposition to the move despite the fact that the Rajputs themselves were newcomers to the court and were peasant-soldiers a few year before. Rajputs of Awadh along with Brahmins also formed the major groups who gained during Asaf's regime.[124]

British colonial period

 
Chauhan Rajputs, Delhi (1868)

In the late eighteenth century, despite the request from two Rajput rulers for British support, the British East India company initially refused to support the Rajput states in Rajputana region as they had the policy of non-interference and considered the Rajput states to be weak. In the early nineteenth century, British administrator Warren Hastings realised how alliance with the Rajputs had benefited the Mughals and believed that a similar alliance may give the East India company political advantage in India. In his journal, in January 1815, he noted that Rajput states - Jaipur, Jodhpur and Udaipur had been "devastated" by the Scindia, Holkars, Pindari, Ameer Khan and Muhammad Shah Khan and that the Rajput rulers made multiple petitions to him requesting British protection. Moreover, the Rajput rulers had argued that "British had replaced the Mughal Empire as the supreme power of India and therefore had the responsibility to protect weaker states from aggressive ones". Charles Metcalfe agreed with this reasoning. One by one, many Rajput states in Rajputana came under British protection and became their allies - Kota, Udaipur, Bundi, Kishangarh, Bikaner, Jaipur, Pratapgarh, Banswara, Dungarpur, Jaisalmer by 1817-18 and Sirohi by 1823. The British promised to protect the Rajput states from their adversaries and not interfere in internal affairs in exchange for tribute. However, David Ochterlony, who was in charge of the Rajput states broke the promise to not interfere as in his view interferences would save the states from "ruin". In 1820, the British removed him from his position and replaced him with Charles Metcalfe. For several decades, "non-interference" in internal affairs remained the official policy. However, according to the historian Lynn Zastoupil, the "British never found it possible or desirable to completely withdraw from interference in Rajput affairs".[125][119]

The medieval bardic chronicles (kavya and masnavi) glorified the Rajput past, presenting warriorhood and honour as Rajput ideals. This later became the basis of the British reconstruction of the Rajput history and the nationalist interpretations of Rajputs' struggles with the Muslim invaders.[126] James Tod, a British colonial official, was impressed by the military qualities of the Rajputs but is today considered to have been unusually enamoured of them.[127][128] Although the group venerate him to this day, he is viewed by many historians since the late nineteenth century as being a not particularly reliable commentator.[129][130] Jason Freitag, his only significant biographer, has said that Tod is "manifestly biased".[131]

As per the historian Thomas R. Metcalf, Rajput Taluqdars in Oudh provided a large numbers of leaders to the revolt of 1857 in that region. Kunwar Singh, a Rajput Zamindar was an important leader in Bihar region in the Indian Rebellion of 1857.[132]

Historian Robert Stern points out that in Rajputana, although there were some revolts in the soldiers commanded by British officers the "Rajpur durbar muskeeters and feudal cavalrymen" did not participate in the 1857 revolt at all.[133] But Crispin Bates is of the opinion that Rajput officers had soft corner for the rebels of 1857 fleeing Delhi who were entering into interior areas of then Rajasthan region. He gives examples of rebels who easily found safe havens in villages of Chittor without arrests.[134]

In reference to the role of the Rajput soldiers serving under the British banner, Captain A. H. Bingley wrote:

Rajputs have served in our ranks from Plassey to the present day (1899). They have taken part in almost every campaign undertaken by the Indian armies. Under Forde they defeated the French at Condore. Under Monro at Buxar they routed the forces of the Nawab of Oudh. Under Lake they took part in the brilliant series of victories which destroyed the power of the Marathas.[135]

The Rajput practices of female infanticide and sati (widow immolation) were other matters of concern to the British. It was believed that the Rajputs were the primary adherents to these practices, which the British Raj considered savage and which provided the initial impetus for British ethnographic studies of the subcontinent that eventually manifested itself as a much wider exercise in social engineering.[136]

During the British rule their love for pork, i.e. wild boar, was also well known and the British identified them as a group based on this.[137]

Some unrelated communities tried to change their status to Rajput during the Colonial era. William Rowe, discusses an example of a Shudra caste - the Noniyas (caste of salt makers)- from Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. A large section of this caste that had "become" "Chauhan Rajputs" over three generations in the British Raj era. The more wealthy or advanced Noniyas started by forming the Sri Rajput Pacharni Sabha (Rajput Advancement Society) in 1898 and emulating the Rajput lifestyle. They also started wearing of Sacred thread. Rowe states that at a historic meeting of the caste in 1936, every child in this Noniya section "knew" about their "Rajput heritage".[138] Similarly, Donald Attwood and Baviskar give and example of a caste of shepherds who were formerly Shudras changed their status to Rajput in the Raj era and started wearing the Sacred thread. They are now known as Sagar Rajputs. The scholars consider this example as a case among thousands.[139][140]

Post Independence

Princely States

On India's independence in 1947, the princely states, including those of the Rajput, were given three options: join either India or Pakistan, or remain independent. Rajput rulers of the 22 princely states of Rajputana acceded to newly independent India, amalgamated into the new state of Rajasthan in 1949–1950.[141] Initially the maharajas were granted funding from the Privy purse in exchange for their acquiescence, but a series of land reforms over the following decades weakened their power, and their privy purse was cut off during Indira Gandhi's administration under the 1971 Constitution 26th Amendment Act. The estates, treasures, and practices of the old Rajput rulers now form a key part of Rajasthan's tourist trade and cultural memory.[142]

The Rajput Dogra ruler of Kashmir and Jammu acceded to India in 1947,[143] while retaining his title until the monarchy was abolished in 1971 by the 26th amendment to the Constitution of India.[144]

Before the zamindari abolition, the Rajputs in Oudh formed the major Taluqdars and had controlled over 50 percent of the land in the most districts of the region.[145] Historian Thomas R. Metcalf explains that in the province of Uttar Pradesh, majority of the Taluqdars with moderate to large estates were composed of Rajput caste. He also mentions that Rajputs were only next to Brahmins in the ritual hierarchy and also gave the secular elite of the state. According to him, the community controlled most of the best agricultural land in the region and this also helped the Rajput Taluqdars who were usually the head of the local Rajput clan to gather support over non-Rajput rival in the electoral politics of the state.[146]

Sati

There have been several cases of Sati (burning a widow alive) in Rajasthan from 1943 to 1987. According to an Indian scholar, there are 28 cases since 1947. Although the widows were from several different communities, Rajput widows accounted for 19 cases in Rajasthan. The most famous of these cases is of a Rajput woman named Roop Kanwar. 40,000 Rajputs gathered on the street of Jaipur in October 1987 for supporting her Sati. A pamphlet circulated on that day attacked independent and westernised women who opposed a woman's duty of worshipping her husband as demonstrated by the practice of Sati. This incident again affirmed the low status of women in the Rajput community and the leaders of this pro-sati movement gained in political terms.[147][148]

Affirmative Action

The Rajputs, in states such as Madhya Pradesh are today considered to be a General Caste in India's system of positive discrimination. This means that they have no access to reservations here. But they are classified as an Other Backward Class by the National Commission for Backward Classes in the state of Karnataka.[149][150][151][152] However, some Rajputs, as with other agricultural castes, demand reservations in Government jobs.[153][154][155][156] In 2016, Sikh Rajputs were added under Backward Classes in Punjab[157] but after protest by the community, the government announced that they will be again put under General Category.[158]

Rajput politics

Rajput politics refers to the role played by the Rajput community in the electoral politics of India.[159][160][better source needed] In states such as Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttrakhand, Jammu, Himachal Pradesh, and Gujarat, the large populations of Rajputs gives them a decisive role.[161][162][163][better source needed]

Subdivisions

The term "Rajput" denotes a cluster of castes,[164] clans, and lineages.[165] It is a vaguely-defined term, and there is no universal consensus on which clans make up the Rajput community.[166] In medieval Rajasthan (the historical Rajputana) and its neighbouring areas, the word Rajput came to be restricted to certain specific clans, based on patrilineal descent and intermarriages. On the other hand, the Rajput communities living in the region to the east of Rajasthan had a fluid and inclusive nature. The Rajputs of Rajasthan eventually refused to acknowledge the Rajput identity claimed by their eastern counterparts,[167] such as the Bundelas.[168] The Rajputs claim to be Kshatriyas or descendants of Kshatriyas, but their actual status varies greatly, ranging from princely lineages to common cultivators.[169]

There are several major subdivisions of Rajputs, known as vansh or vamsha, the step below the super-division jāti[170] These vansh delineate claimed descent from various sources, and the Rajput are generally considered to be divided into three primary vansh:[171] Suryavanshi denotes descent from the solar deity Surya, Chandravanshi (Somavanshi) from the lunar deity Chandra, and Agnivanshi from the fire deity Agni. The Agnivanshi clans include Parmar, Chaulukya (Solanki), Parihar and Chauhan.[172]

Lesser-noted vansh include Udayvanshi, Rajvanshi,[173] and Rishivanshi.[citation needed] The histories of the various vanshs were later recorded in documents known as vamshāavalīis; André Wink counts these among the "status-legitimizing texts".[174]

Beneath the vansh division are smaller and smaller subdivisions: kul, shakh ("branch"), khamp or khanp ("twig"), and nak ("twig tip").[170] Marriages within a kul are generally disallowed (with some flexibility for kul-mates of different gotra lineages). The kul serves as the primary identity for many of the Rajput clans, and each kul is protected by a family goddess, the kuldevi. Lindsey Harlan notes that in some cases, shakhs have become powerful enough to be functionally kuls in their own right.[175]

Culture and ethos

The Bengal army of the East India Company recruited heavily from upper castes such as Brahmins and Rajputs of north-central India particularly from the region of Awadh and Bihar. However, after the revolt of 1857 by the Bengal sepoys, the British Indian army shifted recruitment to the Punjab.[176]

Martial race

The Rajputs were designated as a Martial Race in the period of the British Raj. This was a designation created by administrators that classified each ethnic group as either "martial" or "non-martial": a "martial race" was typically considered brave and well built for fighting,[177] whilst the remainder were those whom the British believed to be unfit for battle because of their sedentary lifestyles.[178] However, the martial races were also considered politically subservient, intellectually inferior, lacking the initiative or leadership qualities to command large military formations. The British had a policy of recruiting the martial Indians from those who has less access to education as they were easier to control.[179][180] According to modern historian Jeffrey Greenhunt on military history, "The Martial Race theory had an elegant symmetry. Indians who were intelligent and educated were defined as cowards, while those defined as brave were uneducated and backward". According to Amiya Samanta, the marital race was chosen from people of mercenary spirit (a soldier who fights for any group or country that will pay him/her), as these groups lacked nationalism as a trait.[181]

Deities

 
Karni Mata, Hindu Goddess primarily worshipped by Rajputs

One of the most revered deities of Rajputs is Karni Mata, whom many Rajput clans worship as family goddess and link their community's existence or survival in dire times.[182][183][184][185] Lord Shiva (who is very popular all across India) and Goddess Durga are popular deities worshipped by the Hindu Rajputs. Lord Shiva's image is found in the shrines in the homes of many of the Rajput families. In Sikh Rajputs, Guru Ram Rai is quite popular. The fierce form of Goddess Durga, called Sherawali Mata or "she who rides a lion" is popular among Rajput women.[186]

Rajput lifestyle

 
Rajputs of Udaipur playing the game of Puchesee

The Rajputs of Bihar were inventor of martial art form Pari Khanda, which includes heavy use of Swords and Shields.This exercise was later included in the folk dances of Bihar and Jharkhand like that of Chhau dance.[187] On special occasions, a primary chief would break up a meeting of his vassal chiefs with khanda nariyal, the distribution of daggers and coconuts. Another affirmation of the Rajput's reverence for his sword was the Karga Shapna ("adoration of the sword") ritual, performed during the annual Navaratri festival, after which a Rajput is considered "free to indulge his passion for rapine and revenge".[188] The Rajput of Rajasthan also offer a sacrifice of water buffalo or goat to their family Goddess (Kuldevta) during Navaratri.[189] The ritual requires slaying of the animal with a single stroke. In the past this ritual was considered a rite of passage for young Rajput men.[190]

The general greeting used by the Rajputs in social gatherings and occasions, 'Jai Mataji' or its regional variants, stands for 'Victory to the Mother Goddess'.[191][192][193] This phrase also operated as a military solgan or war cry,[194] often painted on the shields and banners of the jagirdars.[195]

Hospitability

Harald Tambs-Lyche states that like other Martial races of South Asia, Rajputs have a reputation for being Hospitable i.e. they welcome and are friendly to guests.[196][197]

Miscellaneous

By the late 19th century, there was a shift of focus among Rajputs from politics to a concern with kinship.[198] Many Rajputs of Rajasthan are nostalgic about their past and keenly conscious of their genealogy, emphasising a Rajput ethos that is martial in spirit, with a fierce pride in lineage and tradition.[199]

Female infanticide

Female Infanticide was practised by Rajputs of low ritual status trying upward mobility as well as Rajputs of high ritual status. But there were instances where it was not practised and instances where the mother tried to save the infant girl's life. According to the officials in the early Raj era, in Etawah(Uttar Pradesh), the Gahlot, Bamungors and Bais would kill their daughters if they were rich but profit from getting them married if they were poor.[200]

The methods used of killing the female baby were drowning, strangulation, poisoning, "Asphyxia by drawing the umbilical cord over the baby's face to prevent respiration". Other ways were to leave the infant to die without food and if she survived the first few hours after birth, she was given poison.[200] A common way to poison the infant during breastfeeding was by applying a preparation of poisonous plants like Datura, Madar or Poppy to the mother's breast.[201]

Social activists in the early nineteenth century tried to stop these practices by quoting Hindu Shastras:

"to kill one woman is equal to one hundred brahmins, to kill one child is equal to one hundred women, while to kill one hundred children is an offence too heinous for comparison".[200]

Infanticide has unintended consequences. The Rajput clans of lower ritual status married their daughters to Rajput men of higher ritual status who had lost females due to infanticide. Thus, the Rajputs of lower ritual status had to remain unmarried or resorted to other practices like marrying widows, levirate marriages(marrying brother's widow) as well as marrying low caste women such as Jats and Gujars or nomads. This resulted in widening the gap between Rajputs of low ritual status and Rajputs of high ritual status.[200]

In the late 19th century, to curb the practice, the act VIII of 1870 was introduced. A magistrate suggested:

"Let every Rajput be thoroughly convinced that he will go to jail for ten years for every infant girl he murders, with as much certainty as he would feel about being hanged if he were to kill her when grown up, and the crime will be stamped out very effectually; but so long as the Government show any hesitation in dealing rigorously with criminals, so long will the Rajpoot think he has chance of impunity and will go on killing girls like before."[200]

However, the practical application of the law faced hurdles. It was difficult to prove culpability as in some cases the Rajput men were employed at a distance although the infants could be killed at their connivance. In most cases, Rajput men were imprisoned only for a short time. Between 1888 and 1889, the proportion of girl children rose to 40%. However, the act was abolished in 1912 as punishments were unable to stop infanticide. A historian concludes that "the act, which only scraped the surface of the problem had been unable to civilize or bring about a social change in a cultural world devaluing girl children". In addition to Rajputs, it was observed that Jats and Ahirs also practised infanticide.[200]

Brideprice or Bridewealth weddings

"Bridewealth" is discussed in north Indian Rajputs of 19th century India by the historian Malavika Kasturi. She states that Rajputs belonging to social groups where their women worked in the fields received Bridewealth from the groom's family. She adds that evidence shows that the assumption made by officials of the time that female infanticide among clans was a result of poverty and inability to pay dowry is incorrect.[200]

Rajput women could be incorporated into Mughal Harem and this defined the Mughals as overlords over the Rajput clans. The Sisodia clan of Mewar was an exception as they refused to send their women to the Mughal Harem which resulted in siege and mass suicide at Chittor.[202]

Historically, members from the Rajput ruling clans of Rajasthan have also practised polygamy and also took many women they enslaved as concubines from the battles which they won. During numerous armed conflicts in India, women were taken captives, enslaved and even sold, for example, the capture and selling of Marwar's women by Jaipur's forces in the battle between Jaipur state and Jodhpur state in 1807. The enslaved women were referred to by different terms according to the conditions imposed on them, for example, a "domestic slave" was called davri; a dancer was called a patar; a "senior female slave–retainer in the women's quarters" was called badaran or vadaran; a concubine was called khavasin; and a woman who was "permitted to wear the veil" like Rajput queens was called a pardayat.[203]

The term chakar was used for a person serving their "superior" and chakras contained complete families from specific "occupational groups" like Brahmin women, cooks, nurses, tailors, washer–women. For children born from the "illegitimate union" of Rajputs and their "inferiors", the terms like goli and darogi were used for females and gola and daroga were used for males. The "courtly chronicles" say that women who were perceived to be of "higher social rank" were assigned to the "harems of their conquerors with or without marriage". The chronicles from the Rajput courts have recorded that women from Rajput community had also faced such treatment by the Rajputs from the winning side of a battle. There are also a number of records between the late 16th to mid–19th century of the Rajputs immolating the queens, servants, and slaves of a king upon his death. Ramya Sreenivasan also gives and example of a Jain concubine who went from being a servant to a superior concubine called Paswan[203]

According to Priyanka Khanna, with Marwar's royal Rajput households, the women who underwent concubinage also included women from the Gujar, Ahir, Jat, Mali, Kayastha, and Darji communities of that region. These castes of Marwar claimed Rajput descent based on the "census data of Marwar, 1861".[204] However, the research by modern scholars on the forms of "slavery and servitude" imposed by ruling clans of Rajasthan's Rajputs between the 16th and early–19th centuries on the captured women faces hurdles because of the "sparse information", "uneven record–keeping", and "biased nature of historical records".[203]Ravana Rajput community of today was one such slave community[205][206]

The male children of such unions were identified by their father's names and in some cases as 'dhaibhai'(foster-brothers) and incorporated into the household. Examples are given where they helped their step-brothers in war campaigns.[203] The female children of concubines and slaves married Rajput men in exchange for money or they ended up becoming dancing girls. The scarcity of available brides due to female infanticide led to the kidnapping of low caste women who were sold for marriage to the higher clan Rajputs. Since these "sales" were genuinely for the purpose of marriage, they were considered legal. The lower clans also faced scarcity of brides in which case they married women such as those from Gujar and Jat communities. Semi nomadic communities also married their daughters to Rajput bridegrooms for money in some cases.[207]

Of note, the mistreatment or enslavement of women was not unique to Rajputs. Datta notes Bachanan's observation in 18th century northern-India that, other than the Rajputs, Khatris and Kayasthas also "openly kept women slaves of any pure tribe". The offsprings of these women formed one matrimonial group. Similarly, affluent Muslim families in Bihar kept both male and female slaves - called Nufurs and Laundis respectively.[208]

These Rajput groups(khasa) of Uttarakhand today were formally classified Shudra but had successfully converted to Rajput status during the rule of Chand Rajas (that ended in 1790).[209] Similarly, the Rajputs of Gharwal were originally of low ritual status and did not wear the sacred thread until the 20th century.[210]

Opium usage, etc.

The Indian Rajputs fought several times for the Mughals but needed drugs to enhance their spirit. They would take a double dose of opium before fighting. Muslim soldiers would also take opium.[211] Mughals would give opium to their Rajput soldiers on a regular basis in the 17th century.[212] During the British rule, Opium addiction was considered a serious demoralising vice of the Rajput community.[213] Arabs brought opium to India in the 9th century. The Indian Council of Medical Research on "Pattern and Process of Drug and alcohol use in India" , states that opium gives a person enhanced physical strength and capacity. Studies of K.K.Ganguly, K. Sharma, and Krishnamachari, on opium usage also mention that the Rajputs would use opium for important ceremonies, relief from emotional distress, for increasing longevity and for enhancing sexual pleasure.[214] Opium was also consumed when Vahīvancā bards would recite poetry and stories about the Rajputs and their ancestors. After the Independence of India, and the political integration of India, educated Rajputs have mainly discontinued both the usage of opium and recitation of bardic poetry.[215]

Alcoholism is considered a problem in the Rajput community of Rajasthan and hence Rajput women do not like their men drinking alcohol. It was reported in a 1983 study of alcoholism in India that it was customary for Rajput men (not all) in northern India to drink in groups. The women would at times be subjected to domestic violence such as beating after these men returned home from drinking.[216][217]

Arts

 
An 18th-century Rajput painting by the artist Nihâl Chand

The term Rajput painting refers to works of art created at the Rajput-ruled courts of Rajasthan, Central India, and the Punjab Hills. The term is also used to describe the style of these paintings, distinct from the Mughal painting style.[218]

According to Ananda Coomaraswamy, Rajput painting symbolised the divide between Muslims and Hindus during Mughal rule. The styles of Mughal and Rajput painting are oppositional in character. He characterised Rajput painting as "popular, universal and mystic".[219]

Notable people

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ Cohen, Stephen Philip (2006). The idea of Pakistan (Rev. ed.). Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. pp. 35–36. ISBN 978-0815715030. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
  2. ^ Lieven, Anatol (2011). Pakistan a hard country (1st ed.). New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 9781610390231. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
  3. ^ "Folk-lore, Volume 21". 1980. p. 79. Retrieved 9 April 2017.
  4. ^ Roy, Ramashray (1 January 2003). Samaskaras in Indian Tradition and Culture. p. 195. ISBN 9788175411401. Retrieved 4 March 2017.
  5. ^ Rajendra Vora (2009). Christophe Jaffrelot; Sanjay Kumar (eds.). Rise of the Plebeians?: The Changing Face of the Indian Legislative Assemblies (Exploring the Political in South Asia). Routledge India. p. 217. ISBN 9781136516627. [In Maharashtra]The Lingayats, the Gujjars and the Rajputs are three other important castes which belong to the intermediate category. The lingayats who hail from north Karnataka are found primarily in south Maharashtra and Marthwada while Gujjars and Rajputs who migrated centuries ago from north India have settled in north Maharashtra districts.
  6. ^ Kumar Suresh Singh (1996). Communities, Segments, Synonyms, Surnames and Titles. Anthropological Survey of India. p. 1706.
  7. ^ Paul R. Brass (1997). Theft of an Idol. Princeton University Press. p. 151. ISBN 9780691026503.
  8. ^ Satish Chandra (2008). Social Change and Development in Medieval Indian History. Har-Anand Publications. pp. 43–44. ISBN 9788124113868. M.N.Srinivas who had used the word "Sanskritization" to denote this process, now accepts accepts that he put too much emphasis originally on the movement of groups towards the varna status of Brahmans. Both Srinivas and B.Stein now emphasize not merely the process of Sanskritization, but other factors, such as the position of the dominant peasant and land-owning classes, political power and production system in the process of caste mobility of groups. Srinivas further surmises that the varna model became more popular during British rule. Thus, growing caste rigidity was an indirect effect of British rule. The rise of Rajputs is a classic model of varna mobility in the earlier period. There is a good deal of discussion regarding the origin of Rajputs - whether they were Kshatriyas of they were drawn from other categories in the population including indigenous tribes. Modern historians are more or less agreed that the Rajputs consisted of miscellaneous groups including Shudra and tribals. Some were Brahmans who took to warfare, and some were from Tribes- indigenous of foreign.
  9. ^ Reena Dube & Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar 2012, p. 59.
  10. ^ a b Eugenia Vanina 2012, p. 140: "Regarding the initial stages of this history and the origin of the Rajput feudal elite, modern research shows that its claims to direct blood links with epic heroes and ancient kshatriyas in general has no historic substantiation. No adequate number of the successors of these epically acclaimed warriors could have been available by the period of seventh-eights centuries AD when the first references to the Rajput clans and their chieftains were made. [...] almost all Rajput clans originated from the semi-nomadic pastoralists of the Indian north and north-west."
  11. ^ Daniel Gold (1 January 1995). David N. Lorenzen (ed.). Bhakti Religion in North India: Community Identity and Political Action. State University of New York Press. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-7914-2025-6. Paid employment in military service as Dirk H. A. Kolff has recently demonstrated, was an important means of livelihood for the peasants of certain areas of late medieval north India... In earlier centuries, says Kolff, "Rajput" was a more ascriptive term, referring to all kinds of Hindus who lived the life of the adventuring warrior, of whom most were of peasant origins.
  12. ^ Doris Marion Kling (1993). The Emergence of Jaipur State: Rajput Response to Mughal Rule, 1562–1743. University of Pennsylvania. p. 30. Rajput: Pastoral, mobile warrior groups who achieved landed status in the medieval period claimed to be Kshatriyas and called themselves Rajputs.
  13. ^ André Wink (1991). Al-Hind the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest : 11Th-13th Centuries. BRILL. p. 171. ISBN 90-04-10236-1. ...and it is very probable that the other fire-born Rajput clans like the Caulukyas, Paramaras, Cahamanas, as well as the Tomaras and others who in the eighth and ninth centuries were subordinate to the Gurjara-Pratiharas, were of similar pastoral origin, that is, that they originally belonged to the mobile, nomadic groups...
  14. ^ a b Richard Eaton 2019, p. 87, [1]In Gujarat, as in Rajasthan, genealogy proved essential for making such claims. To this end, local bards composed ballads or chronicles that presented their patrons as idea warriors who protected Brahmins, cows and vassals, as opposed to the livestock herding chieftains that they actually were, or had once been. As people, who created and preserved the genealogies, local bards therefore played critical roles in brokering for their clients socio-cultural transitions to a claimed Rajput status. A similar thing was happening in the Thar desert region, where from the fourteenth century onwards mobile pastoral groups gradually evolved into landed, sedentary and agrarian clans. Once again, it was bards and poets, patronized by little kings, who transformed a clan's ancestors from celebrated cattle-herders or cattle-rustlers to celebrated protectors of cattle-herding communities. The difference was subtle but critical, since such revised narratives retained an echo of a pastoral nomadic past while repositioning a clan's dynastic founder from pastoralist to non-pastoralist. The term 'Rajput', in short, had become a prestigious title available for adoption by upwardly mobile clan in the process of becoming sedentary. By one mechanism or another, a process of 'Rajputization' occurred in new states that emerged from the turmoil following Timur's invasion in 1398, especially in Gujarat, Malwa and Rajasthan.
  15. ^ a b Alf Hiltebeitel 1999, pp. 439–440.
  16. ^ Bhrigupati Singh 2015, p. 38.
  17. ^ Pradeep Barua 2005, p. 24.
  18. ^ Alf Hiltebeitel 1999, pp. 440–441.
  19. ^ Alf Hiltebeitel 1999, pp. 3.
  20. ^ Alf Hiltebeitel 1999, pp. 441–442.
  21. ^ Catherine B. Asher & Cynthia Talbot 2006, p. 99.
  22. ^ a b Mayaram, Shail (2010). "The Sudra Right to Rule". In Ishita Banerjee-Dube (ed.). Caste in History. Oxford University Press. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-19-806678-1. In their recent work on female infanticide, Bhatnagar, Dube and Bube(2005) distinguish between Rajputization and Sanksritization. Using M.N.Srinivas' and Milton Singer's approach to social mobility as idioms they identify Rajputization as one of the most dynamic modes of upward mobility. As an idiom of political power it 'signifies a highly mobile social process of claiming military-political power and the right to cultivate land as well as the right to rule. Rajputization is unparalleled in traditional Indian society for its inventiveness in ideologies of legitimation and self-invention. This was a claim that was used by persons of all castes all over north India ranging from peasants and lower-caste Sudras to warriors and tribal chiefs and even the local raja who had recently converted to Islam.
  23. ^ a b c Ishita Banerjee-Dube (2010). Caste in History. Oxford University Press. p. xxiii. ISBN 978-0-19-806678-1. Rajputization discussed processes through which 'equalitarian, primitive, clan based tribal organization' adjusted itself to the centralized hierarchic, territorial oriented political developments in the course of state formation. This led a 'narrow lineage of single families' to disassociate itself from the main body of their tribe and claim Rajput origin. They not only adopted symbols and practices supposedly representative of the true Kshatriya, but also constructed genealogies that linked them to the primordial and legendary solar and lunar dynasties of kings. Further, it was pointed out that the caste of genealogists and mythographers variously known as Carans, Bhats, Vahivanca Barots, etc., prevalent in Gujarat, Rajasthan and other parts of north India actively provided their patron rulers with genealogies that linked local clans of these chiefs with regional clans and with the Kshatriyas of the Puranas and Mahabharata. Once a ruling group succeeded in establishing its claim to Rajput status, there followed a 'secondary Rajputization' when the tribes tried to 're-associate' with their formal tribal chiefs who had also transformed themselves into Hindu rajas and Rajput Kshatriyas.
  24. ^ a b Tanuja Kothiyal 2016, p. 265, [2]...from gradual transformation of mobile patoral and tribal groups into landed sedentary ones. The process of settlement involved both control over mobile resources through raids, battles and trade as well as channelizing of these resources into agrarian expansion. Kinship structures as well as marital and martial alliances were instrumental in this transformation.[...]In the colonial ethnographic accounts rather than referring to Rajputs as having emerged from other communities, Bhils, Mers, Minas, Gujars, Jats, Raikas, all lay a claim to a Rajput past from where they claim to have 'fallen'. Historical processes, however, suggest just the opposite.
  25. ^ Jai Narayan Asopa (1976). Origin of the Rajputs. Bharatiya Publishing House. p. 12.
  26. ^ Richard Francis Gombrich, ed. (2005). Valmiki Ramayana Book One Boyhood. Translated by Sheldon I. Polloch; Rosalind Lefeber; Sally J. Sutherland Goldman. New York University Press. p. 166. ISBN 9780814731635. Paritusto 'smi bhadram te rajaputra mahāyasah prityå paramaya yukto dadamy astrăni sarvasah
  27. ^ Peter Scharf (2014). Ramopakhyana - The Story of Rama in the Mahabharata. Taylor & Francis. p. 514. ISBN 9781136846625. राजपुत्रौ कुशलिनौ भ्रातरौ रामलक्ष्मणौ rajputrau kushalinau bhratrau ramlakshmanau
  28. ^ Vajracharya 1975, p. 239"...Kshatriyas also occupied a leading position because of their special role in politics. References have been made to Rajputras (Kshatriyas) in mány Licchavi inscriptions. The inscription of Sikubahi (Shankhamul) mentions the names of Rajputra Vajraratha, Babhruvarma and Deshavarma. Babhruvarma and Deshavama were "dutakas" during the reign of Ganadeva and Amshuvarma respectively. The inscription of Sanga mentions the name of Rajputra Vikramasena, who was a "sarvadandanayaka." The inscription of Deopattan mentions Rajputra Shurasena, and the inscription of Adeshwar mentions the Rajaputras Nandavarma, Jishnuvarma and Bhimavarma. This shows that the number of Kshatriyas was large in the Licchavi period and that they occupied top posts."
  29. ^ Raniero Gnoli (1956). Nepalese Inscriptions in Gupta Characters: Text. University of Virginia. p. 52,55,70,97,108,120.
  30. ^ a b c Cynthia Talbot 2015, p. 119.
  31. ^ Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya 1994, pp. 79–80.
  32. ^ Parita Mukta (1994). Upholding the Common Life: The Community of Mirabai. Oxford University Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-19-563115-9. The term 'Rajput' before the fifteenth century meant 'horse soldier', 'trooper', 'headman of a village' or 'subordinate chief'. Moreover, individuals with whom the word was associated were generally considered to be products of varna–samkara of mixed caste origin, and thus inferior in rank to Kshatriyas.
  33. ^ Satish Chandra 1982, p. 92.
  34. ^ Norman Ziegler 1976, p. 141:...individuals or groups with which the word was associated were generally considered to owe their origin to miscegenation or varna-samkara ("the mixing of castes") and were thus inferior in rank to Ksatriyas. [...] What I perceive from the above data is a rather widespread change in the subjective perception and the attribution of rank to groups and individuals who emerged in Rajasthan and North India as local chiefs and rulers in the period after the muslim invasions(extending roughly from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries). These groups were no longer considered kshatriyas and though they filled roles previously held by kshatriyas and were attributed similar functions of sustaining society and upholding the moral order, they were either groups whose original integrity were seen to have been altered or who had emerged from the lower ranks of the caste system. This change is supported by material from the Rajput chronicles themselves.
  35. ^ Association for Asian Studies (1969). James Silverberg (ed.). Social Mobility in the Caste System in India: An Inter Disciplinary Symposium. Mouton. p. 79. ISBN 9783112026250.
  36. ^ Burton Stein (2004). David N. Lorenzen (ed.). Religious Movements in South Asia, 600–1800. Oxford University Press. p. 82. ISBN 978-0-19-566448-5. When the rank of persons was in theory rigorously ascribed according to the purity of the birth-group, the political units of India were probably ruled most often by men of very low birth. This generalization applies to south indian warriors and may be equally applicable for many clans of Rajputs in northern India. The capacity of both ancient and medieval Indian society to ascribe to its actual rulers, frequently men of low social origins, a "clean" or "Kshatriya" rank may afford one of the explanations for the durability and longevity of the unique civilization of India.
  37. ^ Reena Dube & Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar 2012, p. 257.
  38. ^ a b Tanuja Kothiyal 2016, p. 8.
  39. ^ Richard Gabriel Fox 1971, p. 16.
  40. ^ Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya 1994, p. 60.
  41. ^ André Wink (2002). Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7Th-11th Centuries. BRILL. p. 282. ISBN 0-391-04173-8. In short, a process of development occurred which after several centuries culminated in the formation of new groups with the identity of 'Rajputs'. The predecessors of the Rajputs, from about the eighth century, rose to politico-military prominence as an open status group or estate of largely illiterate warriors who wished to consider themselves as the reincarnates of the ancient Indian Kshatriyas. The claim of Kshatriyas was, of course, historically completely unfounded. The Rajputs as well as other autochthonous Indian gentry groups who claimed Kshatriya status by way of putative Rajput descent, differed widely from the classical varna of Kshatriyas which, as depicted in literature, was made of aristocratic, urbanite and educated clans...
  42. ^ Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya 1994, p. 59.
  43. ^ Norman Ziegler 1976, p. 150: Rajputs were, with some exceptions, almost totally illiterate as a caste group
  44. ^ Reinhard Bendix (1998). Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait. Psychology Press. pp. 180–. ISBN 978-0-415-17453-4. Eventually the position of the old Kshatriya nobility was undermined not only by the Brahmin priests but also by the rise of a warrior caste in northwest India. Most of the Rajputs were illiterate mercenaries in the service of a king.
  45. ^ Sara R. Farris (9 September 2013). Max Weber's Theory of Personality: Individuation, Politics and Orientalism in the Sociology of Religion. BRILL. pp. 140–. ISBN 978-90-04-25409-1. Weber however explained this downgrading of their status by the fact that they represented a threat to the cultural and intellectual monopoly of the Brahmans, as they[Kshatriyas] were also extremely cultured and educated in the art of administration. In about the eight century the Rajput thus began to perform the functions that had formerly belonged to the Kshatriya, assuming their social and economic position and substituting them as the new warrior class. Ancient illiterate merceneries, the Rajput did not represent a threat to the Brahmininc monopoly and were more inclined to accept the Brahmans' superiority, thus contributing to the so called Hindu restoration.
  46. ^ Thomas R. Metcalf (1990). Modern India: An Interpretive Anthology. Sterling Publishers. p. 90. ISBN 9788120709003. Since then every known royal family has come from a non - Kshatriya caste , including the famous Rajput dynasties of medieval India . Panikkar also points out that " the Shudras seem to have produced an unusually large number of royal families even in more recent times"
  47. ^ Stewart Gordon 2007, p. 16: Eventually, kinship and marriage restrictions defined this Rajput group as different from other elements in the society of Rajasthan. The hypergamous marriage pattern typical of Rajputs tacitly acknowledged that it was a somewhat open caste category; by successful service in a state army and translating this service into grants and power at the local level, a family might become Rajput. The process required changes in dress, eating patterns, the patronage of local shrines closer to the "great tradition", and an end to widow remarriage. A hypergamous marriage with an acknowledged (but possibly impoverished) Rajput family would follow and with continued success in service the family would indeed become Rajput. All this is well documented in relations between Rajputs and tribals...
  48. ^ Detlef Kantowsky (1986). Recent Research on Max Weber's Studies of Hinduism: Papers Submitted to a Conference Held in New Delhi, 1.-3.3. 1984. Weltforum Verlag. p. 104. ISBN 978-3-8039-0333-4.
  49. ^ Hermann Kulke (1993). Kings and Cults: State Formation and Legitimation in India and Southeast Asia. Manohar Publishers & Distributors. p. 251. ISBN 9788173040375.
  50. ^ Reena Dube & Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar 2012, p. 59-62.
  51. ^ a b c d Cynthia Talbot 2015, p. 120.
  52. ^ Tanuja Kothiyal 2016, p. 266, [3]Unlike the popular perception, even Rajputs remained engaged with nomadic pastorialism, animal husbandry and cattle trade till much later than it is assumed. Munhata Nainsini in his seventeenth century chronicles, Munhata Nainsi ri Khyat and Marwar ra Paraganan ri Vigat refers to a number of disputes between Rajputs that involved cattle raids. Also, a close reading of the lore regarding Rajput folk deities like Pabuji, Mallinath, Gogaji and Ramdeo, who are viewed as protectors of cattle herding communities actually indicates the intense struggle for control over cattle and pasturelands that Rajputs were engaged in. Rajputs extended patronage to Brahmins and Bardic communities like Bhats and Charans who composed detailed genealogies linking Rajput clans to older kshatriya lineages as well as celestial sources, which not only legitimised their claims to aristocracy but also distanced them from their tribal pastoral origins.
  53. ^ Kolff, Dirk H. A. (2002). Naukar, Rajput, and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market of Hindustan, 1450-1850. Cambridge University Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-521-52305-9. What at first sight might seem to be a change of religion, is often a device to register either recruitment or professional success whether military or otherwise. Very often the Rajput to Afghan change — and, one may add, the peasant to Rajput change — was a similar kind of affair, indicating the pervading impact of soldiering traditions on North Indian social history. The military labour market, in other words, was a major generator of socio-religious identities.
  54. ^ a b Tanuja Kothiyal 2016, pp. 8–9.
  55. ^ Cynthia Talbot 2015, p. 121.
  56. ^ David Ludden 1999, p. 4.
  57. ^ Barbara N. Ramusack 2004, p. 13.
  58. ^ André Wink 1990, p. 282.
  59. ^ Cynthia Talbot 2015, pp. 121–122.
  60. ^ Cynthia Talbot 2015, p. 121-125.
  61. ^ Barbara N. Ramusack (2003). The Indian Princes and their States, The New Cambridge History of India. Cambridge University Press. p. 14. ISBN 9781139449083. "By the sixth century AD, there are historical indications of the group calling themselves Rajput settle in the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Over the course of ten centuries they came to control land and people
  62. ^ Rima Hooja 2006, p. 182 "Asopa has listed various 11th-13th century references to the term ‘Rajput’ from inscriptions found at Abu, Chittor, and in various contemporaneous texts"
  63. ^ Ali, Daud (2005). "NANDINI SINHA KAPUR: State Formation in Rajasthan: Mewar during the Seventh-Fifteenth Centuries. 308pp. Delhi: Manohar, 2002". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient: 134–135. The appearance of rajputras as mercenary soldiers is proved as early as 7th century CE from the reference in Bakshali manuscript found in the North-West Frontier Province and subsequently from the Chachnama in Sindh in 8th century CE. In all bardic traditions of this period the Rajputs are depicted as horsemen. It may not be again ignored that the Pratiharas, one of the clansmen of the Rajputs of early medieval period felt pride to bear the title of hayapati, "the lord of horses". The term rajput is derived from Sanskrit root rajputra (son of the king). Prakrit forms of the term rajputra are variously known as rawat, rauta, raul and rawal. A transformation in connotation of the term is noticeable from 7th century CE onwards as it began to be used in literary texts in the sense of a landowner rather than "son of the king". In the Harshacharita of Banabhatta (7th century CE) the term has been used in the sense of a noble or landowning chief. In Kadambari also it is used for persons of noble descent who were appointed by the king as local rulers. In the capacity of local rulers they might have naturally governed a large portion of land under them and, thus, played an active role in political and administrative system of the state. The term began to be more commonly used from 12th century onwards. In Rajatarangini the term rajputra is used in the sense of a landowner, acclaiming birth from 36 clans of the Rajputs. The reference of 36 clans and their clan structure clearly denotes their existence by 12th century CE. The 12th century Aparajitprachha of Bhatta Bhuvanadeva, which describes the composition of a typical feudal order, refers to rajaputras as constituting a fairly large section of kings holding estates, each one of them constituting one or more villages
  64. ^ Upinder Singh (2008), A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century, Pearson, p. 566, ISBN 978-81-317-1120-0, The use of the term Rajaputra for specific clans of Rajput or as a collective term for various clans emerged by the 12th century
  65. ^ Irfan Habib (2011). "The Agrarian Classes". In Irfan Habib (ed.). Economic History of Medieval India, 1200-1500. Pearson Education India. p. 66. ISBN 978-81-317-2791-1. Rautas in these inscriptions are clearly ranked beneath the ranakas, and they are obviously more numerous. In the Mahoba Fort inscription (actually from Kasrak near Badaun), in an entry of 1234, the rautas are spoken off as a jati or caste. Rautas is actually the Prakrit form of Rajaputra (modern Hindi Rajput); and a Rajaputra caste had established itself well before the thirteenth century......Military prowess converted itself into land control, and we say by the thirteenth century the rajaputras or rautas had acquired the position of local land magnates
  66. ^ Rima Hooja 2006, p. 181–182:"The Rajputs of Rajasthan are not over-concerned either over the date or period when the term ‘Rajput’ entered common usage. However, epigraphical and literary evidence would indicate that it was probably sometime during the c.twelfth-thirteenth centuries AD period that the usage of terms like Rajputra, Kshatriya, Rautt and similar words denoting connections with kingship, and Rajput became established as more or less synonymous words....In Kalhana’s Rajtarangini (VII.390) the word rajaputra is used in the sense of a landowner, but if it is read with VII, vv.1617 and 1618 of the same book it would be clear that they acclaimed their birth from the 36 clans of the Rajputs. That would lead us to believe that by the beginning of the 12th century AD these clans had already come into existence”
  67. ^ Tanuja Kothiyal 2016, p. 11.
  68. ^ "Rediscovering Rajasthan: From stunning havelis to world-famous namkeen, exploring the elegant Bikaner : FirstPost". 9 May 2019.
  69. ^ . Archived from the original on 9 November 2014.
  70. ^ Pradeep Barua 2005, p. 25.
  71. ^ Cynthia Talbot 2015, p. 33.
  72. ^ Peabody, Norbert (2003). Hindu Kingship and Polity in Precolonial India. Cambridge University Press. pp. 38–. ISBN 978-0-521-46548-9. As Dirk Kolff has argued, it was privileged, if not initially inspired, only in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by Mughal perceptions of Rajputs which, in a pre-form of orientalism, took patrilineal descent as the basis for Rajput social Organization and consequently as the basis for their political inclusion into the empire. Prior to the Mughals, the term 'Rajput' was equally an open-ended, generic name applied to any '"horse soldier", "trooper", or "headman of a village"' regardless of parentage, who achieved his status through his personal ability to establish a wide network of supporters through his bhaibandh (lit. 'ie or bond of brothers'; that is, close collateral relations by male blood) or by means of naukari (military service to a more powerful overlord) and sagai (alliance through marriage). Thus the language of kinship remained nonetheless strong in this alternative construction of Rajput identity but collateral and affinal bonds were stressed rather than those of descent. During the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
  73. ^ Jackson, Peter (2003). The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History. Cambridge University Press. pp. 9–. ISBN 978-0-521-54329-3. Confronting the Ghurid ruler now were a number of major Hindu powers, for which the designation 'Rajput' (not encountered in the Muslim sources before the sixteenth century) is a well-established anachronism. Chief among them was the Chahamana (Chawhan) kingdom of Shakambhari (Sambhar), which dominated present-day Rajasthan from its capital at Ajmer
  74. ^ Behl, Aditya (2012). Wendy Doniger (ed.). Love's Subtle Magic: An Indian Islamic Literary Tradition, 1379-1545. Oxford University Press. pp. 364–. ISBN 978-0-19-514670-7. The term Rajput is a retrospective invention, as most of the martial literature of resistance to Turkish conquest dates only from the mid-fifteenth century onward. As Dirk Kolff has noted in his Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan, 1450-1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), the invention of "Rajput" identity can be dated to the sixteenth-century narratives of nostalgia for lost honor and territory.
  75. ^ Bayly, Susan (2001). Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. Cambridge University Press. pp. 32–35. ISBN 978-0-521-79842-6. [32]In the arid hill country what is now Rajasthan, located southwest to the Mughal original strongholds in gangetic plain, powerful lords had been calling themselves as Rajputs, a title derived from the Sanskrit (rajaputra, king's son), as far back as thirteenth century AD and possibly very much earlier[33]In both the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, Mughal armies fought bloody battles in this strategic frontier region, and through a mixture of force and coalition, its kingdoms were loosely absorbed into loosely textured Mughal political order. At this time, these armed elites had strong memories of the earlier clan chiefs who had made their mark in turbulent times by adopting known marks of lordship and exalted desent.[34]Yet the varna archetype of the Kshatriya-like man of prowess did become a key reference point for rulers and their subjects under the Mughals and their immediate successors. The chiefs and warriors whom the Mughals came to honor as Rajput lords in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may not even have been descendants of Rajasthan's earlier pre-Mughal elites. What mattered instead was that for both[] these titles and the markers of refined faith and social life which accompanied them , spoke in recognizable terms of exalted blood and ancestry.
  76. ^ Hermann Kulke & Dietmar Rothermund (2004). A History of India. Psychology Press. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-415-32920-0. When Harsha shifted the centre of north Indian history to Kanauj in midst of Ganga-Yamuna Doab the tribes living to the west of this new centre also became more important for further courses of Indian history They were first and foremost the Rajputs who now emerged into the limelight of Indian history
  77. ^ Sailendra Nath Sen (1999). Ancient Indian History and Civilization. New Age International. p. 307. ISBN 978-81-224-1198-0. The anarchy and confusion which followed Harsha's death is the transitional period of history. This period was marked by the rise of the Rajput clans who begun to play a conspicuous part in the history of northern and western India from the eight century AD. onwards
  78. ^ Alain Danielou (2003). A Brief History of India. Simon and Schuster. p. Chapter 15. ISBN 978-1-59477-794-3. The role of the Rajputs in the history of northern and eastern India is considerable, as they dominated the scene between the death of Harsha and establishment of Muslim empire
  79. ^ Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya (2006). Studying Early India: Archaeology, Texts and Historical Issues. Anthem. p. 116. ISBN 978-1-84331-132-4. The period between the seventh and the twelfth century witnessed gradual rise of a number of new royal-lineages in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, which came to constitute a social-political category known as 'Rajput'. Some of the major lineages were the Pratiharas of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and adjacent areas, the Guhilas and Chahamanas of Rajasthan, the Caulukyas or Solankis of Gujarat and Rajasthan and the Paramaras of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
  80. ^ Satish Chandra (1996). Historiography, Religion, and State in Medieval India. Har-Anand Publications. p. 115. ISBN 978-81-241-0035-6. "In north India, the dominant features of the period between 7th and 12th centuries have been identified as the growing weakness of state; the growth of the power of local landed elites and their decentralising authority by acquiring greater administrative, economic and political roles; the decline of towns, the setback to trades, especially long distance trade and the alientation of land to the brahmans in larger proportions then ever before. The period is also noted for the rise of the Rajputs
  81. ^ Sara R. Farris (5 September 2013). Max Weber's Theory of Personality: Individuation, Politics and Orientalism in the Sociology of Religion. BRILL. p. 145. ISBN 978-90-04-25409-1. "In about the eighth century B.C. the Rajput thus began to perform the functions that had formerly belonged to the Kshatriya, assuming their social and economic position and substituting them as the new warrior class
  82. ^ David Ludden (2013). India and South Asia: A Short History. Oneworld Publications. pp. 64–65. ISBN 978-1-78074-108-6. By contrast in Rajasthan a single warrior group evolved called Rajput (from Rajaputra-sons of kings): they rarely engaged in farming, even to supervise farm labour as farming was literally beneath them, farming was for their peasant subjects. In the ninth century separate clans of Rajputs Cahamanas (Chauhans), Paramaras (Pawars), Guhilas (Sisodias) and Caulukyas were splitting off from sprawling Gurjara Pratihara clans...
  83. ^ Peter Robb (21 June 2011). A History of India. Macmillan International Higher Education. pp. 58–59. ISBN 978-0-230-34549-2. From around 1000 ce, notable among these regional powers were various Rajput dynasties in the west and north
  84. ^ André Wink 1990, p. 208 "The Rajputs repelled Arabs from "Stravani and Valla", probably the area North of Jaisalmer and Jodhpur, and the invasion of Malwa but were ultimately defeated by Bappa Rawal and Nagabhata I in 725 AD near Ujjain. Arab rule was restricted to the west of Thar desert."
  85. ^ Asoke Kumar Majumdar 1956, p. 44-45.
  86. ^ Chandra, Satish (2004). Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals-Delhi Sultanat (1206–1526) – Part One. Har-Anand Publications. pp. 19–24. ISBN 978-81-241-1064-5.
  87. ^ Sugata Bose & Ayesha Jalal (2004). Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy. Psychology Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-415-30786-4. 'It was a similar combination of political and economic imperatives which led Muhmmad Ghuri, a Turk, to invade India a century and half later in 1192. His defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan, a Rajput chieftain, in the strategic battle of Tarain in northern India paved the way for the establishment of first Muslim sultante'
  88. ^ Romila Thapar (1 June 2015). The Penguin History of Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300. Penguin Books Limited. ISBN 978-93-5214-118-0. An attack was launched on the Rajput kingdoms controlling the watershed and the western Ganges plain, now beginning to be viewed as the frontier. The Rajputs gathered together as best as they could not forgetting internal rivalries and jealousies. Prithviraja defeated Muhmmad Ghori at First battle of Tarain north of Delhi, in 1191, a second battle was fought at the same place, Prithviraj was defeated and kingdom of Delhi fell to Muhmmad, who pressed on and concentrated on capturing capital of Rajput kingdoms with the assistance of his General, Qutub-ud-din Aibak
  89. ^ Chandra, Satish (2004). Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals-Delhi Sultanat (1206–1526) – Part One. Har-Anand Publications. p. 224. ISBN 978-81-241-1064-5.
  90. ^ R. C. Majumdar, ed. (1960). The History and Culture of the Indian People: The Delhi Sultante (2nd ed.). Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. p. 70.
  91. ^ Naravane, M.S (1999). The Rajputs of Rajputana: A Glimpse of Medieval Rajasthan. APH Publishing. p. 95. ISBN 978-81-7648-118-2.
  92. ^ V.S Bhatnagar (1974). Life and Times of Sawai Jai Singh, 1688-1743. Impex India. p. 6. From 1326, Mewar's grand recovery commenced under Lakha, and later under Kumbha and Sanga, till it became one of the greatest powers in northern India during the first quarter of the sixteenth century.
  93. ^ Giles Tillotson (1991). Mughal India. Penguin Books. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-14-011854-4. He was immediately challenged by assembled Rajput forces under Rana Sanga of Chittor who was reckoned by Babur as one of the two greatest Hindu rulers
  94. ^ Chandra, Satish (2004). Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals-Delhi Sultanat (1206–1526) – Part One. Har-Anand Publications. p. 224. ISBN 978-81-241-1064-5.
  95. ^ Sarda, Har Bilas (1970). Maharana Sāngā, the Hindupat: The Last Great Leader of the Rajput Race. Kumar Bros. p. 1.
  96. ^ Chandra, Satish (2005). Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals Part - II. Har-Anand Publications. pp. 79–80. ISBN 978-81-241-1066-9.
  97. ^ a b C. A. Bayly (19 May 1988). Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770–1870. CUP Archive. pp. 18–19. ISBN 978-0-521-31054-3.
  98. ^ Barbara N. Ramusack 2004, p. 14,15.
  99. ^ Kumkum Chatterjee (1996). Merchants, Politics, and Society in Early Modern India: Bihar, 1733–1820. BRILL. pp. 35–36. ISBN 90-04-10303-1.
  100. ^ Richard Gabriel Fox 1971, p. 68,69.
  101. ^ a b Gyan Prakash (30 October 2003). Bonded Histories: Genealogies of Labor Servitude in Colonial India. Cambridge University Press. pp. 64–66. ISBN 978-0-521-52658-6.
  102. ^ Farooqui, Amar (2007). "The Subjugation of the Sindia State". In Ernst, Waltraud; Pati, Biswamoy (eds.). India's Princely States: People, Princes and Colonialism. Routledge. p. 57. ISBN 978-1-134-11988-2.
  103. ^ Richards, John F. (1995). The Mughal Empire. Cambridge University Press. pp. 22–24. ISBN 978-0-521-25119-8.
  104. ^ Bhadani, B. L. (1992). "The Profile of Akbar in Contemporary Literature". Social Scientist. 20 (9/10): 48–53. doi:10.2307/3517716. JSTOR 3517716.
  105. ^ a b c Chaurasia, Radhey Shyam (2002). History of Medieval India: From 1000 A.D. to 1707 A.D. Atlantic Publishers & Dist. pp. 272–273. ISBN 978-81-269-0123-4.
  106. ^ Dirk H. A. Kolff 2002, p. 132.
  107. ^ Smith, Bonnie G. (2008). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History. Oxford University Press. p. 656. ISBN 978-0-19-514890-9.
  108. ^ Richards, John F. (1995). The Mughal Empire. Cambridge University Press. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-521-56603-2.
  109. ^ Lal, Ruby (2005). Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World. Cambridge University Press. p. 174. ISBN 978-0-521-85022-3.
  110. ^ Vivekanandan, Jayashree (2012). Interrogating International Relations: India's Strategic Practice and the Return of History War and International Politics in South Asia. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-70385-0.
  111. ^ Reid, Anthony; Morgan, David O., eds. (2010). The New Cambridge History of Islam: Volume 3, The Eastern Islamic World, Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries. Taylor and Francis. p. 213. ISBN 9781316184363.
  112. ^ Hansen, Waldemar (1972). The peacock throne : the drama of Mogul India (1. Indian ed., repr. ed.). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 12, 34. ISBN 978-81-208-0225-4.
  113. ^ Michael Fisher (1 October 2015). A Short History of the Mughal Empire. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 88–90. ISBN 978-0-85772-976-7.
  114. ^ Barbara N. Ramusack 2004, pp. 18–19.
  115. ^ Chandra, Satish (2007). Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals Part-II. Har Anand Publications. p. 124. ISBN 9788124110669.
  116. ^ Ahmad, Amir (2005). "The Bundela Revolts During the Mughal Period: A Dynastic Affair". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 66: 438–445. ISSN 2249-1937. JSTOR 44145860.
  117. ^ Bayly, Susan (2000). Caste, society and politics in India from the eighteenth century to the modern age (1. Indian ed.). Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Press. p. 35. ISBN 9780521798426.
  118. ^ "Rajput". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 27 November 2010.
  119. ^ a b Lynn Zastoupil (July 1994). John Stuart Mill and India. Stanford University Press. pp. 120–121. ISBN 978-0-8047-6617-3.
  120. ^ Ramya Sreenivasan (1 May 2017). The Many Lives of a Rajput Queen: Heroic Pasts in India, c. 1500-1900. University of Washington Press. pp. 126–. ISBN 978-0-295-99785-8.
  121. ^ Chaurasia, R.S. (2004). History of the Marathas. New Delhi, India: Atlantic Publishers & Dist. pp. 23, 178, 185. ISBN 81-269-0394-5.
  122. ^ Jadunath Sarkar (1994). "The British alliance". A History of Jaipur 1503–1938. Orient Longman. pp. 315–330. ISBN 81-250-0333-9.
  123. ^ Metcalf, Barbara D.; Metcalf, Thomas R. (24 September 2012). A Concise History of Modern India. Cambridge University Press. p. 73. ISBN 978-1-107-02649-0.
  124. ^ William R. Pinch (1996). Peasants and Monks in British India. University of California Press. pp. 85–86. ISBN 0520916301. Retrieved 22 January 2021. Ironically, the Rajput constituency of Awadh itself composed a "group of newcomers to the court, who had been peasant soldiers only a few years before. They were called, half sarcastically, the 'Tilangi Rajas' [or] 'trooper rajas'—the people described by the shocked Muhammad Faiz Baksh as the new Nawab's courtiers: 'Naked rustics, whose fathers and brothers were with their own hands guiding the plow . . . , rode about as Asaf ud-daula's orderlies. In other words, the Rajputs of Awadh, who along with brahmans constituted the main beneficiaries of what historian Richard Barnett characterizes as "Asaf's permissive program of social mobility," were not willing to let that mobility reach beyond certain arbitrary sociocultural boundaries.
  125. ^ Sailendra Nath Sen (2010). An Advanced History of Modern India. Macmillan. pp. 73–. ISBN 978-0-230-32885-3.
  126. ^ Tanuja Kothiyal 2016, pp. 9–10.
  127. ^ Tod, James (1873). Annals and Antiquities of Rajast'han. Higginbotham & Co. p. 217. What nation on earth could have maintained the semblance of civilization, the spirit or the customs of their forefathers, during so many centuries of overwhelming depression, but one of such singular character as the Rajpoot.
  128. ^ Freitag, Jason (2009). Serving empire, serving nation: James Tod and the Rajputs of Rajasthan. Leiden: Brill. pp. 3–5. ISBN 978-90-04-17594-5. Retrieved 2 May 2022.
  129. ^ Srivastava, Vijai Shankar (1981). "The story of archaeological, historical and antiquarian researches in Rajasthan before independence". In Prakash, Satya; Śrivastava, Vijai Shankar (eds.). Cultural contours of India: Dr. Satya Prakash felicitation volume. Abhinav Publications. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-391-02358-1. Retrieved 9 July 2011.
  130. ^ Meister, Michael W. (1981). "Forest and Cave: Temples at Candrabhāgā and Kansuāñ". Archives of Asian Art. 34: 56–73. JSTOR 20111117.(subscription required)
  131. ^ Freitag, Jason (2009). Serving empire, serving nation: James Tod and the Rajputs of Rajasthan. BRILL. pp. 3–5. ISBN 978-90-04-17594-5.
  132. ^ Metcalf, Thomas R. (8 December 2015). Aftermath of Revolt: India 1857-1970. Princeton University Press. p. 299. ISBN 978-1-4008-7664-8.
  133. ^ Robert W. Stern (1988). The Cat and the Lion: Jaipur State in the British Raj. BRILL. p. 108. ISBN 978-90-04-08283-0.
  134. ^ Bates, Crispin (16 October 2014). Mutiny at the Margins: New Perspectives on the Indian Uprising of 1857: Volume VI: Perception, Narration and Reinvention: The Pedagogy and Historiography of the Indian Uprising. SAGE Publishing India. ISBN 978-93-5150-457-3. This suggests that those who fled Delhi had taken asylum in the villages of Chittor, implying that Rajput officers had sympathy with the rebels, otherwise they could have been arrested at the entry point into Rajasthan. However, they travelled safely through Rajasthan, up to Chittor.
  135. ^ Bingley, A. H. (1986) [1899]. Handbook on Rajputs. Asian Educational Services. p. 20. ISBN 978-81-206-0204-5.
  136. ^ Bates, Crispin (1995). "Race, Caste and Tribe in Central India: the early origins of Indian anthropometry". In Robb, Peter (ed.). The Concept of Race in South Asia. Delhi: Oxford University Press. p. 227. ISBN 978-0-19-563767-0. Retrieved 30 November 2011.
  137. ^ Mahesh Rangarajan, K; Sivaramakrishnan, eds. (6 November 2014). Shifting Ground: People, Animals, and Mobility in India's Environmental History. Oxford University Press. p. 85. ISBN 9780199089376. The British defined Rajputs as a group in part by their affinity for wild pork.
  138. ^ Lloyd Rudolph 1967, p. 127.
  139. ^ B. S. Baviskar; D. W. Attwood (30 October 2013). Inside-Outside: Two Views of Social Change in Rural India. SAGE Publications. pp. 389–. ISBN 978-81-321-1865-7. As one example among thousands, a small caste living partly in the Nira Valley was formerly known as Shegar Dhangar and more recently as Sagar Rajput
  140. ^ Robert Eric Frykenberg (1984). Land Tenure and Peasant in South Asia. Manohar. p. 197. Another example of castes' successful efforts to raise their sacred status to twice-born are the Sagar Rajputs of Poona district. Previously they were considered to be Dhangars—shepherds by occupation and Shudras by traditional varna. However, when their economic strength increased and they began to acquire land, they found a genealogist to trace their ancestry back to a leading officer in Shivaji's army, changed their names from Dhangars to Sagar Rajputs, and donned the sacred thread.
  141. ^ Markovits, Claude, ed. (2002) [First published 1994 as Histoire de l'Inde Moderne]. A History of Modern India, 1480–1950 (2nd ed.). London: Anthem Press. p. 406. ISBN 978-1-84331-004-4. The twenty-two princely states that were amalgamated in 1949 to form a political entity called Rajasthan...
  142. ^ Gerald James Larson (2001). Religion and Personal Law in Secular India: A Call to Judgment. Indiana University Press. pp. 206–. ISBN 978-0-253-21480-5. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
  143. ^ "Dogra dynasty". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  144. ^ , indiacode.nic.in, Government of India, 1971, archived from the original on 6 December 2011, retrieved 30 October 2014
  145. ^ Brass, Paul R. (1966). Factional Politics in an Indian State: The Congress Party in Uttar Pradesh. University of California Press. pp. 16–17. The agricultural castes must be further subdivided into the traditional landowning castes, the cultivating castes, and the castes which provide field laborers. Among the traditional landowning castes, the Thakurs and Rajputs are by far the most important. Before zamindari abolition, Rajputs and Thakurs owned the largest share of the land in most of the districts in Uttar Pradesh; in Oudh, Rajputs were the most prominent talukdars and owned more than 50 percent of the land in most districts. Rajputs and Thakurs are associated with traditional Kshatriya class, the ruling class in the classical Hindu order.
  146. ^ Thomas, Metcalf; Metcalf, Thomas R.; Metcalf, Professor of History and Sarah Kailath Professor of India Studies Thomas R.; Kailath, Sarah (2005). Forging the Raj: Essays on British India in the Heyday of Empire. Oxford University Press. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-19-566709-7. The bulk of the taluqdars, including almost all the Hindu holders of moderate to large estates, are of the Rajput caste. A ritually high caste, second only to the Brahmins, Rajputs have traditionally provided the secular elite of the province. Not only as large Landlords, but as petty zamindars and substantial peasant cultivators, Rajputs control most of the productive agricultural land and have long dominated the village panchayats and other local government institutions. The mere existence of such a large group of influential caste fellows scattered throughout the countryside gives the taluqdar a substantial advantage over a non-Rajput rival in gathering electoral support. But the taluqdar is usually more than just a Rajput; he is also the head of the local Rajput lineage or clan.
  147. ^ Erminia Colucci; David Lester (2012). Suicide and Culture: Understanding the Context. Hogrefe Publishing. pp. 219–. ISBN 978-1-61676-436-4.
  148. ^ Kanchan Mathur (16 November 2004). Countering Gender Violence: Initiatives Towards Collective Action in Rajasthan. SAGE Publications. pp. 44–. ISBN 978-0-7619-3244-4.
  149. ^ "Central List of OBCs – State : Karnataka".
  150. ^ "12015/2/2007-BCC dt. 18/08/2010" (PDF).
  151. ^ A.Prasad (1997). Reservational Justice to Other Backward Classes (Obcs): Theoretical and Practical Issues. Deep and Deep Publications. p. 69. (continued list of OBC classes) 7.Rajput 120.Karnataka Rajput
  152. ^ Basu, Pratyusha (2009). Villages, Women, and the Success of Dairy Cooperatives in India: Making Place for Rural Development. Cambria Press. p. 96. ISBN 978-1-60497-625-0.
  153. ^ "Rajput youths rally for reservations". The Times of India. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
  154. ^ Mudgal, Vipul (22 February 2016). . The Wire. Archived from the original on 30 May 2016. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
  155. ^ "Rajputs demanding reservation threaten to disrupt chintan shivir". The Hindu. 16 January 2013. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
  156. ^ "After Jats, Rajputs of western UP want reservation in govt posts". Hindustan Times. 28 April 2016. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
  157. ^ The Tribune India (20 December 2016). "Rajput body condemns govt for putting Sikh Rajputs in 'backward classes'". Tribuneindia News Service.
  158. ^ "Rajputs to be accorded back general status, as per demand, says Punjab CM Channi". Hindustan Times. 15 November 2021. Retrieved 22 October 2022.
  159. ^ (PDF). Kellogg.nd.edu. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  160. ^ Dipankar Gupta (20 March 2014). "The caste bogey in election analysis". The Hindu. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  161. ^ "Changing Electoral Politics in Delhi". Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  162. ^ "Elections in India: The vote-bank theory has run its course". Asiancorrespondent.com. 7 February 2012. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  163. ^ "Rajasthan polls: It's caste politics all the way". The Times of India. 13 October 2013.
  164. ^ Lawrence A. Babb (1975). The Divine Hierarchy: Popular Hinduism in Central India. Columbia University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-231-08387-4. The term Rajput denotes a cluster of castes that are accorded Kshatriya status in the varna system.
  165. ^ Lawrence A Babb (2004). Alchemies of Violence: Myths of Identity and the Life of Trade in Western India. SAGE. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-7619-3223-9. ...the region's erstwhile ruling aristocracy, a cluster of clans and lineages bearing the label 'Rajput'.
  166. ^ Ayan Shome 2014, p. 196.
  167. ^ Catherine B. Asher & Cynthia Talbot 2006, p. 99 (Para 3): "...Rajput did not originally indicate a hereditary status but rather an occupational one: that is, it was used in reference to men from diverse ethnic and geographical backgrounds, who fought on horseback. In Rajasthan and its vicinity, the word Rajput came to have a more restricted and aristocratic meaning, as exclusive networks of warriors related by patrilineal descent and intermarriage became dominant in the fifteenth century. The Rajputs of Rajasthan eventually refused to acknowledge the Rajput identity of the warriors who lived farther to the east and retained the fluid and inclusive nature of their communities far longer than did the warriors of Rajasthan."
  168. ^ Cynthia Talbot 2015, p. 120 (Para 4): "Kolff's provocative thesis certainly applies to more peripheral groups like the Bundelas of Central India, whose claims to be Rajput were ignored by the Rajput clans of Mughal-era Rajasthan, and to other such lower-status martial communities."
  169. ^ "Rajput". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  170. ^ a b Shail Mayaram 2013, p. 269.
  171. ^ Rolf Lunheim (1993). Desert people: caste and community—a Rajasthani village. University of Trondheim & Norsk Hydro AS. ISBN 9788290896121. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
  172. ^ Maya Unnithan-Kumar (1997). Identity, Gender, and Poverty: New Perspectives on Caste and Tribe in Rajasthan. Berghahn Books. p. 135. ISBN 978-1-57181-918-5. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
  173. ^ Makhan Jha (1 January 1997). Anthropology of Ancient Hindu Kingdoms: A Study in Civilizational Perspective. M.D. Publications Pvt. Ltd. pp. 33–. ISBN 978-81-7533-034-4. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
  174. ^ André Wink (2002). Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7Th-11th Centuries. BRILL. pp. 282–. ISBN 978-0-391-04173-8. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
  175. ^ Lindsey Harlan 1992, p. 31.
  176. ^ Heather Streets (2004). Martial Races: The Military, Race and Masculinity in British Imperial Culture, 1857–1914. Manchester University Press. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-7190-6962-8.
  177. ^ Rand, Gavin (March 2006). "Martial Races and Imperial Subjects: Violence and Governance in Colonial India 1857–1914". European Review of History. 13 (1): 1–20. doi:10.1080/13507480600586726. S2CID 144987021.
  178. ^ Streets, Heather (2004). Martial Races: The military, race and masculinity in British Imperial Culture, 1857–1914. Manchester University Press. p. 241. ISBN 978-0-7190-6962-8. Retrieved 20 October 2010.
  179. ^ Omar Khalidi (2003). Khaki and the Ethnic Violence in India: Army, Police, and Paramilitary Forces During Communal Riots. Three Essays Collective. p. 5. ISBN 9788188789092. Apart from their physique , the martial races were regarded as politically subservient or docile to authority
  180. ^ Philippa Levine (2003). Prostitution, Race, and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire. Psychology Press. pp. 284–285. ISBN 978-0-415-94447-2. The Saturday review had made much the same argument a few years earlier in relation to the armies raised by Indian rulers in princely states. They lacked competent leadership and were uneven in quality. Commander in chief Roberts, one of the most enthusiastic proponents of the martial race theory, though poorly of the native troops as a body. Many regarded such troops as childish and simple. The British, claims, David Omissi, believe martial Indians to be stupid. Certainly, the policy of recruiting among those without access to much education gave the British more semblance of control over their recruits.
  181. ^ Amiya K. Samanta (2000). Gorkhaland Movement: A Study in Ethnic Separatism. APH Publishing. pp. 26–. ISBN 978-81-7648-166-3. Dr . Jeffrey Greenhunt has observed that " The Martial Race Theory had an elegant symmetry. Indians who were intelligent and educated were defined as cowards, while those defined as brave were uneducated and backward. Besides their mercenary spirit was primarily due to their lack of nationalism.
  182. ^ Schaflechner, Jürgen (2018). Hinglaj Devi: Identity, Change, and Solidification at a Hindu Temple in Pakistan. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-085052-4. Among the crowds are many Rajputs who link their community's existence, or survival, to the help of Karni Mata.
  183. ^ Kothiyal, Tanuja (14 March 2016). Nomadic Narratives: A History of Mobility and Identity in the Great Indian Desert. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-08031-7. Several Charani goddesses like Avad, Karni, Nagnechi, Sangviyaan, Barbadi, among others are revered by Rajputs as patron deities.
  184. ^ General, India Office of the Registrar (1966). Census of India, 1961. Manager of Publications. The principal followers of the deity are Charans , who are also the priests and belong to the community to which Karni Mata belonged , and Rajputs who worship her as their family deity .
  185. ^ Prabhākara, Manohara (1976). A Critical Study of Rajasthani Literature, with Exclusive Reference to the Contribution of Cāraṇas. Panchsheel Prakashan. Karni : Presiding Deity of Rajputs and Cāraņas
  186. ^ Aase J. Kvanneid (2021). Perceptions of Climate Change from North India: An Ethnographic Account. Routledge. p. 79-.
  187. ^ Chowdhary, Charu. "7 Interesting Martial Art Forms in India". India.com. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  188. ^ Narasimhan, Sakuntala (1992). Sati: widow burning in India (Reprinted ed.). Doubleday. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-385-42317-5.
  189. ^ Hiltebeitel, Alf; Erndl, Kathleen M. (2000). Is the Goddess a Feminist?: The Politics of South Asian Goddesses. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press. p. 77. ISBN 978-0-8147-3619-7.
  190. ^ Lindsey Harlan 1992, p. 88.
  191. ^ Cūṇḍāvata, Lakshmī Kumārī (2000). From Purdah to the People: Memoirs of Padma Shri Rani Laxmi Kumari Chundawat. Rawat Publications. p. 42. ISBN 978-81-7033-606-8. People said " Jai Karni Mata ki , ' ' Jai Mataji ki , ' ' Jai Charbhuja ki , " " Jai Gordhan Nath ki ' , and so on . Different deities were invoked in different places and by different castes . For example , a Jat would never say " Jai Mata Ki ' , only a Rajput or a Charan would say that .
  192. ^ Fisher, R. J. (1997). If Rain Doesn't Come: An Anthropological Study of Drought and Human Ecology in Western Rajasthan. Manohar. p. 61. ISBN 978-81-7304-184-6. In fact the greeting used by Bhati Rajputs is ' Jai - sri ' or ' Jai - sri - Kishan ' ( victory to Lord Krishna ) as opposed to the general Rajput greeting ' Jai - mata - jiri ' ( victory of the Mother Goddess ) .
  193. ^ Simoons, Frederick J. (1994). Eat Not this Flesh: Food Avoidances from Prehistory to the Present. Univ of Wisconsin Press. p. 330. ISBN 978-0-299-14254-4. Despite the widespread unacceptability of alcoholic beverages as offerings to high gods in India (Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi, 1977a : 365-66), when Rajputs "open a bottle of whiskey, they often tip a little on the ground in an offering to the mother goddess before they drink. They say 'Jai Mata-ji' as they do this-'Long live the Mother (Goddess)'.
  194. ^ Somerville, Christopher (16 April 2020). Our War: Real stories of Commonwealth soldiers during World War II. Orion. ISBN 978-1-4746-1775-8. The Muslims shout their battle-cry; the Rajputs cry, 'Jai Mata! Victory to the Mother!' and the Jats shout the war cry of Hanuman the monkey-god. The Japanese, too - they were shouting 'Banzai!' and wielding their samurai swords ... a medieval sight.
  195. ^ Sandhu, Gurcharn Singh (2003). A Military History of Medieval India. Vision Books. p. 428. ISBN 978-81-7094-525-3. Banners and Devices - Rajputs had slogans like "Jai Mataji", "Rann banka Rathor" and so on painted on their shields. Jagirdars carried their own flags; this served the same purpose as in ancient and ease of deployment for battle. The ruler's ban ners and flags were carried on elephants, camels and on horseback. India-identification
  196. ^ Harald Tambs-Lyche (1997). Power, Profit, and Poetry: Traditional Society in Kathiawar, Western India. Manohar Publishers & Distributors. p. 101. ISBN 978-81-7304-176-1. Such hospitality is central to Rajputs , as it is to other martial castes of South Asia
  197. ^ "Cambridge Dictionary". Cambridge University Press.
  198. ^ Kasturi, Malavika (2002). Embattled Identities Rajput Lineages. Oxford University Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-19-565787-6.
  199. ^ Lindsey Harlan 1992, p. 27.
  200. ^ a b c d e f g Harald Fischer-Tiné; Michael Mann (2004). Colonialism as Civilizing Mission: Cultural Ideology in British India. Anthem Press. pp. 124–140. ISBN 978-1-84331-092-1.
  201. ^ Manmohan Kaur (1968). Role of Women in the Freedom Movement, 1857-1947. Sterling Publishers. p. 9. ( iii )Amongst the Rajputs it was a common practice that a mother's breast was smeared with the preparation of 'dhatura ' or Mudar plant or the poppy . The infant drank the milk along with the poison
  202. ^ Richard Eaton 2019, p. 139, [4]:Only the Sisodia clan of Mewar in southern Rajasthan proudly claiming pre-eminence among the Rajput clans, refused to send its women to the Mughal Harem, resulting in the siege and mass suicide at Chittor.
  203. ^ a b c d Sreenivasan, Ramya (2006). "Drudges, Dancing Girls, Concubines: Female Slaves in Rajput Polity, 1500–1850". In Chatterjee, Indrani; Eaton, Richard M. (eds.). Slavery and South Asian History. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. pp. 136–161. ISBN 978-0253116710. OCLC 191950586.
  204. ^ Khanna, Priyanka (2011). "Embodying Royal Concubinage: Some Aspects of Concubinage in Royal Rajput Household of Marwar, (Western Rajasthan) C. 16". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 72: 337–345. ISSN 2249-1937. JSTOR 44146726.
  205. ^ D. D. Gaur (1978). Constitutional Development of Eastern Rajputana States. Usha. p. 49. OCLC 641457000. These slave communities were known by various names, such as Darogas, Chakars, Hazuris, Ravana- Rajputs, Chelas, Golas and Khawas.
  206. ^ Lindsey Harlan 1992, p. 145,167.
  207. ^ Malavika Kasturi (March 2004). Harald Fischer-Tiné; Michael Mann (eds.). Colonialism as Civilizing Mission: Cultural Ideology in British India. Anthem Press. pp. 128–. ISBN 978-1-84331-363-2. If not, these children became dancing girls or were sold off to other Rajputs as wives.[...]Female infanticide had unintended consequences. [...]The scarcity of girls in many clans of higher status led to the kidnapping of women of lower castes, who were sold to high ranking clans for matrimonial purposes.[...]In some cases women from semi-nomadic communities were married to Rajput bridegrooms of this level in exchange for bride wealth
  208. ^ Kalikinkar Datta (1978). Survey of India's Social Life and Economic Condition in the Eighteenth Century, 1707-1813. Munshiram Manoharlal. p. 68. Buchanan writes that in northern India , the Rajputs , Khatris and Kayasthas openly kept women slaves of any pure tribe , and the children through such women were classed in one matrimonial group . Rich Muslim families in Bihar maintained large number of male slaves called Nufurs and female slaves called Laundis . A distinct class of slaves known as Molazadahs were also maintained by them.
  209. ^ R.D. Sanwal (1976). Social Stratification in Rural Kumaon. Oxford University Press. pp. 43–44. ISBN 0195605314.
  210. ^ Berreman Gerald D (1963). Hindus of the Himalayas. University of California Press(Berkeley). p. 130.
  211. ^ Abraham Eraly (17 July 2007). The Mughal World. Penguin Books Limited. pp. 386–. ISBN 978-81-8475-315-8.
  212. ^ Archana Calangutcar (2006–2007). "MARWARIS IN OPIUM TRADE: A JOURNEY TO BOMBAY IN THE 19th CENTURY". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 67: 745–753. JSTOR 44147994. In the seventeenth century the. Mughals followed a practice of giving opium to the Rajput soldiers regularly
  213. ^ Anil Chandra Banerjee (1980). The Rajput States and British Paramountcy. Rajesh Publications. p. 47. Addiction to opium was one of the most demoralising features of Rajput society
  214. ^ Ganguly, K.K. (2008). "Pattern and Process of Drug and alcohol use in India". Indian Council Medical Research Bulletin. 38 (1–3).
  215. ^ Shah, A. M.; Shroff, R. G. (1958). "The Vahīvancā Bāroṭs of Gujarat: A Caste of Genealogists and Mythographers". The Journal of American Folklore. American Folklore Society. 71 (281): 264. doi:10.2307/538561. JSTOR 538561 – via JSTOR.
  216. ^ Jim Orford; et al., eds. (2013). Coping with Alcohol and Drug Problems: The Experiences of Family Members in Three Contrasting Cultures. Routledge. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-134-70273-2.
  217. ^ Lindsey Harlan 1992, p. 158"Many women do not like their husbands to drink much alcohol; they consider alcoholism a problem in their community particularly because Rajput drinking is sanctioned by tradition."
  218. ^ Karine Schomer 1994, p. 338.
  219. ^ Saleema Waraich (2012). "Competing and complementary visions of the court of the Great Mogor". In Dana Leibsohn; Jeanette Favrot Peterson (eds.). Seeing Across Cultures in the Early Modern World. Ashgate. p. 88. ISBN 9781409411895.

Bibliography

  • Alf Hiltebeitel (1999). Rethinking India's Oral and Classical Epics: Draupadi among Rajputs, Muslims, and Dalits. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-34055-5.
  • André Wink (1990). Al- Hind: The slave kings and the Islamic conquest. Vol. 1. BRILL. p. 269. ISBN 9789004095090.
  • Asoke Kumar Majumdar (1956). Chaulukyas of Gujarat. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. OCLC 4413150.
  • Ayan Shome (2014). Dialogue & Daggers: Notion of Authority and Legitimacy in the Early Delhi Sultanate (1192 C.E. – 1316 C.E.). Vij Books. ISBN 978-93-84318-46-8.
  • Barbara N. Ramusack (2004). The Indian Princes and their States. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139449083.
  • Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya (1994). "Origin of the Rajputs: The Political, Economic and Social Processes in Early Medieval Rajasthan". The Making of Early Medieval India. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195634150.
  • Bhrigupati Singh (2015). Poverty and the Quest for Life. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-19468-4.
  • Catherine B. Asher; Cynthia Talbot (2006). India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80904-7.
  • Cynthia Talbot (2015). The Last Hindu Emperor: Prithviraj Cauhan and the Indian Past, 1200–2000. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107118560.
  • David Ludden (1999). An Agrarian History of South Asia. Cambridge University Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-521-36424-9.
  • Dirk H. A. Kolff (2002). Naukar, Rajput, and Sepoy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-52305-9.
  • Irfan Habib (2002). Essays in Indian History. Anthem Press. p. 90. ISBN 978-1-84331-061-7.
  • Karine Schomer (1994). Idea of Rajasthan: Constructions. South Asia Publications. ISBN 978-0-945921-25-7.
  • Lindsey Harlan (1992). Religion and Rajput Women: The Ethic of Protection in Contemporary Narratives. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-07339-5.
  • Pradeep Barua (2005). The State at War in South Asia. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-1344-9.
  • Peter Jackson (2003). The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-54329-3.
  • Richard Gabriel Fox (1971). Kin, Clan, Raja, and Rule: Statehinterland Relations in Preindustrial India. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520018075.
  • Rima Hooja (2006). A History of Rajasthan. Rupa & Company. ISBN 978-81-291-1501-0.
  • Satish Chandra (1982). Medieval India: Society, the Jagirdari Crisis, and the Village. Macmillan. ISBN 9780333903964.
  • Shail Mayaram (2013). Against History, Against State: Counterperspectives from the Margins. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-52951-8.
  • Tanuja Kothiyal (2016). Nomadic Narratives: A History of Mobility and Identity in the Great Indian Desert. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107080317.
  • Stewart Gordon (2007). The Marathas 1600-1818. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-03316-9.
  • Norman Ziegler (1976). David Henige (ed.). "History in Africa". History in Africa. African Studies Association. 3.
  • Eugenia Vanina (2012). Medieval Indian Mindscapes: Space, Time, Society, Man. Primus Books. ISBN 978-93-80607-19-1.
  • Reena Dube; Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar (2012). Female Infanticide in India: A Feminist Cultural History. State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-8385-5.
  • Lloyd Rudolph (1967). The Modernity of Tradition: Political Development in India. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-73137-7.
  • Richard Eaton (2019). India in the Persianate Age: 1000-1765. Penguin Books Limited. ISBN 978-0-14-196655-7.
  • Lindsey Harlan (2018). Religion and Rajput Women: The Ethic of Protection in Contemporary Narratives. Univ of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-30175-7.
  • Ananya Vajpeyi (2005). Supriya Varma; Satish Saberwal (eds.). Traditions in motion:Religion and Society in History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-566915-2.
  • Vajracharya, Dhanavajra (1 December 1975), "Notes on the Changunarayan Inscription" (PDF), Regmi Research Series, 7 (12): 232–240

External links

  • History of Rajputs in India

rajput, 1982, film, film, from, sanskrit, raja, putra, meaning, king, also, called, thakur, large, multi, component, cluster, castes, bodies, local, groups, sharing, social, status, ideology, genealogical, descent, originating, from, indian, subcontinent, term. For the 1982 film see Rajput film Rajput from Sanskrit raja putra meaning son of a king also called Thakur 6 7 is a large multi component cluster of castes kin bodies and local groups sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent The term Rajput covers various patrilineal clans historically associated with warriorhood several clans claim Rajput status although not all claims are universally accepted According to modern scholars almost all Rajput clans originated from peasant or pastoral communities RajputReligionsHinduism Islam and Sikhism 1 2 LanguagesHindustani Hindi Urdu Haryanvi Bundeli Chhattisgarhi Rajasthani Marwari Mewari Bihari Bhojpuri 3 Maithili 4 Gujarati Sindhi Punjabi Marathi Pahari Dogri CountryIndia and PakistanRegionRajasthan Haryana Gujarat Uttar Pradesh Eastern Punjab Western Punjab Himachal Pradesh Uttarakhand Jammu and Kashmir Azad Kashmir Bihar Jharkhand Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra 5 and SindhOver time the Rajputs emerged as a social class comprising people from a variety of ethnic and geographical backgrounds During the 16th and 17th centuries the membership of this class became largely hereditary although new claims to Rajput status continued to be made in the later centuries Several Rajput ruled kingdoms played a significant role in many regions of central and northern India from seventh century onwards The Rajput population and the former Rajput states are found in northern western central and eastern India as well as southern and eastern Pakistan These areas include Rajasthan Haryana Gujarat Eastern Punjab Western Punjab Uttar Pradesh Himachal Pradesh Jammu Uttarakhand Bihar Madhya Pradesh and Sindh Contents 1 Origin 1 1 Emergence as a community 2 History 2 1 History of Rajput Kingdoms 2 2 Mughal period 2 2 1 Akbar s policy 2 2 2 Shah Jahan s period 2 2 3 Aurangzeb s policy 2 2 4 Later 2 3 British colonial period 2 4 Post Independence 2 4 1 Princely States 2 4 2 Sati 2 4 3 Affirmative Action 2 4 4 Rajput politics 3 Subdivisions 4 Culture and ethos 4 1 Martial race 4 2 Deities 4 3 Rajput lifestyle 4 3 1 Hospitability 4 3 2 Miscellaneous 4 4 Female infanticide 4 5 Brideprice or Bridewealth weddings 4 6 Opium usage etc 4 7 Arts 5 Notable people 6 See also 7 References 7 1 Citations 7 2 Bibliography 8 External linksOriginThe origin of the Rajputs has been a much debated topic among historians Historian Satish Chandra states Modern historians are more or less agreed that the Rajputs consisted of miscellaneous groups including Shudra and tribals Some were Brahmans who took to warfare and some were from Tribes indigenous or foreign Thus the Rajput community formation was a result of political factors that influenced caste mobility called Sanskritization by some scholars and Rajputization by others 8 9 Modern scholars agree that nearly all Rajputs clans originated from peasant or pastoral communities 10 11 12 13 14 Alf Hiltebeitel discusses three theories by Raj era and early writers for Rajput origin and gives the reasons as to why these theories are dismissed by modern research British colonial era writers characterised Rajputs as descendants of the foreign invaders such as the Scythians or the Hunas and believed that the Agnikula myth was invented to conceal their foreign origin 15 According to this theory the Rajputs originated when these invaders were assimilated into the Kshatriya category during the 6th or 7th century following the collapse of the Gupta Empire 16 17 While many of these colonial writers propagated this foreign origin theory in order to legitimise the colonial rule the theory was also supported by some Indian scholars such as D R Bhandarkar 15 The second theory was promulgated by the Vaidya who believed in the Aryan invasion theory and that the entire 9th 10th century Indian populace was composed of only one race the Aryans who had not yet mixed with the Shudras or Dravidians Nationalist historians Vaidya and R B Singh write that the Rajputs had originated from the Vedic Aryan Kshatriyas of the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata Vaidya bases this theory on certain attributes such as bravery and physical strength of Draupadi and Kausalya and the bravery of the Rajputs However Hiltebeitel says that such affinities do not point to an unbroken continuity between an ancient epic period in the Vedic period 3500 BCE 3000 BCE according to Vaidya and the great Rajput tradition that started in sixteenth century Rajasthan instead raise the question of similarities between the epics allusions to Vedic Vratya warbands and earlier medieval low status Rajput clans Hiltebeitel concludes that such attempts to trace Rajputs from epic and Vedic sources are unconvincing 18 and cites Nancy MacLean and B D Chattopadhyaya to label Vaidya s historiography on Rajputs as often hopeless 19 A third group of historians which includes Jai Narayan Asopa theorised that the Rajputs were Brahmins who became rulers However such one track arguments and contrived evidence such as shape of the head cultural stereotypes etc are dismissed by Hiltebeitel who refers to such claims and Asopa s epic references as far fetched or unintelligible 20 Recent research suggests that the Rajputs came from a variety of ethnic and geographical backgrounds 21 and various Varnas 22 23 Tanuja Kothiyal states In the colonial ethnographic accounts rather than referring to Rajputs as having emerged from other communities Bhils Mers Minas Gujars Jats Raikas all lay a claim to a Rajput past from where they claim to have fallen Historical processes however suggest just the opposite 24 The root word rajaputra literally son of a king finds mention in some ancient Hindu scriptures like Rigveda Ramayana and Mahabharata 25 26 27 The term has been used to designate some ministers and nobles in Sanskrit inscriptions belonging to the Licchavi kingdom 5th to 7th century CE 28 29 According to some scholars it was reserved for the immediate relatives of a king others believe that it was used for a larger group of high ranking men 30 The derivative word rajput meant horse soldier trooper headman of a village or subordinate chief before the 15th century Individuals with whom the word rajput was associated before the 15th century were considered varna samkara mixed caste origin and inferior to Kshatriya Over time the term Rajput came to denote a hereditary political status which was not necessarily very high the term could denote a wide range of rank holders from an actual son of a king to the lowest ranked landholder 31 32 33 34 According to scholars in medieval times the political units of India were probably ruled most often by men of very low birth and this may be equally applicable for many clans of Rajputs in northern India Burton Stein explains that this process of allowing rulers frequently of low social origin a clean rank via social mobility in the Hindu Varna system serves as one of the explanations of the longevity of the unique Indian civilisation 35 36 37 Gradually the term Rajput came to denote a social class which was formed when the various tribal and nomadic groups became landed aristocrats and transformed into the ruling class 38 These groups assumed the title Rajput as part of their claim to higher social positions and ranks 39 The early medieval literature suggests that this newly formed Rajput class comprised people from multiple castes 40 Thus the Rajput identity is not the result of a shared ancestry Rather it emerged when different social groups of medieval India sought to legitimise their newly acquired political power by claiming Kshatriya status These groups started identifying as Rajput at different times in different ways Thus modern scholars summarise that Rajputs were a group of open status since the eighth century mostly illiterate warriors who claimed to be reincarnates of ancient Indian Kshatriyas a claim that had no historical basis Moreover this unfounded Kshatriya status claim showed a sharp contrast to the classical varna of Kshatriyas as depicted in Hindu literature in which Kshatriyas are depicted as an educated and urbanite clan 41 42 43 44 45 Historian Thomas R Metcalf mentions the opinion of Indian scholar K M Panikkar who also considers the famous Rajput dynasties of medieval India to have come from non Kshatriya castes 46 During the era of the Mughal empire hypergamous marriage marrying up combined with service in the state army was another way a tribal family could become Rajput This process required a change in dress diet worship and other traditions ending widow remarriage for example Such a marriage between someone from a tribal family and a member of an acknowledged but possibly poor Rajput family would ultimately enable the non Rajput family to rise to Rajput status This marriage pattern supports the fact that Rajput was an open caste category available to those who served the Mughals 47 Rajput formation continued in the colonial era Even in the 19th century anyone from the village landlord to the newly wealthy lower caste Shudra could employ Brahmins to retrospectively fabricate a genealogy and within a couple of generations they would gain acceptance as Hindu Rajputs This process would get mirrored by communities in north India This process of origin of the Rajput community resulted in hypergamy as well as female infanticide that was common in Hindu Rajput clans Scholars refer to this as Rajputization which like Sanskritization was a mode for upward mobility but it differed from Sanskritization in other attributes like the method of worship lifestyle diet social interaction rules for women and marriage etc German historian Hermann Kulke has coined the term Secondary Rajputization for describing the process of members of a tribe trying to re associate themselves with the former chief of their tribe who had already transformed himself into a Rajput via Rajputization and thus become Rajputs themselves 48 49 50 22 23 Emergence as a community Rajputs of Central India Scholarly opinions differ on when the term Rajput acquired hereditary connotations and came to denote a clan based community Historian Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya based on his analysis of inscriptions primarily from Rajasthan believed that by the 12th century the term rajaputra was associated with fortified settlements kin based landholding and other features that later became indicative of the Rajput status 30 According to Chattopadhyaya the title acquired an element of heredity from c 1300 51 A later study by of 11th 14th century inscriptions from western and central India by Michael B Bednar concludes that the designations such as rajaputra thakkura and rauta were not necessarily hereditary during this period 51 Rajputs were involved in nomadic pastoralism animal husbandry and cattle trade until much later than popularly believed The 17th century chronicles of Muhnot Nainsi i e Munhata Nainsi ri Khyat and Marwar ra Paraganan ri Vigat discuss disputes between Rajputs pertaining to cattle raids In addition Folk deities of the Rajputs Pabuji Mallinath Gogaji and Ramdeo were considered protectors of cattle herding communities They also imply struggle among Rajputs for domination over cattle and pasturelands 52 The emergence of Rajput community was the result of a gradual change from mobile pastoral and tribal groups into landed sedentary ones This necessitated control over mobile resources for agrarian expansion which in turn necessitated kinship structures martial and marital alliances 24 14 53 During its formative stages the Rajput class was quite assimilative and absorbed people from a wide range of lineages 38 However by the late 16th century it had become genealogically rigid based on the ideas of blood purity 54 The membership of the Rajput class was now largely inherited rather than acquired through military achievements 51 A major factor behind this development was the consolidation of the Mughal Empire whose rulers had great interest in genealogy As the various Rajput chiefs became Mughal feduatories they no longer engaged in major conflicts with each other This decreased the possibility of achieving prestige through military action and made hereditary prestige more important 55 According to David Ludden the word Rajput acquired its present day meaning in the 16th century 56 During 16th and 17th centuries the Rajput rulers and their bards charans sought to legitimise the Rajput socio political status on the basis of descent and kinship 57 They fabricated genealogies linking the Rajput families to the ancient dynasties and associated them with myths of origins that established their Kshatriya status 51 58 23 This led to the emergence of what Indologist Dirk Kolff calls the Rajput Great Tradition which accepted only hereditary claims to the Rajput identity and fostered a notion of eliteness and exclusivity 59 The legendary epic poem Prithviraj Raso which depicts warriors from several different Rajput clans as associates of Prithviraj Chauhan fostered a sense of unity among these clans 60 The text thus contributed to the consolidation of the Rajput identity by offering these clans a shared history 30 However there are historical indications of the group calling themselves Rajputs by sixth century AD which settled in Indo Gangetic Plain 61 Historian J N Asopa in his research quoted various reference to the term Rajput in various inscriptions and contemporaneous texts of 11th 13th century A D 62 Thus the other scholarly opinion asserted that the term Rajput began to be more commonly used from twelfth century onwards and the Rajput caste established itself well before the thirteenth century The reference to the clan structure of Rajputs in contemporary historical works like Rajatarangini by Kalhana along with other epigraphic evidences indicates their existence as a community by twelfth century 63 64 65 66 Despite these developments migrant soldiers made new claims to the Rajput status until as late as the 19th century 54 In the 19th century the colonial administrators of India re imagined the Rajputs as similar to the Anglo Saxon knights They compiled the Rajput genealogies in the process of settling land disputes surveying castes and tribes and writing history These genealogies became the basis of distinguishing between the genuine and the spurious Rajput clans 67 HistoryHistory of Rajput Kingdoms See also Rajput resistance to Muslim conquests and List of Rajput dynasties and states During their centuries long rule the Rajputs constructed several palaces Shown here is the Junagarh Fort in Bikaner Rajasthan which was built by the Rathore Rajput rulers 68 A royal Rajput procession depicted on a mural at the Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur 69 The Rajput kingdoms were disparate loyalty to a clan was more important than allegiance to the wider Rajput social grouping meaning that one clan would fight another This and the internecine jostling for position that took place when a clan leader raja died meant that Rajput politics were fluid and prevented the formation of a coherent Rajput empire 70 The term Rajput has been used as an anachronistic designation for leading martial lineages of 11th and 12th centuries that confronted the Ghaznavid and Ghurid invaders although the Rajput identity for a lineage did not exist at this time these lineages were classified as aristocratic Rajput clans in the later times 71 72 73 74 75 However other scholarly opinion staged emergence of Rajput clans as early as seventh century AD when they start to make themselves lords of various localities and dominate region in current day Northern India 76 77 78 79 80 81 10 82 83 These dynasties were Pratiharas of Kannauj the Chahamanas of Shakambhari Nadol and Jalor the Tomaras of Delhi the Chaulukyas the Paramaras the Gahadavalas Chandela Sisodias Guhilas etc The Rajput ruled kingdoms repelled early invasions of Arab commanders after Muhammad ibn Qasim conquered Sindh and executed last Hindu king of the kingdom Raja Dahir Rajput family of Mewar under Bappa Rawal and later under Khoman fought off invasions by Arab generals and restricted them only until the border of Rajasthan but failed to recapture Sindh 84 By the first quarter of 11th century Turkic conqueror Mahmud Ghaznavi launched several successful military expeditions in the territories of Rajputs defeating them everytime and by 1025 A D he demolished and looted the famous Somnath Temple and its Rajput ruler Bhimdev Solanki fled his capital 85 Rajput rulers at Gwalior and Kalinjar were able to hold off assaults by Maḥmud although the two cities did pay him heavy tribute 86 By last quarter of 12th century Muhammad of Ghor defeated and executed the last of Ghaznavid rulers and captured their region along with plundering Ghazna the capital of Ghaznavids After capturing the northwest frontier he invaded Rajput domain In 1191 Prithviraj Chauhan of Ajmer led a coalition of Rajput kings and defeated Ghurid forces near Taraori However Muizzuddin returned a year later with an army of mounted archers and crushed Rajput forces on the same battlefield of Taraori Prithviraj fled the battlefield but was caught near Sirsa and was executed by Ghurids 87 88 Following the battle the Delhi Sultanate became prominent in the Delhi region 89 The Rajputs fought against Sultans of Delhi from Rajasthan and other adjoining areas By first quarter of 14th century Alauddin Khalji sacked key Rajput fortresses of Chittor 1303 Ranthambor 1301 and other Rajput ruled kingdoms like Siwana and Jalore However Rajputs resurgence took place under Rana Hammir who defeated Tughlaq army of Muhammad bin Tughluq in Singoli in 1336 CE and recaptured Rajasthan from Delhi sultanate 90 In the 15th century the Muslim sultans of Malwa and Gujarat put a joint effort to overcome the Mewar ruler Rana Kumbha but both the sultans were defeated 91 Kumbha s grandson renowned Rana Sanga inherited a troubling kingdom after death of his brothers but through his capable rule turned traditional kingdom of Mewar into one of the greatest power in northern India during the early 16th century 92 Sanga defeated Sultans of Gujarat Malwa and Delhi several times in various battles and expanded his kingdom Sanga led a grand alliance of Rajput rulers and defeated the Mughal forces of Babur in early combat but was defeated at Khanua through Mughal s use of Gunpowder which was unknown in Northern India at the time His fierce rival Babur in his autobiography acknowledged him as the greatest Hindu king of that time along with Krishnadevaraya 93 94 95 After a few years Maldev Rathore of Marwar rose in power and became lord of practically all of western India from Kutch to Punjab 96 failed verification Legendary accounts state that from 1200 CE many Rajput groups moved eastwards towards the Eastern Gangetic plains forming their own chieftaincies 97 These minor Rajput kingdoms were dotted all over the Gangetic plains in modern day Uttar Pradesh and Bihar 98 During this process petty clashes occurred with the local population and in some cases alliances were formed 97 Among these Rajput chieftaincies were the Bhojpur zamindars 99 and the taluks of Awadh 100 The immigration of Rajput clan chiefs into these parts of the Gangetic plains also contributed the agricultural appropriation of previously forested areas especially in South Bihar 101 Some have linked this eastwards expansion with the onset of Ghurid invasion in the West 101 From as early as the 16th century Purbiya Rajput soldiers from the eastern regions of Bihar and Awadh were recruited as mercenaries for Rajputs in the west particularly in the Malwa region 102 Mughal period Akbar s policy After the mid 16th century many Rajput rulers formed close relationships with the Mughal emperors and served them in different capacities 103 104 It was due to the support of the Rajputs that Akbar was able to lay the foundations of the Mughal empire in India 105 Some Rajput nobles gave away their daughters in marriage to Mughal emperors and princes for political motives 106 107 108 109 For example Akbar accomplished 40 marriages for himself his sons and grandsons out of which 17 were Rajput Mughal alliances 110 111 Akbar s successors as Mughal emperors his son Jahangir and grandson Shah Jahan had Rajput mothers 112 Although Rajput rulers provided the brides to the Mughals neither Akbar nor his successors provided brides to the Rajput rulers For example Akbar got this sisters and daughters married to Timurids and prominent Muslims from central and west Asia Historian Michael Fisher states that the bards and poets patronised by the Rajput rulers who served Akbar raised Akbar to a semi divine status and gives an example of Akbar being projected as a divine master in the Hindu cosmic order The writer also finds correlation between the increasing numbers of Hindu Rajput wives in Akbar s household and Hindu Rajputs as well as non Rajput Hindus in his administration to the religious and political policy followed by him towards non Muslims which included ending the prohibition on the construction of new temples of non Muslim faiths like Hindu Jain etc In 1564 AD Akbar had also stopped collection of jaziya from non Muslims a tax considered as discriminatory by several non Muslims which also consisted of his Hindu Rajput officials 113 The ruling Sisodia Rajput family of Mewar made it a point of honour not to engage in matrimonial relationships with Mughals and thus claimed to stand apart from those Rajput clans who did so 114 Once Mewar had submitted and alliance of Rajputs reached a measure of stability matrimonial between leading Rajput states and Mughals became rare 115 Shah Jahan s period One of the most conspicuous event of Shah Jahan s period was rebellion of Bundela rajputs which was crushed by prince Aurangzeb with iron hand 116 need quotation to verify Aurangzeb s policy Akbar s diplomatic policy regarding the Rajputs was later damaged by the intolerant rules introduced by his great grandson Aurangzeb A prominent example of these rules included the re imposition of Jaziya which had been abolished by Akbar 105 However despite imposition of Jaziya Aurangzeb s army had a high proportion of Rajput officers in the upper ranks of the imperial army and they were all exempted from paying Jaziya 117 The Rajputs then revolted against the Mughal empire Aurangzeb s conflicts with the Rajputs which commenced in the early 1680s henceforth became a contributing factor towards the downfall of the Mughal empire 118 105 Later Historian Lynn Zastoupil states that the Mughal Emperors manipulated the appointment of the successor of the Rajput rulers clarification needed In the early 18th century when the Mughal power declined Rajput states enjoyed a brief period of independence But soon the Maratha Empire or confederacy started collecting tribute from and harassing some Rajput states Some Rajput states in the 1780s appealed to the British East India Company for assistance against the Marathas but their requests for assistance were denied at the time 119 120 121 clarification needed 122 By 1765 Awadh had become ally of the British East India Company and the increase in demand for revenue led to a continuous tussle in between the Nawab of Awadh and Rajput leadership bringing political instability in the region 123 In one 18th century example given by Pinch Rajputs of Awadh countered the upward mobility of some of the peasant castes who by virtue of their economic prosperity sought higher status by wearing Janeu a sacred thread or claimed Kshatriya status The records indicates that during the tenure of Asaf ud Daula in Awadh when a section of Awadhiya Kurmi were about to be bestowed with the title of Raja the Rajput constituency of Asaf s court caused stiff opposition to the move despite the fact that the Rajputs themselves were newcomers to the court and were peasant soldiers a few year before Rajputs of Awadh along with Brahmins also formed the major groups who gained during Asaf s regime 124 British colonial period Chauhan Rajputs Delhi 1868 In the late eighteenth century despite the request from two Rajput rulers for British support the British East India company initially refused to support the Rajput states in Rajputana region as they had the policy of non interference and considered the Rajput states to be weak In the early nineteenth century British administrator Warren Hastings realised how alliance with the Rajputs had benefited the Mughals and believed that a similar alliance may give the East India company political advantage in India In his journal in January 1815 he noted that Rajput states Jaipur Jodhpur and Udaipur had been devastated by the Scindia Holkars Pindari Ameer Khan and Muhammad Shah Khan and that the Rajput rulers made multiple petitions to him requesting British protection Moreover the Rajput rulers had argued that British had replaced the Mughal Empire as the supreme power of India and therefore had the responsibility to protect weaker states from aggressive ones Charles Metcalfe agreed with this reasoning One by one many Rajput states in Rajputana came under British protection and became their allies Kota Udaipur Bundi Kishangarh Bikaner Jaipur Pratapgarh Banswara Dungarpur Jaisalmer by 1817 18 and Sirohi by 1823 The British promised to protect the Rajput states from their adversaries and not interfere in internal affairs in exchange for tribute However David Ochterlony who was in charge of the Rajput states broke the promise to not interfere as in his view interferences would save the states from ruin In 1820 the British removed him from his position and replaced him with Charles Metcalfe For several decades non interference in internal affairs remained the official policy However according to the historian Lynn Zastoupil the British never found it possible or desirable to completely withdraw from interference in Rajput affairs 125 119 The medieval bardic chronicles kavya and masnavi glorified the Rajput past presenting warriorhood and honour as Rajput ideals This later became the basis of the British reconstruction of the Rajput history and the nationalist interpretations of Rajputs struggles with the Muslim invaders 126 James Tod a British colonial official was impressed by the military qualities of the Rajputs but is today considered to have been unusually enamoured of them 127 128 Although the group venerate him to this day he is viewed by many historians since the late nineteenth century as being a not particularly reliable commentator 129 130 Jason Freitag his only significant biographer has said that Tod is manifestly biased 131 As per the historian Thomas R Metcalf Rajput Taluqdars in Oudh provided a large numbers of leaders to the revolt of 1857 in that region Kunwar Singh a Rajput Zamindar was an important leader in Bihar region in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 132 Historian Robert Stern points out that in Rajputana although there were some revolts in the soldiers commanded by British officers the Rajpur durbar muskeeters and feudal cavalrymen did not participate in the 1857 revolt at all 133 But Crispin Bates is of the opinion that Rajput officers had soft corner for the rebels of 1857 fleeing Delhi who were entering into interior areas of then Rajasthan region He gives examples of rebels who easily found safe havens in villages of Chittor without arrests 134 In reference to the role of the Rajput soldiers serving under the British banner Captain A H Bingley wrote Rajputs have served in our ranks from Plassey to the present day 1899 They have taken part in almost every campaign undertaken by the Indian armies Under Forde they defeated the French at Condore Under Monro at Buxar they routed the forces of the Nawab of Oudh Under Lake they took part in the brilliant series of victories which destroyed the power of the Marathas 135 The Rajput practices of female infanticide and sati widow immolation were other matters of concern to the British It was believed that the Rajputs were the primary adherents to these practices which the British Raj considered savage and which provided the initial impetus for British ethnographic studies of the subcontinent that eventually manifested itself as a much wider exercise in social engineering 136 During the British rule their love for pork i e wild boar was also well known and the British identified them as a group based on this 137 Some unrelated communities tried to change their status to Rajput during the Colonial era William Rowe discusses an example of a Shudra caste the Noniyas caste of salt makers from Madhya Pradesh Uttar Pradesh and Bihar A large section of this caste that had become Chauhan Rajputs over three generations in the British Raj era The more wealthy or advanced Noniyas started by forming the Sri Rajput Pacharni Sabha Rajput Advancement Society in 1898 and emulating the Rajput lifestyle They also started wearing of Sacred thread Rowe states that at a historic meeting of the caste in 1936 every child in this Noniya section knew about their Rajput heritage 138 Similarly Donald Attwood and Baviskar give and example of a caste of shepherds who were formerly Shudras changed their status to Rajput in the Raj era and started wearing the Sacred thread They are now known as Sagar Rajputs The scholars consider this example as a case among thousands 139 140 Post Independence Princely States On India s independence in 1947 the princely states including those of the Rajput were given three options join either India or Pakistan or remain independent Rajput rulers of the 22 princely states of Rajputana acceded to newly independent India amalgamated into the new state of Rajasthan in 1949 1950 141 Initially the maharajas were granted funding from the Privy purse in exchange for their acquiescence but a series of land reforms over the following decades weakened their power and their privy purse was cut off during Indira Gandhi s administration under the 1971 Constitution 26th Amendment Act The estates treasures and practices of the old Rajput rulers now form a key part of Rajasthan s tourist trade and cultural memory 142 The Rajput Dogra ruler of Kashmir and Jammu acceded to India in 1947 143 while retaining his title until the monarchy was abolished in 1971 by the 26th amendment to the Constitution of India 144 Before the zamindari abolition the Rajputs in Oudh formed the major Taluqdars and had controlled over 50 percent of the land in the most districts of the region 145 Historian Thomas R Metcalf explains that in the province of Uttar Pradesh majority of the Taluqdars with moderate to large estates were composed of Rajput caste He also mentions that Rajputs were only next to Brahmins in the ritual hierarchy and also gave the secular elite of the state According to him the community controlled most of the best agricultural land in the region and this also helped the Rajput Taluqdars who were usually the head of the local Rajput clan to gather support over non Rajput rival in the electoral politics of the state 146 Sati There have been several cases of Sati burning a widow alive in Rajasthan from 1943 to 1987 According to an Indian scholar there are 28 cases since 1947 Although the widows were from several different communities Rajput widows accounted for 19 cases in Rajasthan The most famous of these cases is of a Rajput woman named Roop Kanwar 40 000 Rajputs gathered on the street of Jaipur in October 1987 for supporting her Sati A pamphlet circulated on that day attacked independent and westernised women who opposed a woman s duty of worshipping her husband as demonstrated by the practice of Sati This incident again affirmed the low status of women in the Rajput community and the leaders of this pro sati movement gained in political terms 147 148 Affirmative Action The Rajputs in states such as Madhya Pradesh are today considered to be a General Caste in India s system of positive discrimination This means that they have no access to reservations here But they are classified as an Other Backward Class by the National Commission for Backward Classes in the state of Karnataka 149 150 151 152 However some Rajputs as with other agricultural castes demand reservations in Government jobs 153 154 155 156 In 2016 Sikh Rajputs were added under Backward Classes in Punjab 157 but after protest by the community the government announced that they will be again put under General Category 158 Rajput politics Rajput politics refers to the role played by the Rajput community in the electoral politics of India 159 160 better source needed In states such as Rajasthan Uttar Pradesh Madhya Pradesh Bihar Uttrakhand Jammu Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat the large populations of Rajputs gives them a decisive role 161 162 163 better source needed SubdivisionsMain article Rajput clans The term Rajput denotes a cluster of castes 164 clans and lineages 165 It is a vaguely defined term and there is no universal consensus on which clans make up the Rajput community 166 In medieval Rajasthan the historical Rajputana and its neighbouring areas the word Rajput came to be restricted to certain specific clans based on patrilineal descent and intermarriages On the other hand the Rajput communities living in the region to the east of Rajasthan had a fluid and inclusive nature The Rajputs of Rajasthan eventually refused to acknowledge the Rajput identity claimed by their eastern counterparts 167 such as the Bundelas 168 The Rajputs claim to be Kshatriyas or descendants of Kshatriyas but their actual status varies greatly ranging from princely lineages to common cultivators 169 There are several major subdivisions of Rajputs known as vansh or vamsha the step below the super division jati 170 These vansh delineate claimed descent from various sources and the Rajput are generally considered to be divided into three primary vansh 171 Suryavanshi denotes descent from the solar deity Surya Chandravanshi Somavanshi from the lunar deity Chandra and Agnivanshi from the fire deity Agni The Agnivanshi clans include Parmar Chaulukya Solanki Parihar and Chauhan 172 Lesser noted vansh include Udayvanshi Rajvanshi 173 and Rishivanshi citation needed The histories of the various vanshs were later recorded in documents known as vamshaavaliis Andre Wink counts these among the status legitimizing texts 174 Beneath the vansh division are smaller and smaller subdivisions kul shakh branch khamp or khanp twig and nak twig tip 170 Marriages within a kul are generally disallowed with some flexibility for kul mates of different gotra lineages The kul serves as the primary identity for many of the Rajput clans and each kul is protected by a family goddess the kuldevi Lindsey Harlan notes that in some cases shakhs have become powerful enough to be functionally kuls in their own right 175 Culture and ethosThe Bengal army of the East India Company recruited heavily from upper castes such as Brahmins and Rajputs of north central India particularly from the region of Awadh and Bihar However after the revolt of 1857 by the Bengal sepoys the British Indian army shifted recruitment to the Punjab 176 Martial race The Rajputs were designated as a Martial Race in the period of the British Raj This was a designation created by administrators that classified each ethnic group as either martial or non martial a martial race was typically considered brave and well built for fighting 177 whilst the remainder were those whom the British believed to be unfit for battle because of their sedentary lifestyles 178 However the martial races were also considered politically subservient intellectually inferior lacking the initiative or leadership qualities to command large military formations The British had a policy of recruiting the martial Indians from those who has less access to education as they were easier to control 179 180 According to modern historian Jeffrey Greenhunt on military history The Martial Race theory had an elegant symmetry Indians who were intelligent and educated were defined as cowards while those defined as brave were uneducated and backward According to Amiya Samanta the marital race was chosen from people of mercenary spirit a soldier who fights for any group or country that will pay him her as these groups lacked nationalism as a trait 181 Deities Karni Mata Hindu Goddess primarily worshipped by Rajputs One of the most revered deities of Rajputs is Karni Mata whom many Rajput clans worship as family goddess and link their community s existence or survival in dire times 182 183 184 185 Lord Shiva who is very popular all across India and Goddess Durga are popular deities worshipped by the Hindu Rajputs Lord Shiva s image is found in the shrines in the homes of many of the Rajput families In Sikh Rajputs Guru Ram Rai is quite popular The fierce form of Goddess Durga called Sherawali Mata or she who rides a lion is popular among Rajput women 186 Rajput lifestyle Rajputs of Udaipur playing the game of Puchesee The Rajputs of Bihar were inventor of martial art form Pari Khanda which includes heavy use of Swords and Shields This exercise was later included in the folk dances of Bihar and Jharkhand like that of Chhau dance 187 On special occasions a primary chief would break up a meeting of his vassal chiefs with khanda nariyal the distribution of daggers and coconuts Another affirmation of the Rajput s reverence for his sword was the Karga Shapna adoration of the sword ritual performed during the annual Navaratri festival after which a Rajput is considered free to indulge his passion for rapine and revenge 188 The Rajput of Rajasthan also offer a sacrifice of water buffalo or goat to their family Goddess Kuldevta during Navaratri 189 The ritual requires slaying of the animal with a single stroke In the past this ritual was considered a rite of passage for young Rajput men 190 The general greeting used by the Rajputs in social gatherings and occasions Jai Mataji or its regional variants stands for Victory to the Mother Goddess 191 192 193 This phrase also operated as a military solgan or war cry 194 often painted on the shields and banners of the jagirdars 195 Hospitability Harald Tambs Lyche states that like other Martial races of South Asia Rajputs have a reputation for being Hospitable i e they welcome and are friendly to guests 196 197 Miscellaneous By the late 19th century there was a shift of focus among Rajputs from politics to a concern with kinship 198 Many Rajputs of Rajasthan are nostalgic about their past and keenly conscious of their genealogy emphasising a Rajput ethos that is martial in spirit with a fierce pride in lineage and tradition 199 Female infanticide Female Infanticide was practised by Rajputs of low ritual status trying upward mobility as well as Rajputs of high ritual status But there were instances where it was not practised and instances where the mother tried to save the infant girl s life According to the officials in the early Raj era in Etawah Uttar Pradesh the Gahlot Bamungors and Bais would kill their daughters if they were rich but profit from getting them married if they were poor 200 The methods used of killing the female baby were drowning strangulation poisoning Asphyxia by drawing the umbilical cord over the baby s face to prevent respiration Other ways were to leave the infant to die without food and if she survived the first few hours after birth she was given poison 200 A common way to poison the infant during breastfeeding was by applying a preparation of poisonous plants like Datura Madar or Poppy to the mother s breast 201 Social activists in the early nineteenth century tried to stop these practices by quoting Hindu Shastras to kill one woman is equal to one hundred brahmins to kill one child is equal to one hundred women while to kill one hundred children is an offence too heinous for comparison 200 Infanticide has unintended consequences The Rajput clans of lower ritual status married their daughters to Rajput men of higher ritual status who had lost females due to infanticide Thus the Rajputs of lower ritual status had to remain unmarried or resorted to other practices like marrying widows levirate marriages marrying brother s widow as well as marrying low caste women such as Jats and Gujars or nomads This resulted in widening the gap between Rajputs of low ritual status and Rajputs of high ritual status 200 In the late 19th century to curb the practice the act VIII of 1870 was introduced A magistrate suggested Let every Rajput be thoroughly convinced that he will go to jail for ten years for every infant girl he murders with as much certainty as he would feel about being hanged if he were to kill her when grown up and the crime will be stamped out very effectually but so long as the Government show any hesitation in dealing rigorously with criminals so long will the Rajpoot think he has chance of impunity and will go on killing girls like before 200 However the practical application of the law faced hurdles It was difficult to prove culpability as in some cases the Rajput men were employed at a distance although the infants could be killed at their connivance In most cases Rajput men were imprisoned only for a short time Between 1888 and 1889 the proportion of girl children rose to 40 However the act was abolished in 1912 as punishments were unable to stop infanticide A historian concludes that the act which only scraped the surface of the problem had been unable to civilize or bring about a social change in a cultural world devaluing girl children In addition to Rajputs it was observed that Jats and Ahirs also practised infanticide 200 Brideprice or Bridewealth weddings Bridewealth is discussed in north Indian Rajputs of 19th century India by the historian Malavika Kasturi She states that Rajputs belonging to social groups where their women worked in the fields received Bridewealth from the groom s family She adds that evidence shows that the assumption made by officials of the time that female infanticide among clans was a result of poverty and inability to pay dowry is incorrect 200 Rajput women could be incorporated into Mughal Harem and this defined the Mughals as overlords over the Rajput clans The Sisodia clan of Mewar was an exception as they refused to send their women to the Mughal Harem which resulted in siege and mass suicide at Chittor 202 Historically members from the Rajput ruling clans of Rajasthan have also practised polygamy and also took many women they enslaved as concubines from the battles which they won During numerous armed conflicts in India women were taken captives enslaved and even sold for example the capture and selling of Marwar s women by Jaipur s forces in the battle between Jaipur state and Jodhpur state in 1807 The enslaved women were referred to by different terms according to the conditions imposed on them for example a domestic slave was called davri a dancer was called a patar a senior female slave retainer in the women s quarters was called badaran or vadaran a concubine was called khavasin and a woman who was permitted to wear the veil like Rajput queens was called a pardayat 203 The term chakar was used for a person serving their superior and chakras contained complete families from specific occupational groups like Brahmin women cooks nurses tailors washer women For children born from the illegitimate union of Rajputs and their inferiors the terms like goli and darogi were used for females and gola and daroga were used for males The courtly chronicles say that women who were perceived to be of higher social rank were assigned to the harems of their conquerors with or without marriage The chronicles from the Rajput courts have recorded that women from Rajput community had also faced such treatment by the Rajputs from the winning side of a battle There are also a number of records between the late 16th to mid 19th century of the Rajputs immolating the queens servants and slaves of a king upon his death Ramya Sreenivasan also gives and example of a Jain concubine who went from being a servant to a superior concubine called Paswan 203 According to Priyanka Khanna with Marwar s royal Rajput households the women who underwent concubinage also included women from the Gujar Ahir Jat Mali Kayastha and Darji communities of that region These castes of Marwar claimed Rajput descent based on the census data of Marwar 1861 204 However the research by modern scholars on the forms of slavery and servitude imposed by ruling clans of Rajasthan s Rajputs between the 16th and early 19th centuries on the captured women faces hurdles because of the sparse information uneven record keeping and biased nature of historical records 203 Ravana Rajput community of today was one such slave community 205 206 The male children of such unions were identified by their father s names and in some cases as dhaibhai foster brothers and incorporated into the household Examples are given where they helped their step brothers in war campaigns 203 The female children of concubines and slaves married Rajput men in exchange for money or they ended up becoming dancing girls The scarcity of available brides due to female infanticide led to the kidnapping of low caste women who were sold for marriage to the higher clan Rajputs Since these sales were genuinely for the purpose of marriage they were considered legal The lower clans also faced scarcity of brides in which case they married women such as those from Gujar and Jat communities Semi nomadic communities also married their daughters to Rajput bridegrooms for money in some cases 207 Of note the mistreatment or enslavement of women was not unique to Rajputs Datta notes Bachanan s observation in 18th century northern India that other than the Rajputs Khatris and Kayasthas also openly kept women slaves of any pure tribe The offsprings of these women formed one matrimonial group Similarly affluent Muslim families in Bihar kept both male and female slaves called Nufurs and Laundis respectively 208 These Rajput groups khasa of Uttarakhand today were formally classified Shudra but had successfully converted to Rajput status during the rule of Chand Rajas that ended in 1790 209 Similarly the Rajputs of Gharwal were originally of low ritual status and did not wear the sacred thread until the 20th century 210 Opium usage etc The Indian Rajputs fought several times for the Mughals but needed drugs to enhance their spirit They would take a double dose of opium before fighting Muslim soldiers would also take opium 211 Mughals would give opium to their Rajput soldiers on a regular basis in the 17th century 212 During the British rule Opium addiction was considered a serious demoralising vice of the Rajput community 213 Arabs brought opium to India in the 9th century The Indian Council of Medical Research on Pattern and Process of Drug and alcohol use in India states that opium gives a person enhanced physical strength and capacity Studies of K K Ganguly K Sharma and Krishnamachari on opium usage also mention that the Rajputs would use opium for important ceremonies relief from emotional distress for increasing longevity and for enhancing sexual pleasure 214 Opium was also consumed when Vahivanca bards would recite poetry and stories about the Rajputs and their ancestors After the Independence of India and the political integration of India educated Rajputs have mainly discontinued both the usage of opium and recitation of bardic poetry 215 Alcoholism is considered a problem in the Rajput community of Rajasthan and hence Rajput women do not like their men drinking alcohol It was reported in a 1983 study of alcoholism in India that it was customary for Rajput men not all in northern India to drink in groups The women would at times be subjected to domestic violence such as beating after these men returned home from drinking 216 217 Arts Main article Rajput painting An 18th century Rajput painting by the artist Nihal Chand The term Rajput painting refers to works of art created at the Rajput ruled courts of Rajasthan Central India and the Punjab Hills The term is also used to describe the style of these paintings distinct from the Mughal painting style 218 According to Ananda Coomaraswamy Rajput painting symbolised the divide between Muslims and Hindus during Mughal rule The styles of Mughal and Rajput painting are oppositional in character He characterised Rajput painting as popular universal and mystic 219 Notable peopleMain article List of RajputsSee alsoRajputization Bihari Rajput Muslim Rajputs Rajput architecture List of Rajput dynasties and states List of Rajput clans of Uttar PradeshReferencesCitations Cohen Stephen Philip 2006 The idea of Pakistan Rev ed Washington D C Brookings Institution Press pp 35 36 ISBN 978 0815715030 Retrieved 18 July 2017 Lieven Anatol 2011 Pakistan a hard country 1st ed New York PublicAffairs ISBN 9781610390231 Retrieved 18 July 2017 Folk lore Volume 21 1980 p 79 Retrieved 9 April 2017 Roy Ramashray 1 January 2003 Samaskaras in Indian Tradition and Culture p 195 ISBN 9788175411401 Retrieved 4 March 2017 Rajendra Vora 2009 Christophe Jaffrelot Sanjay Kumar eds Rise of the Plebeians The Changing Face of the Indian Legislative Assemblies Exploring the Political in South Asia Routledge India p 217 ISBN 9781136516627 In Maharashtra The Lingayats the Gujjars and the Rajputs are three other important castes which belong to the intermediate category The lingayats who hail from north Karnataka are found primarily in south Maharashtra and Marthwada while Gujjars and Rajputs who migrated centuries ago from north India have settled in north Maharashtra districts Kumar Suresh Singh 1996 Communities Segments Synonyms Surnames and Titles Anthropological Survey of India p 1706 Paul R Brass 1997 Theft of an Idol Princeton University Press p 151 ISBN 9780691026503 Satish Chandra 2008 Social Change and Development in Medieval Indian History Har Anand Publications pp 43 44 ISBN 9788124113868 M N Srinivas who had used the word Sanskritization to denote this process now accepts accepts that he put too much emphasis originally on the movement of groups towards the varna status of Brahmans Both Srinivas and B Stein now emphasize not merely the process of Sanskritization but other factors such as the position of the dominant peasant and land owning classes political power and production system in the process of caste mobility of groups Srinivas further surmises that the varna model became more popular during British rule Thus growing caste rigidity was an indirect effect of British rule The rise of Rajputs is a classic model of varna mobility in the earlier period There is a good deal of discussion regarding the origin of Rajputs whether they were Kshatriyas of they were drawn from other categories in the population including indigenous tribes Modern historians are more or less agreed that the Rajputs consisted of miscellaneous groups including Shudra and tribals Some were Brahmans who took to warfare and some were from Tribes indigenous of foreign Reena Dube amp Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar 2012 p 59 a b Eugenia Vanina 2012 p 140 Regarding the initial stages of this history and the origin of the Rajput feudal elite modern research shows that its claims to direct blood links with epic heroes and ancient kshatriyas in general has no historic substantiation No adequate number of the successors of these epically acclaimed warriors could have been available by the period of seventh eights centuries AD when the first references to the Rajput clans and their chieftains were made almost all Rajput clans originated from the semi nomadic pastoralists of the Indian north and north west Daniel Gold 1 January 1995 David N Lorenzen ed Bhakti Religion in North India Community Identity and Political Action State University of New York Press p 122 ISBN 978 0 7914 2025 6 Paid employment in military service as Dirk H A Kolff has recently demonstrated was an important means of livelihood for the peasants of certain areas of late medieval north India In earlier centuries says Kolff Rajput was a more ascriptive term referring to all kinds of Hindus who lived the life of the adventuring warrior of whom most were of peasant origins Doris Marion Kling 1993 The Emergence of Jaipur State Rajput Response to Mughal Rule 1562 1743 University of Pennsylvania p 30 Rajput Pastoral mobile warrior groups who achieved landed status in the medieval period claimed to be Kshatriyas and called themselves Rajputs Andre Wink 1991 Al Hind the Making of the Indo Islamic World The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest 11Th 13th Centuries BRILL p 171 ISBN 90 04 10236 1 and it is very probable that the other fire born Rajput clans like the Caulukyas Paramaras Cahamanas as well as the Tomaras and others who in the eighth and ninth centuries were subordinate to the Gurjara Pratiharas were of similar pastoral origin that is that they originally belonged to the mobile nomadic groups a b Richard Eaton 2019 p 87 1 In Gujarat as in Rajasthan genealogy proved essential for making such claims To this end local bards composed ballads or chronicles that presented their patrons as idea warriors who protected Brahmins cows and vassals as opposed to the livestock herding chieftains that they actually were or had once been As people who created and preserved the genealogies local bards therefore played critical roles in brokering for their clients socio cultural transitions to a claimed Rajput status A similar thing was happening in the Thar desert region where from the fourteenth century onwards mobile pastoral groups gradually evolved into landed sedentary and agrarian clans Once again it was bards and poets patronized by little kings who transformed a clan s ancestors from celebrated cattle herders or cattle rustlers to celebrated protectors of cattle herding communities The difference was subtle but critical since such revised narratives retained an echo of a pastoral nomadic past while repositioning a clan s dynastic founder from pastoralist to non pastoralist The term Rajput in short had become a prestigious title available for adoption by upwardly mobile clan in the process of becoming sedentary By one mechanism or another a process of Rajputization occurred in new states that emerged from the turmoil following Timur s invasion in 1398 especially in Gujarat Malwa and Rajasthan a b Alf Hiltebeitel 1999 pp 439 440 Bhrigupati Singh 2015 p 38 Pradeep Barua 2005 p 24 Alf Hiltebeitel 1999 pp 440 441 Alf Hiltebeitel 1999 pp 3 Alf Hiltebeitel 1999 pp 441 442 Catherine B Asher amp Cynthia Talbot 2006 p 99 a b Mayaram Shail 2010 The Sudra Right to Rule In Ishita Banerjee Dube ed Caste in History Oxford University Press p 110 ISBN 978 0 19 806678 1 In their recent work on female infanticide Bhatnagar Dube and Bube 2005 distinguish between Rajputization and Sanksritization Using M N Srinivas and Milton Singer s approach to social mobility as idioms they identify Rajputization as one of the most dynamic modes of upward mobility As an idiom of political power it signifies a highly mobile social process of claiming military political power and the right to cultivate land as well as the right to rule Rajputization is unparalleled in traditional Indian society for its inventiveness in ideologies of legitimation and self invention This was a claim that was used by persons of all castes all over north India ranging from peasants and lower caste Sudras to warriors and tribal chiefs and even the local raja who had recently converted to Islam a b c Ishita Banerjee Dube 2010 Caste in History Oxford University Press p xxiii ISBN 978 0 19 806678 1 Rajputization discussed processes through which equalitarian primitive clan based tribal organization adjusted itself to the centralized hierarchic territorial oriented political developments in the course of state formation This led a narrow lineage of single families to disassociate itself from the main body of their tribe and claim Rajput origin They not only adopted symbols and practices supposedly representative of the true Kshatriya but also constructed genealogies that linked them to the primordial and legendary solar and lunar dynasties of kings Further it was pointed out that the caste of genealogists and mythographers variously known as Carans Bhats Vahivanca Barots etc prevalent in Gujarat Rajasthan and other parts of north India actively provided their patron rulers with genealogies that linked local clans of these chiefs with regional clans and with the Kshatriyas of the Puranas and Mahabharata Once a ruling group succeeded in establishing its claim to Rajput status there followed a secondary Rajputization when the tribes tried to re associate with their formal tribal chiefs who had also transformed themselves into Hindu rajas and Rajput Kshatriyas a b Tanuja Kothiyal 2016 p 265 2 from gradual transformation of mobile patoral and tribal groups into landed sedentary ones The process of settlement involved both control over mobile resources through raids battles and trade as well as channelizing of these resources into agrarian expansion Kinship structures as well as marital and martial alliances were instrumental in this transformation In the colonial ethnographic accounts rather than referring to Rajputs as having emerged from other communities Bhils Mers Minas Gujars Jats Raikas all lay a claim to a Rajput past from where they claim to have fallen Historical processes however suggest just the opposite Jai Narayan Asopa 1976 Origin of the Rajputs Bharatiya Publishing House p 12 Richard Francis Gombrich ed 2005 Valmiki Ramayana Book One Boyhood Translated by Sheldon I Polloch Rosalind Lefeber Sally J Sutherland Goldman New York University Press p 166 ISBN 9780814731635 Paritusto smi bhadram te rajaputra mahayasah pritya paramaya yukto dadamy astrăni sarvasah Peter Scharf 2014 Ramopakhyana The Story of Rama in the Mahabharata Taylor amp Francis p 514 ISBN 9781136846625 र जप त र क शल न भ र तर र मलक ष मण rajputrau kushalinau bhratrau ramlakshmanau Vajracharya 1975 p 239 Kshatriyas also occupied a leading position because of their special role in politics References have been made to Rajputras Kshatriyas in many Licchavi inscriptions The inscription of Sikubahi Shankhamul mentions the names of Rajputra Vajraratha Babhruvarma and Deshavarma Babhruvarma and Deshavama were dutakas during the reign of Ganadeva and Amshuvarma respectively The inscription of Sanga mentions the name of Rajputra Vikramasena who was a sarvadandanayaka The inscription of Deopattan mentions Rajputra Shurasena and the inscription of Adeshwar mentions the Rajaputras Nandavarma Jishnuvarma and Bhimavarma This shows that the number of Kshatriyas was large in the Licchavi period and that they occupied top posts Raniero Gnoli 1956 Nepalese Inscriptions in Gupta Characters Text University of Virginia p 52 55 70 97 108 120 a b c Cynthia Talbot 2015 p 119 Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya 1994 pp 79 80 Parita Mukta 1994 Upholding the Common Life The Community of Mirabai Oxford University Press p 51 ISBN 978 0 19 563115 9 The term Rajput before the fifteenth century meant horse soldier trooper headman of a village or subordinate chief Moreover individuals with whom the word was associated were generally considered to be products of varna samkara of mixed caste origin and thus inferior in rank to Kshatriyas Satish Chandra 1982 p 92 Norman Ziegler 1976 p 141 individuals or groups with which the word was associated were generally considered to owe their origin to miscegenation or varna samkara the mixing of castes and were thus inferior in rank to Ksatriyas What I perceive from the above data is a rather widespread change in the subjective perception and the attribution of rank to groups and individuals who emerged in Rajasthan and North India as local chiefs and rulers in the period after the muslim invasions extending roughly from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries These groups were no longer considered kshatriyas and though they filled roles previously held by kshatriyas and were attributed similar functions of sustaining society and upholding the moral order they were either groups whose original integrity were seen to have been altered or who had emerged from the lower ranks of the caste system This change is supported by material from the Rajput chronicles themselves Association for Asian Studies 1969 James Silverberg ed Social Mobility in the Caste System in India An Inter Disciplinary Symposium Mouton p 79 ISBN 9783112026250 Burton Stein 2004 David N Lorenzen ed Religious Movements in South Asia 600 1800 Oxford University Press p 82 ISBN 978 0 19 566448 5 When the rank of persons was in theory rigorously ascribed according to the purity of the birth group the political units of India were probably ruled most often by men of very low birth This generalization applies to south indian warriors and may be equally applicable for many clans of Rajputs in northern India The capacity of both ancient and medieval Indian society to ascribe to its actual rulers frequently men of low social origins a clean or Kshatriya rank may afford one of the explanations for the durability and longevity of the unique civilization of India Reena Dube amp Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar 2012 p 257 a b Tanuja Kothiyal 2016 p 8 Richard Gabriel Fox 1971 p 16 Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya 1994 p 60 Andre Wink 2002 Al Hind the Making of the Indo Islamic World Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7Th 11th Centuries BRILL p 282 ISBN 0 391 04173 8 In short a process of development occurred which after several centuries culminated in the formation of new groups with the identity of Rajputs The predecessors of the Rajputs from about the eighth century rose to politico military prominence as an open status group or estate of largely illiterate warriors who wished to consider themselves as the reincarnates of the ancient Indian Kshatriyas The claim of Kshatriyas was of course historically completely unfounded The Rajputs as well as other autochthonous Indian gentry groups who claimed Kshatriya status by way of putative Rajput descent differed widely from the classical varna of Kshatriyas which as depicted in literature was made of aristocratic urbanite and educated clans Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya 1994 p 59 Norman Ziegler 1976 p 150 Rajputs were with some exceptions almost totally illiterate as a caste group Reinhard Bendix 1998 Max Weber An Intellectual Portrait Psychology Press pp 180 ISBN 978 0 415 17453 4 Eventually the position of the old Kshatriya nobility was undermined not only by the Brahmin priests but also by the rise of a warrior caste in northwest India Most of the Rajputs were illiterate mercenaries in the service of a king Sara R Farris 9 September 2013 Max Weber s Theory of Personality Individuation Politics and Orientalism in the Sociology of Religion BRILL pp 140 ISBN 978 90 04 25409 1 Weber however explained this downgrading of their status by the fact that they represented a threat to the cultural and intellectual monopoly of the Brahmans as they Kshatriyas were also extremely cultured and educated in the art of administration In about the eight century the Rajput thus began to perform the functions that had formerly belonged to the Kshatriya assuming their social and economic position and substituting them as the new warrior class Ancient illiterate merceneries the Rajput did not represent a threat to the Brahmininc monopoly and were more inclined to accept the Brahmans superiority thus contributing to the so called Hindu restoration Thomas R Metcalf 1990 Modern India An Interpretive Anthology Sterling Publishers p 90 ISBN 9788120709003 Since then every known royal family has come from a non Kshatriya caste including the famous Rajput dynasties of medieval India Panikkar also points out that the Shudras seem to have produced an unusually large number of royal families even in more recent times Stewart Gordon 2007 p 16 Eventually kinship and marriage restrictions defined this Rajput group as different from other elements in the society of Rajasthan The hypergamous marriage pattern typical of Rajputs tacitly acknowledged that it was a somewhat open caste category by successful service in a state army and translating this service into grants and power at the local level a family might become Rajput The process required changes in dress eating patterns the patronage of local shrines closer to the great tradition and an end to widow remarriage A hypergamous marriage with an acknowledged but possibly impoverished Rajput family would follow and with continued success in service the family would indeed become Rajput All this is well documented in relations between Rajputs and tribals Detlef Kantowsky 1986 Recent Research on Max Weber s Studies of Hinduism Papers Submitted to a Conference Held in New Delhi 1 3 3 1984 Weltforum Verlag p 104 ISBN 978 3 8039 0333 4 Hermann Kulke 1993 Kings and Cults State Formation and Legitimation in India and Southeast Asia Manohar Publishers amp Distributors p 251 ISBN 9788173040375 Reena Dube amp Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar 2012 p 59 62 a b c d Cynthia Talbot 2015 p 120 Tanuja Kothiyal 2016 p 266 3 Unlike the popular perception even Rajputs remained engaged with nomadic pastorialism animal husbandry and cattle trade till much later than it is assumed Munhata Nainsini in his seventeenth century chronicles Munhata Nainsi ri Khyat and Marwar ra Paraganan ri Vigat refers to a number of disputes between Rajputs that involved cattle raids Also a close reading of the lore regarding Rajput folk deities like Pabuji Mallinath Gogaji and Ramdeo who are viewed as protectors of cattle herding communities actually indicates the intense struggle for control over cattle and pasturelands that Rajputs were engaged in Rajputs extended patronage to Brahmins and Bardic communities like Bhats and Charans who composed detailed genealogies linking Rajput clans to older kshatriya lineages as well as celestial sources which not only legitimised their claims to aristocracy but also distanced them from their tribal pastoral origins Kolff Dirk H A 2002 Naukar Rajput and Sepoy The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market of Hindustan 1450 1850 Cambridge University Press p 58 ISBN 978 0 521 52305 9 What at first sight might seem to be a change of religion is often a device to register either recruitment or professional success whether military or otherwise Very often the Rajput to Afghan change and one may add the peasant to Rajput change was a similar kind of affair indicating the pervading impact of soldiering traditions on North Indian social history The military labour market in other words was a major generator of socio religious identities a b Tanuja Kothiyal 2016 pp 8 9 Cynthia Talbot 2015 p 121 David Ludden 1999 p 4 Barbara N Ramusack 2004 p 13 Andre Wink 1990 p 282 Cynthia Talbot 2015 pp 121 122 Cynthia Talbot 2015 p 121 125 Barbara N Ramusack 2003 The Indian Princes and their States The New Cambridge History of India Cambridge University Press p 14 ISBN 9781139449083 By the sixth century AD there are historical indications of the group calling themselves Rajput settle in the Indo Gangetic Plain Over the course of ten centuries they came to control land and people Rima Hooja 2006 p 182 Asopa has listed various 11th 13th century references to the term Rajput from inscriptions found at Abu Chittor and in various contemporaneous texts Ali Daud 2005 NANDINI SINHA KAPUR State Formation in Rajasthan Mewar during the Seventh Fifteenth Centuries 308pp Delhi Manohar 2002 Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 134 135 The appearance of rajputras as mercenary soldiers is proved as early as 7th century CE from the reference in Bakshali manuscript found in the North West Frontier Province and subsequently from the Chachnama in Sindh in 8th century CE In all bardic traditions of this period the Rajputs are depicted as horsemen It may not be again ignored that the Pratiharas one of the clansmen of the Rajputs of early medieval period felt pride to bear the title of hayapati the lord of horses The term rajput is derived from Sanskrit root rajputra son of the king Prakrit forms of the term rajputra are variously known as rawat rauta raul and rawal A transformation in connotation of the term is noticeable from 7th century CE onwards as it began to be used in literary texts in the sense of a landowner rather than son of the king In the Harshacharita of Banabhatta 7th century CE the term has been used in the sense of a noble or landowning chief In Kadambari also it is used for persons of noble descent who were appointed by the king as local rulers In the capacity of local rulers they might have naturally governed a large portion of land under them and thus played an active role in political and administrative system of the state The term began to be more commonly used from 12th century onwards In Rajatarangini the term rajputra is used in the sense of a landowner acclaiming birth from 36 clans of the Rajputs The reference of 36 clans and their clan structure clearly denotes their existence by 12th century CE The 12th century Aparajitprachha of Bhatta Bhuvanadeva which describes the composition of a typical feudal order refers to rajaputras as constituting a fairly large section of kings holding estates each one of them constituting one or more villages Upinder Singh 2008 A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India From the Stone Age to the 12th Century Pearson p 566 ISBN 978 81 317 1120 0 The use of the term Rajaputra for specific clans of Rajput or as a collective term for various clans emerged by the 12th century Irfan Habib 2011 The Agrarian Classes In Irfan Habib ed Economic History of Medieval India 1200 1500 Pearson Education India p 66 ISBN 978 81 317 2791 1 Rautas in these inscriptions are clearly ranked beneath the ranakas and they are obviously more numerous In the Mahoba Fort inscription actually from Kasrak near Badaun in an entry of 1234 the rautas are spoken off as a jati or caste Rautas is actually the Prakrit form of Rajaputra modern Hindi Rajput and a Rajaputra caste had established itself well before the thirteenth century Military prowess converted itself into land control and we say by the thirteenth century the rajaputras or rautas had acquired the position of local land magnates Rima Hooja 2006 p 181 182 The Rajputs of Rajasthan are not over concerned either over the date or period when the term Rajput entered common usage However epigraphical and literary evidence would indicate that it was probably sometime during the c twelfth thirteenth centuries AD period that the usage of terms like Rajputra Kshatriya Rautt and similar words denoting connections with kingship and Rajput became established as more or less synonymous words In Kalhana s Rajtarangini VII 390 the word rajaputra is used in the sense of a landowner but if it is read with VII vv 1617 and 1618 of the same book it would be clear that they acclaimed their birth from the 36 clans of the Rajputs That would lead us to believe that by the beginning of the 12th century AD these clans had already come into existence Tanuja Kothiyal 2016 p 11 Rediscovering Rajasthan From stunning havelis to world famous namkeen exploring the elegant Bikaner FirstPost 9 May 2019 Rajput procession Encyclopaedia Britannica Archived from the original on 9 November 2014 Pradeep Barua 2005 p 25 Cynthia Talbot 2015 p 33 Peabody Norbert 2003 Hindu Kingship and Polity in Precolonial India Cambridge University Press pp 38 ISBN 978 0 521 46548 9 As Dirk Kolff has argued it was privileged if not initially inspired only in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by Mughal perceptions of Rajputs which in a pre form of orientalism took patrilineal descent as the basis for Rajput social Organization and consequently as the basis for their political inclusion into the empire Prior to the Mughals the term Rajput was equally an open ended generic name applied to any horse soldier trooper or headman of a village regardless of parentage who achieved his status through his personal ability to establish a wide network of supporters through his bhaibandh lit ie or bond of brothers that is close collateral relations by male blood or by means of naukari military service to a more powerful overlord and sagai alliance through marriage Thus the language of kinship remained nonetheless strong in this alternative construction of Rajput identity but collateral and affinal bonds were stressed rather than those of descent During the sixteenth and seventeenth cen Jackson Peter 2003 The Delhi Sultanate A Political and Military History Cambridge University Press pp 9 ISBN 978 0 521 54329 3 Confronting the Ghurid ruler now were a number of major Hindu powers for which the designation Rajput not encountered in the Muslim sources before the sixteenth century is a well established anachronism Chief among them was the Chahamana Chawhan kingdom of Shakambhari Sambhar which dominated present day Rajasthan from its capital at Ajmer Behl Aditya 2012 Wendy Doniger ed Love s Subtle Magic An Indian Islamic Literary Tradition 1379 1545 Oxford University Press pp 364 ISBN 978 0 19 514670 7 The term Rajput is a retrospective invention as most of the martial literature of resistance to Turkish conquest dates only from the mid fifteenth century onward As Dirk Kolff has noted in his Naukar Rajput and Sepoy The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan 1450 1850 Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1990 the invention of Rajput identity can be dated to the sixteenth century narratives of nostalgia for lost honor and territory Bayly Susan 2001 Caste Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age Cambridge University Press pp 32 35 ISBN 978 0 521 79842 6 32 In the arid hill country what is now Rajasthan located southwest to the Mughal original strongholds in gangetic plain powerful lords had been calling themselves as Rajputs a title derived from the Sanskrit rajaputra king s son as far back as thirteenth century AD and possibly very much earlier 33 In both the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries Mughal armies fought bloody battles in this strategic frontier region and through a mixture of force and coalition its kingdoms were loosely absorbed into loosely textured Mughal political order At this time these armed elites had strong memories of the earlier clan chiefs who had made their mark in turbulent times by adopting known marks of lordship and exalted desent 34 Yet the varna archetype of the Kshatriya like man of prowess did become a key reference point for rulers and their subjects under the Mughals and their immediate successors The chiefs and warriors whom the Mughals came to honor as Rajput lords in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may not even have been descendants of Rajasthan s earlier pre Mughal elites What mattered instead was that for both these titles and the markers of refined faith and social life which accompanied them spoke in recognizable terms of exalted blood and ancestry Hermann Kulke amp Dietmar Rothermund 2004 A History of India Psychology Press p 116 ISBN 978 0 415 32920 0 When Harsha shifted the centre of north Indian history to Kanauj in midst of Ganga Yamuna Doab the tribes living to the west of this new centre also became more important for further courses of Indian history They were first and foremost the Rajputs who now emerged into the limelight of Indian history Sailendra Nath Sen 1999 Ancient Indian History and Civilization New Age International p 307 ISBN 978 81 224 1198 0 The anarchy and confusion which followed Harsha s death is the transitional period of history This period was marked by the rise of the Rajput clans who begun to play a conspicuous part in the history of northern and western India from the eight century AD onwards Alain Danielou 2003 A Brief History of India Simon and Schuster p Chapter 15 ISBN 978 1 59477 794 3 The role of the Rajputs in the history of northern and eastern India is considerable as they dominated the scene between the death of Harsha and establishment of Muslim empire Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya 2006 Studying Early India Archaeology Texts and Historical Issues Anthem p 116 ISBN 978 1 84331 132 4 The period between the seventh and the twelfth century witnessed gradual rise of a number of new royal lineages in Rajasthan Gujarat Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh which came to constitute a social political category known as Rajput Some of the major lineages were the Pratiharas of Rajasthan Uttar Pradesh and adjacent areas the Guhilas and Chahamanas of Rajasthan the Caulukyas or Solankis of Gujarat and Rajasthan and the Paramaras of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan Satish Chandra 1996 Historiography Religion and State in Medieval India Har Anand Publications p 115 ISBN 978 81 241 0035 6 In north India the dominant features of the period between 7th and 12th centuries have been identified as the growing weakness of state the growth of the power of local landed elites and their decentralising authority by acquiring greater administrative economic and political roles the decline of towns the setback to trades especially long distance trade and the alientation of land to the brahmans in larger proportions then ever before The period is also noted for the rise of the Rajputs Sara R Farris 5 September 2013 Max Weber s Theory of Personality Individuation Politics and Orientalism in the Sociology of Religion BRILL p 145 ISBN 978 90 04 25409 1 In about the eighth century B C the Rajput thus began to perform the functions that had formerly belonged to the Kshatriya assuming their social and economic position and substituting them as the new warrior class David Ludden 2013 India and South Asia A Short History Oneworld Publications pp 64 65 ISBN 978 1 78074 108 6 By contrast in Rajasthan a single warrior group evolved called Rajput from Rajaputra sons of kings they rarely engaged in farming even to supervise farm labour as farming was literally beneath them farming was for their peasant subjects In the ninth century separate clans of Rajputs Cahamanas Chauhans Paramaras Pawars Guhilas Sisodias and Caulukyas were splitting off from sprawling Gurjara Pratihara clans Peter Robb 21 June 2011 A History of India Macmillan International Higher Education pp 58 59 ISBN 978 0 230 34549 2 From around 1000 ce notable among these regional powers were various Rajput dynasties in the west and north Andre Wink 1990 p 208 The Rajputs repelled Arabs from Stravani and Valla probably the area North of Jaisalmer and Jodhpur and the invasion of Malwa but were ultimately defeated by Bappa Rawal and Nagabhata I in 725 AD near Ujjain Arab rule was restricted to the west of Thar desert Asoke Kumar Majumdar 1956 p 44 45 Chandra Satish 2004 Medieval India From Sultanat to the Mughals Delhi Sultanat 1206 1526 Part One Har Anand Publications pp 19 24 ISBN 978 81 241 1064 5 Sugata Bose amp Ayesha Jalal 2004 Modern South Asia History Culture Political Economy Psychology Press p 21 ISBN 978 0 415 30786 4 It was a similar combination of political and economic imperatives which led Muhmmad Ghuri a Turk to invade India a century and half later in 1192 His defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan a Rajput chieftain in the strategic battle of Tarain in northern India paved the way for the establishment of first Muslim sultante Romila Thapar 1 June 2015 The Penguin History of Early India From the Origins to AD 1300 Penguin Books Limited ISBN 978 93 5214 118 0 An attack was launched on the Rajput kingdoms controlling the watershed and the western Ganges plain now beginning to be viewed as the frontier The Rajputs gathered together as best as they could not forgetting internal rivalries and jealousies Prithviraja defeated Muhmmad Ghori at First battle of Tarain north of Delhi in 1191 a second battle was fought at the same place Prithviraj was defeated and kingdom of Delhi fell to Muhmmad who pressed on and concentrated on capturing capital of Rajput kingdoms with the assistance of his General Qutub ud din Aibak Chandra Satish 2004 Medieval India From Sultanat to the Mughals Delhi Sultanat 1206 1526 Part One Har Anand Publications p 224 ISBN 978 81 241 1064 5 R C Majumdar ed 1960 The History and Culture of the Indian People The Delhi Sultante 2nd ed Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan p 70 Naravane M S 1999 The Rajputs of Rajputana A Glimpse of Medieval Rajasthan APH Publishing p 95 ISBN 978 81 7648 118 2 V S Bhatnagar 1974 Life and Times of Sawai Jai Singh 1688 1743 Impex India p 6 From 1326 Mewar s grand recovery commenced under Lakha and later under Kumbha and Sanga till it became one of the greatest powers in northern India during the first quarter of the sixteenth century Giles Tillotson 1991 Mughal India Penguin Books p 4 ISBN 978 0 14 011854 4 He was immediately challenged by assembled Rajput forces under Rana Sanga of Chittor who was reckoned by Babur as one of the two greatest Hindu rulers Chandra Satish 2004 Medieval India From Sultanat to the Mughals Delhi Sultanat 1206 1526 Part One Har Anand Publications p 224 ISBN 978 81 241 1064 5 Sarda Har Bilas 1970 Maharana Sanga the Hindupat The Last Great Leader of the Rajput Race Kumar Bros p 1 Chandra Satish 2005 Medieval India From Sultanat to the Mughals Part II Har Anand Publications pp 79 80 ISBN 978 81 241 1066 9 a b C A Bayly 19 May 1988 Rulers Townsmen and Bazaars North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion 1770 1870 CUP Archive pp 18 19 ISBN 978 0 521 31054 3 Barbara N Ramusack 2004 p 14 15 Kumkum Chatterjee 1996 Merchants Politics and Society in Early Modern India Bihar 1733 1820 BRILL pp 35 36 ISBN 90 04 10303 1 Richard Gabriel Fox 1971 p 68 69 a b Gyan Prakash 30 October 2003 Bonded Histories Genealogies of Labor Servitude in Colonial India Cambridge University Press pp 64 66 ISBN 978 0 521 52658 6 Farooqui Amar 2007 The Subjugation of the Sindia State In Ernst Waltraud Pati Biswamoy eds India s Princely States People Princes and Colonialism Routledge p 57 ISBN 978 1 134 11988 2 Richards John F 1995 The Mughal Empire Cambridge University Press pp 22 24 ISBN 978 0 521 25119 8 Bhadani B L 1992 The Profile of Akbar in Contemporary Literature Social Scientist 20 9 10 48 53 doi 10 2307 3517716 JSTOR 3517716 a b c Chaurasia Radhey Shyam 2002 History of Medieval India From 1000 A D to 1707 A D Atlantic Publishers amp Dist pp 272 273 ISBN 978 81 269 0123 4 Dirk H A Kolff 2002 p 132 Smith Bonnie G 2008 The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History Oxford University Press p 656 ISBN 978 0 19 514890 9 Richards John F 1995 The Mughal Empire Cambridge University Press p 23 ISBN 978 0 521 56603 2 Lal Ruby 2005 Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World Cambridge University Press p 174 ISBN 978 0 521 85022 3 Vivekanandan Jayashree 2012 Interrogating International Relations India s Strategic Practice and the Return of History War and International Politics in South Asia Routledge ISBN 978 1 136 70385 0 Reid Anthony Morgan David O eds 2010 The New Cambridge History of Islam Volume 3 The Eastern Islamic World Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries Taylor and Francis p 213 ISBN 9781316184363 Hansen Waldemar 1972 The peacock throne the drama of Mogul India 1 Indian ed repr ed Delhi Motilal Banarsidass pp 12 34 ISBN 978 81 208 0225 4 Michael Fisher 1 October 2015 A Short History of the Mughal Empire Bloomsbury Publishing pp 88 90 ISBN 978 0 85772 976 7 Barbara N Ramusack 2004 pp 18 19 Chandra Satish 2007 Medieval India From Sultanat to the Mughals Part II Har Anand Publications p 124 ISBN 9788124110669 Ahmad Amir 2005 The Bundela Revolts During the Mughal Period A Dynastic Affair Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 66 438 445 ISSN 2249 1937 JSTOR 44145860 Bayly Susan 2000 Caste society and politics in India from the eighteenth century to the modern age 1 Indian ed Cambridge u a Cambridge Univ Press p 35 ISBN 9780521798426 Rajput Encyclopaedia Britannica Retrieved 27 November 2010 a b Lynn Zastoupil July 1994 John Stuart Mill and India Stanford University Press pp 120 121 ISBN 978 0 8047 6617 3 Ramya Sreenivasan 1 May 2017 The Many Lives of a Rajput Queen Heroic Pasts in India c 1500 1900 University of Washington Press pp 126 ISBN 978 0 295 99785 8 Chaurasia R S 2004 History of the Marathas New Delhi India Atlantic Publishers amp Dist pp 23 178 185 ISBN 81 269 0394 5 Jadunath Sarkar 1994 The British alliance A History of Jaipur 1503 1938 Orient Longman pp 315 330 ISBN 81 250 0333 9 Metcalf Barbara D Metcalf Thomas R 24 September 2012 A Concise History of Modern India Cambridge University Press p 73 ISBN 978 1 107 02649 0 William R Pinch 1996 Peasants and Monks in British India University of California Press pp 85 86 ISBN 0520916301 Retrieved 22 January 2021 Ironically the Rajput constituency of Awadh itself composed a group of newcomers to the court who had been peasant soldiers only a few years before They were called half sarcastically the Tilangi Rajas or trooper rajas the people described by the shocked Muhammad Faiz Baksh as the new Nawab s courtiers Naked rustics whose fathers and brothers were with their own hands guiding the plow rode about as Asaf ud daula s orderlies In other words the Rajputs of Awadh who along with brahmans constituted the main beneficiaries of what historian Richard Barnett characterizes as Asaf s permissive program of social mobility were not willing to let that mobility reach beyond certain arbitrary sociocultural boundaries Sailendra Nath Sen 2010 An Advanced History of Modern India Macmillan pp 73 ISBN 978 0 230 32885 3 Tanuja Kothiyal 2016 pp 9 10 Tod James 1873 Annals and Antiquities of Rajast han Higginbotham amp Co p 217 What nation on earth could have maintained the semblance of civilization the spirit or the customs of their forefathers during so many centuries of overwhelming depression but one of such singular character as the Rajpoot Freitag Jason 2009 Serving empire serving nation James Tod and the Rajputs of Rajasthan Leiden Brill pp 3 5 ISBN 978 90 04 17594 5 Retrieved 2 May 2022 Srivastava Vijai Shankar 1981 The story of archaeological historical and antiquarian researches in Rajasthan before independence In Prakash Satya Srivastava Vijai Shankar eds Cultural contours of India Dr Satya Prakash felicitation volume Abhinav Publications p 120 ISBN 978 0 391 02358 1 Retrieved 9 July 2011 Meister Michael W 1981 Forest and Cave Temples at Candrabhaga and Kansuan Archives of Asian Art 34 56 73 JSTOR 20111117 subscription required Freitag Jason 2009 Serving empire serving nation James Tod and the Rajputs of Rajasthan BRILL pp 3 5 ISBN 978 90 04 17594 5 Metcalf Thomas R 8 December 2015 Aftermath of Revolt India 1857 1970 Princeton University Press p 299 ISBN 978 1 4008 7664 8 Robert W Stern 1988 The Cat and the Lion Jaipur State in the British Raj BRILL p 108 ISBN 978 90 04 08283 0 Bates Crispin 16 October 2014 Mutiny at the Margins New Perspectives on the Indian Uprising of 1857 Volume VI Perception Narration and Reinvention The Pedagogy and Historiography of the Indian Uprising SAGE Publishing India ISBN 978 93 5150 457 3 This suggests that those who fled Delhi had taken asylum in the villages of Chittor implying that Rajput officers had sympathy with the rebels otherwise they could have been arrested at the entry point into Rajasthan However they travelled safely through Rajasthan up to Chittor Bingley A H 1986 1899 Handbook on Rajputs Asian Educational Services p 20 ISBN 978 81 206 0204 5 Bates Crispin 1995 Race Caste and Tribe in Central India the early origins of Indian anthropometry In Robb Peter ed The Concept of Race in South Asia Delhi Oxford University Press p 227 ISBN 978 0 19 563767 0 Retrieved 30 November 2011 Mahesh Rangarajan K Sivaramakrishnan eds 6 November 2014 Shifting Ground People Animals and Mobility in India s Environmental History Oxford University Press p 85 ISBN 9780199089376 The British defined Rajputs as a group in part by their affinity for wild pork Lloyd Rudolph 1967 p 127 B S Baviskar D W Attwood 30 October 2013 Inside Outside Two Views of Social Change in Rural India SAGE Publications pp 389 ISBN 978 81 321 1865 7 As one example among thousands a small caste living partly in the Nira Valley was formerly known as Shegar Dhangar and more recently as Sagar Rajput Robert Eric Frykenberg 1984 Land Tenure and Peasant in South Asia Manohar p 197 Another example of castes successful efforts to raise their sacred status to twice born are the Sagar Rajputs of Poona district Previously they were considered to be Dhangars shepherds by occupation and Shudras by traditional varna However when their economic strength increased and they began to acquire land they found a genealogist to trace their ancestry back to a leading officer in Shivaji s army changed their names from Dhangars to Sagar Rajputs and donned the sacred thread Markovits Claude ed 2002 First published 1994 as Histoire de l Inde Moderne A History of Modern India 1480 1950 2nd ed London Anthem Press p 406 ISBN 978 1 84331 004 4 The twenty two princely states that were amalgamated in 1949 to form a political entity called Rajasthan Gerald James Larson 2001 Religion and Personal Law in Secular India A Call to Judgment Indiana University Press pp 206 ISBN 978 0 253 21480 5 Retrieved 24 August 2013 Dogra dynasty Encyclopaedia Britannica The Constitution 26 Amendment Act 1971 indiacode nic in Government of India 1971 archived from the original on 6 December 2011 retrieved 30 October 2014 Brass Paul R 1966 Factional Politics in an Indian State The Congress Party in Uttar Pradesh University of California Press pp 16 17 The agricultural castes must be further subdivided into the traditional landowning castes the cultivating castes and the castes which provide field laborers Among the traditional landowning castes the Thakurs and Rajputs are by far the most important Before zamindari abolition Rajputs and Thakurs owned the largest share of the land in most of the districts in Uttar Pradesh in Oudh Rajputs were the most prominent talukdars and owned more than 50 percent of the land in most districts Rajputs and Thakurs are associated with traditional Kshatriya class the ruling class in the classical Hindu order Thomas Metcalf Metcalf Thomas R Metcalf Professor of History and Sarah Kailath Professor of India Studies Thomas R Kailath Sarah 2005 Forging the Raj Essays on British India in the Heyday of Empire Oxford University Press p 84 ISBN 978 0 19 566709 7 The bulk of the taluqdars including almost all the Hindu holders of moderate to large estates are of the Rajput caste A ritually high caste second only to the Brahmins Rajputs have traditionally provided the secular elite of the province Not only as large Landlords but as petty zamindars and substantial peasant cultivators Rajputs control most of the productive agricultural land and have long dominated the village panchayats and other local government institutions The mere existence of such a large group of influential caste fellows scattered throughout the countryside gives the taluqdar a substantial advantage over a non Rajput rival in gathering electoral support But the taluqdar is usually more than just a Rajput he is also the head of the local Rajput lineage or clan Erminia Colucci David Lester 2012 Suicide and Culture Understanding the Context Hogrefe Publishing pp 219 ISBN 978 1 61676 436 4 Kanchan Mathur 16 November 2004 Countering Gender Violence Initiatives Towards Collective Action in Rajasthan SAGE Publications pp 44 ISBN 978 0 7619 3244 4 Central List of OBCs State Karnataka 12015 2 2007 BCC dt 18 08 2010 PDF A Prasad 1997 Reservational Justice to Other Backward Classes Obcs Theoretical and Practical Issues Deep and Deep Publications p 69 continued list of OBC classes 7 Rajput 120 Karnataka Rajput Basu Pratyusha 2009 Villages Women and the Success of Dairy Cooperatives in India Making Place for Rural Development Cambria Press p 96 ISBN 978 1 60497 625 0 Rajput youths rally for reservations The Times of India Retrieved 4 June 2016 Mudgal Vipul 22 February 2016 The Absurdity of Jat Reservation The Wire Archived from the original on 30 May 2016 Retrieved 4 June 2016 Rajputs demanding reservation threaten to disrupt chintan shivir The Hindu 16 January 2013 Retrieved 4 June 2016 After Jats Rajputs of western UP want reservation in govt posts Hindustan Times 28 April 2016 Retrieved 4 June 2016 The Tribune India 20 December 2016 Rajput body condemns govt for putting Sikh Rajputs in backward classes Tribuneindia News Service Rajputs to be accorded back general status as per demand says Punjab CM Channi Hindustan Times 15 November 2021 Retrieved 22 October 2022 Caste politics in North West and South India before Mandal The low caste movements between sanskritisation and ethnicisation PDF Kellogg nd edu Archived from the original PDF on 4 March 2016 Retrieved 18 March 2015 Dipankar Gupta 20 March 2014 The caste bogey in election analysis The Hindu Retrieved 17 March 2015 Changing Electoral Politics in Delhi Retrieved 17 March 2015 Elections in India The vote bank theory has run its course Asiancorrespondent com 7 February 2012 Retrieved 18 March 2015 Rajasthan polls It s caste politics all the way The Times of India 13 October 2013 Lawrence A Babb 1975 The Divine Hierarchy Popular Hinduism in Central India Columbia University Press p 15 ISBN 978 0 231 08387 4 The term Rajput denotes a cluster of castes that are accorded Kshatriya status in the varna system Lawrence A Babb 2004 Alchemies of Violence Myths of Identity and the Life of Trade in Western India SAGE p 17 ISBN 978 0 7619 3223 9 the region s erstwhile ruling aristocracy a cluster of clans and lineages bearing the label Rajput Ayan Shome 2014 p 196 Catherine B Asher amp Cynthia Talbot 2006 p 99 Para 3 Rajput did not originally indicate a hereditary status but rather an occupational one that is it was used in reference to men from diverse ethnic and geographical backgrounds who fought on horseback In Rajasthan and its vicinity the word Rajput came to have a more restricted and aristocratic meaning as exclusive networks of warriors related by patrilineal descent and intermarriage became dominant in the fifteenth century The Rajputs of Rajasthan eventually refused to acknowledge the Rajput identity of the warriors who lived farther to the east and retained the fluid and inclusive nature of their communities far longer than did the warriors of Rajasthan Cynthia Talbot 2015 p 120 Para 4 Kolff s provocative thesis certainly applies to more peripheral groups like the Bundelas of Central India whose claims to be Rajput were ignored by the Rajput clans of Mughal era Rajasthan and to other such lower status martial communities Rajput Encyclopaedia Britannica a b Shail Mayaram 2013 p 269 Rolf Lunheim 1993 Desert people caste and community a Rajasthani village University of Trondheim amp Norsk Hydro AS ISBN 9788290896121 Retrieved 24 August 2013 Maya Unnithan Kumar 1997 Identity Gender and Poverty New Perspectives on Caste and Tribe in Rajasthan Berghahn Books p 135 ISBN 978 1 57181 918 5 Retrieved 24 August 2013 Makhan Jha 1 January 1997 Anthropology of Ancient Hindu Kingdoms A Study in Civilizational Perspective M D Publications Pvt Ltd pp 33 ISBN 978 81 7533 034 4 Retrieved 24 August 2013 Andre Wink 2002 Al Hind the Making of the Indo Islamic World Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7Th 11th Centuries BRILL pp 282 ISBN 978 0 391 04173 8 Retrieved 24 August 2013 Lindsey Harlan 1992 p 31 Heather Streets 2004 Martial Races The Military Race and Masculinity in British Imperial Culture 1857 1914 Manchester University Press p 26 ISBN 978 0 7190 6962 8 Rand Gavin March 2006 Martial Races and Imperial Subjects Violence and Governance in Colonial India 1857 1914 European Review of History 13 1 1 20 doi 10 1080 13507480600586726 S2CID 144987021 Streets Heather 2004 Martial Races The military race and masculinity in British Imperial Culture 1857 1914 Manchester University Press p 241 ISBN 978 0 7190 6962 8 Retrieved 20 October 2010 Omar Khalidi 2003 Khaki and the Ethnic Violence in India Army Police and Paramilitary Forces During Communal Riots Three Essays Collective p 5 ISBN 9788188789092 Apart from their physique the martial races were regarded as politically subservient or docile to authority Philippa Levine 2003 Prostitution Race and Politics Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire Psychology Press pp 284 285 ISBN 978 0 415 94447 2 The Saturday review had made much the same argument a few years earlier in relation to the armies raised by Indian rulers in princely states They lacked competent leadership and were uneven in quality Commander in chief Roberts one of the most enthusiastic proponents of the martial race theory though poorly of the native troops as a body Many regarded such troops as childish and simple The British claims David Omissi believe martial Indians to be stupid Certainly the policy of recruiting among those without access to much education gave the British more semblance of control over their recruits Amiya K Samanta 2000 Gorkhaland Movement A Study in Ethnic Separatism APH Publishing pp 26 ISBN 978 81 7648 166 3 Dr Jeffrey Greenhunt has observed that The Martial Race Theory had an elegant symmetry Indians who were intelligent and educated were defined as cowards while those defined as brave were uneducated and backward Besides their mercenary spirit was primarily due to their lack of nationalism Schaflechner Jurgen 2018 Hinglaj Devi Identity Change and Solidification at a Hindu Temple in Pakistan Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 085052 4 Among the crowds are many Rajputs who link their community s existence or survival to the help of Karni Mata Kothiyal Tanuja 14 March 2016 Nomadic Narratives A History of Mobility and Identity in the Great Indian Desert Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 107 08031 7 Several Charani goddesses like Avad Karni Nagnechi Sangviyaan Barbadi among others are revered by Rajputs as patron deities General India Office of the Registrar 1966 Census of India 1961 Manager of Publications The principal followers of the deity are Charans who are also the priests and belong to the community to which Karni Mata belonged and Rajputs who worship her as their family deity Prabhakara Manohara 1976 A Critical Study of Rajasthani Literature with Exclusive Reference to the Contribution of Caraṇas Panchsheel Prakashan Karni Presiding Deity of Rajputs and Caranas Aase J Kvanneid 2021 Perceptions of Climate Change from North India An Ethnographic Account Routledge p 79 Chowdhary Charu 7 Interesting Martial Art Forms in India India com Retrieved 26 August 2020 Narasimhan Sakuntala 1992 Sati widow burning in India Reprinted ed Doubleday p 122 ISBN 978 0 385 42317 5 Hiltebeitel Alf Erndl Kathleen M 2000 Is the Goddess a Feminist The Politics of South Asian Goddesses Sheffield England Sheffield Academic Press p 77 ISBN 978 0 8147 3619 7 Lindsey Harlan 1992 p 88 Cuṇḍavata Lakshmi Kumari 2000 From Purdah to the People Memoirs of Padma Shri Rani Laxmi Kumari Chundawat Rawat Publications p 42 ISBN 978 81 7033 606 8 People said Jai Karni Mata ki Jai Mataji ki Jai Charbhuja ki Jai Gordhan Nath ki and so on Different deities were invoked in different places and by different castes For example a Jat would never say Jai Mata Ki only a Rajput or a Charan would say that Fisher R J 1997 If Rain Doesn t Come An Anthropological Study of Drought and Human Ecology in Western Rajasthan Manohar p 61 ISBN 978 81 7304 184 6 In fact the greeting used by Bhati Rajputs is Jai sri or Jai sri Kishan victory to Lord Krishna as opposed to the general Rajput greeting Jai mata jiri victory of the Mother Goddess Simoons Frederick J 1994 Eat Not this Flesh Food Avoidances from Prehistory to the Present Univ of Wisconsin Press p 330 ISBN 978 0 299 14254 4 Despite the widespread unacceptability of alcoholic beverages as offerings to high gods in India Eichinger Ferro Luzzi 1977a 365 66 when Rajputs open a bottle of whiskey they often tip a little on the ground in an offering to the mother goddess before they drink They say Jai Mata ji as they do this Long live the Mother Goddess Somerville Christopher 16 April 2020 Our War Real stories of Commonwealth soldiers during World War II Orion ISBN 978 1 4746 1775 8 The Muslims shout their battle cry the Rajputs cry Jai Mata Victory to the Mother and the Jats shout the war cry of Hanuman the monkey god The Japanese too they were shouting Banzai and wielding their samurai swords a medieval sight Sandhu Gurcharn Singh 2003 A Military History of Medieval India Vision Books p 428 ISBN 978 81 7094 525 3 Banners and Devices Rajputs had slogans like Jai Mataji Rann banka Rathor and so on painted on their shields Jagirdars carried their own flags this served the same purpose as in ancient and ease of deployment for battle The ruler s ban ners and flags were carried on elephants camels and on horseback India identification Harald Tambs Lyche 1997 Power Profit and Poetry Traditional Society in Kathiawar Western India Manohar Publishers amp Distributors p 101 ISBN 978 81 7304 176 1 Such hospitality is central to Rajputs as it is to other martial castes of South Asia Cambridge Dictionary Cambridge University Press Kasturi Malavika 2002 Embattled Identities Rajput Lineages Oxford University Press p 2 ISBN 978 0 19 565787 6 Lindsey Harlan 1992 p 27 a b c d e f g Harald Fischer Tine Michael Mann 2004 Colonialism as Civilizing Mission Cultural Ideology in British India Anthem Press pp 124 140 ISBN 978 1 84331 092 1 Manmohan Kaur 1968 Role of Women in the Freedom Movement 1857 1947 Sterling Publishers p 9 iii Amongst the Rajputs it was a common practice that a mother s breast was smeared with the preparation of dhatura or Mudar plant or the poppy The infant drank the milk along with the poison Richard Eaton 2019 p 139 4 Only the Sisodia clan of Mewar in southern Rajasthan proudly claiming pre eminence among the Rajput clans refused to send its women to the Mughal Harem resulting in the siege and mass suicide at Chittor a b c d Sreenivasan Ramya 2006 Drudges Dancing Girls Concubines Female Slaves in Rajput Polity 1500 1850 In Chatterjee Indrani Eaton Richard M eds Slavery and South Asian History Bloomington Indiana Indiana University Press pp 136 161 ISBN 978 0253116710 OCLC 191950586 Khanna Priyanka 2011 Embodying Royal Concubinage Some Aspects of Concubinage in Royal Rajput Household of Marwar Western Rajasthan C 16 Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 72 337 345 ISSN 2249 1937 JSTOR 44146726 D D Gaur 1978 Constitutional Development of Eastern Rajputana States Usha p 49 OCLC 641457000 These slave communities were known by various names such as Darogas Chakars Hazuris Ravana Rajputs Chelas Golas and Khawas Lindsey Harlan 1992 p 145 167 Malavika Kasturi March 2004 Harald Fischer Tine Michael Mann eds Colonialism as Civilizing Mission Cultural Ideology in British India Anthem Press pp 128 ISBN 978 1 84331 363 2 If not these children became dancing girls or were sold off to other Rajputs as wives Female infanticide had unintended consequences The scarcity of girls in many clans of higher status led to the kidnapping of women of lower castes who were sold to high ranking clans for matrimonial purposes In some cases women from semi nomadic communities were married to Rajput bridegrooms of this level in exchange for bride wealth Kalikinkar Datta 1978 Survey of India s Social Life and Economic Condition in the Eighteenth Century 1707 1813 Munshiram Manoharlal p 68 Buchanan writes that in northern India the Rajputs Khatris and Kayasthas openly kept women slaves of any pure tribe and the children through such women were classed in one matrimonial group Rich Muslim families in Bihar maintained large number of male slaves called Nufurs and female slaves called Laundis A distinct class of slaves known as Molazadahs were also maintained by them R D Sanwal 1976 Social Stratification in Rural Kumaon Oxford University Press pp 43 44 ISBN 0195605314 Berreman Gerald D 1963 Hindus of the Himalayas University of California Press Berkeley p 130 Abraham Eraly 17 July 2007 The Mughal World Penguin Books Limited pp 386 ISBN 978 81 8475 315 8 Archana Calangutcar 2006 2007 MARWARIS IN OPIUM TRADE A JOURNEY TO BOMBAY IN THE 19th CENTURY Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 67 745 753 JSTOR 44147994 In the seventeenth century the Mughals followed a practice of giving opium to the Rajput soldiers regularly Anil Chandra Banerjee 1980 The Rajput States and British Paramountcy Rajesh Publications p 47 Addiction to opium was one of the most demoralising features of Rajput society Ganguly K K 2008 Pattern and Process of Drug and alcohol use in India Indian Council Medical Research Bulletin 38 1 3 Shah A M Shroff R G 1958 The Vahivanca Baroṭs of Gujarat A Caste of Genealogists and Mythographers The Journal of American Folklore American Folklore Society 71 281 264 doi 10 2307 538561 JSTOR 538561 via JSTOR Jim Orford et al eds 2013 Coping with Alcohol and Drug Problems The Experiences of Family Members in Three Contrasting Cultures Routledge p 15 ISBN 978 1 134 70273 2 Lindsey Harlan 1992 p 158 Many women do not like their husbands to drink much alcohol they consider alcoholism a problem in their community particularly because Rajput drinking is sanctioned by tradition Karine Schomer 1994 p 338 Saleema Waraich 2012 Competing and complementary visions of the court of the Great Mogor In Dana Leibsohn Jeanette Favrot Peterson eds Seeing Across Cultures in the Early Modern World Ashgate p 88 ISBN 9781409411895 Bibliography Alf Hiltebeitel 1999 Rethinking India s Oral and Classical Epics Draupadi among Rajputs Muslims and Dalits University of Chicago Press ISBN 978 0 226 34055 5 Andre Wink 1990 Al Hind The slave kings and the Islamic conquest Vol 1 BRILL p 269 ISBN 9789004095090 Asoke Kumar Majumdar 1956 Chaulukyas of Gujarat Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan OCLC 4413150 Ayan Shome 2014 Dialogue amp Daggers Notion of Authority and Legitimacy in the Early Delhi Sultanate 1192 C E 1316 C E Vij Books ISBN 978 93 84318 46 8 Barbara N Ramusack 2004 The Indian Princes and their States Cambridge University Press ISBN 9781139449083 Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya 1994 Origin of the Rajputs The Political Economic and Social Processes in Early Medieval Rajasthan The Making of Early Medieval India Oxford University Press ISBN 9780195634150 Bhrigupati Singh 2015 Poverty and the Quest for Life University of Chicago Press ISBN 978 0 226 19468 4 Catherine B Asher Cynthia Talbot 2006 India Before Europe Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 80904 7 Cynthia Talbot 2015 The Last Hindu Emperor Prithviraj Cauhan and the Indian Past 1200 2000 Cambridge University Press ISBN 9781107118560 David Ludden 1999 An Agrarian History of South Asia Cambridge University Press p 4 ISBN 978 0 521 36424 9 Dirk H A Kolff 2002 Naukar Rajput and Sepoy Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 52305 9 Irfan Habib 2002 Essays in Indian History Anthem Press p 90 ISBN 978 1 84331 061 7 Karine Schomer 1994 Idea of Rajasthan Constructions South Asia Publications ISBN 978 0 945921 25 7 Lindsey Harlan 1992 Religion and Rajput Women The Ethic of Protection in Contemporary Narratives Berkeley California University of California Press ISBN 978 0 520 07339 5 Pradeep Barua 2005 The State at War in South Asia University of Nebraska Press ISBN 978 0 8032 1344 9 Peter Jackson 2003 The Delhi Sultanate A Political and Military History Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 54329 3 Richard Gabriel Fox 1971 Kin Clan Raja and Rule Statehinterland Relations in Preindustrial India University of California Press ISBN 9780520018075 Rima Hooja 2006 A History of Rajasthan Rupa amp Company ISBN 978 81 291 1501 0 Satish Chandra 1982 Medieval India Society the Jagirdari Crisis and the Village Macmillan ISBN 9780333903964 Shail Mayaram 2013 Against History Against State Counterperspectives from the Margins Columbia University Press ISBN 978 0 231 52951 8 Tanuja Kothiyal 2016 Nomadic Narratives A History of Mobility and Identity in the Great Indian Desert Cambridge University Press ISBN 9781107080317 Stewart Gordon 2007 The Marathas 1600 1818 Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 03316 9 Norman Ziegler 1976 David Henige ed History in Africa History in Africa African Studies Association 3 Eugenia Vanina 2012 Medieval Indian Mindscapes Space Time Society Man Primus Books ISBN 978 93 80607 19 1 Reena Dube Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar 2012 Female Infanticide in India A Feminist Cultural History State University of New York Press ISBN 978 0 7914 8385 5 Lloyd Rudolph 1967 The Modernity of Tradition Political Development in India University of Chicago Press ISBN 978 0 226 73137 7 Richard Eaton 2019 India in the Persianate Age 1000 1765 Penguin Books Limited ISBN 978 0 14 196655 7 Lindsey Harlan 2018 Religion and Rajput Women The Ethic of Protection in Contemporary Narratives Univ of California Press ISBN 978 0 520 30175 7 Ananya Vajpeyi 2005 Supriya Varma Satish Saberwal eds Traditions in motion Religion and Society in History Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 566915 2 Vajracharya Dhanavajra 1 December 1975 Notes on the Changunarayan Inscription PDF Regmi Research Series 7 12 232 240External links Wikiquote has quotations related to Rajput Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rajput people History of Rajputs in India Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Rajput amp oldid 1141199858, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.