Rajput clans explained

Rajput (from Sanskrit raja-putra 'son of a king') 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 Rajputs clans originated from peasant or pastoral communities.[1] [2] [3]

Lineages

Genealogies of the Rajput clans were fabricated by pastoral nomadic tribes when they became sedentary. In a process called Rajputization, after acquiring political power, they employed bards to fabricate these lineages which also disassociated them from their original ancestry of cattle-herding or cattle-rustling communities and acquired the name 'Rajput'.[4] [5] [6] [7] [8] There are three basic lineages (vanshas or vamshas) among Rajputs. Each of these lineages is divided into several clans (kula) (total of 36 clans).[9] 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.[10]

Lesser-noted vansh include Udayvanshi, Rajvanshi,[11] and Rishivanshi. The histories of the various vanshs were later recorded in documents known as vamshāavalīis; André Wink counts these among the "status-legitimizing texts".[12]

Beneath the vansh division are smaller and smaller subdivisions: kul, shakh ("branch"), khamp or khanp ("twig"), and nak ("twig tip"). 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.

Suryavanshi (Ikshvaku) lineage of Rajputs

The Suryavanshi lineage (also known as the Raghuvanshies or Solar Dynasty) are clans who claim descent from Surya, the Hindu Sun-god.[13] Souryavanshi Rajput Clans

[15]

Chandravansh lineage of Rajputs

The Chandravanshi lineage (Somavanshi or Lunar Dynasty) claims descent from Chandra, The lineage is further divided into Yaduvansh dynasty descendants of King Yadu and Puruvansh dynasty descendants of King Puru.

Chandravanshi Clans

Yaduvanshi Clans

Agnivanshi lineage of Rajputs

The Agnivanshi lineage claim descent from Agni, the Hindu god of fire.

Agnivanshi Clans

Battalion (Regiment) Clans of Rajputs

In medieval Indian history, Rajputs made several regiments, special battalions and mercenaries specially during Rajput Era to fight against foreign invaders which consisted of Rajput soldiers from some or all Rajput clans. Their descendents still use those regiment Rajput surnames [18] [19] [20]

Regiment Clans

Purbiya (or Purabia) are Rajput led mercenaries and soldiers from the eastern Gangetic Plain – areas corresponding to present-day western Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh.[20] [21]

36 royal races

The 36 royal races (Chathis Rajkula) is a listing of Indian social groups purported to be the royal (ruling) clans of several states and Janapads spread over northern Indian subcontinent. Among the historical attempts at creating a comprehensive listing of the 36 are the Kumarapala Prabandha of Acharya Jinamandan Gani of 1435 AD,[22] Prithviraj Raso of uncertain date, and Colonel James Tod, writing in 1829.

Kumarapala Prabandha list

The Kumarpal Prabandha (about the reign of Kumarapala Solanki of Chaulukya dynasty r. 1143-1172 CE) list gives 36 clans. It starts with dynasties mentioned in the classics, Surya and its Ikshvaku sub-branch, Chandra and its Yadu (Yadava) branch. It also mentions some of the later famous clans: Parmar, Chauhan, Chaulukya (Solanki), Pratihara Ratt, Chandela and Pala. It also mentions other Deccani dynasties like Shilahara, Chapotkata, Nikumbh etc. Many of the names are less known. Notably, it includes the Mourya. Kumarpal Prabandha was consulted by Tod,[23] he refers to it as Kumarpal Charit.[24]

See also

Bibliography

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: David N. Lorenzen . David N. Lorenzen . Daniel Gold . Bhakti Religion in North India: Community Identity and Political Action . 1 January 1995 . State University of New York Press . 978-0-7914-2025-6 . 122 . 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..
  2. Book: Doris Marion Kling . The Emergence of Jaipur State: Rajput Response to Mughal Rule, 1562–1743 . 1993 . 30 . University of Pennsylvania . Rajput: Pastoral, mobile warrior groups who achieved landed status in the medieval period claimed to be Kshatriyas and called themselves Rajputs..
  3. Book: André Wink . Al-Hind the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest : 11th-13th Centuries . 1991 . . 90-04-10236-1 . 171 . ...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....
  4. Book: Ishita Banerjee-Dube. Mayaram, Shail. Caste in History. The Sudra Right to Rule. 2010. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-806678-1. 110. 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..
  5. Book: André Wink . Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7th-11th Centuries . 2002 . BRILL . 0-391-04173-8 . 282 . 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....
  6. Book: Thomas R. Metcalf. Modern India: An Interpretive Anthology. 1990. 90. Sterling Publishers. 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".
  7. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress . 47, I . 1986 . 536–542 . . Emergence of Kingship, Rajputization and a New Economic Arrangement in Mundaland . Sivaji . Koyal . 44141600.
  8. Book: Ishita Banerjee-Dube. Caste in History. 2010. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-806678-1. xxiii. 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..
  9. Book: Jai Narayan Asopa. A socio-political and economic study, northern India. 26 May 2011. 1990. Prateeksha Publications. 89.
  10. Book: Maya Unnithan-Kumar . Identity, Gender, and Poverty: New Perspectives on Caste and Tribe in Rajasthan . 24 August 2013 . 1997 . Berghahn Books . 978-1-57181-918-5 . 135.
  11. Book: Makhan Jha . Anthropology of Ancient Hindu Kingdoms: A Study in Civilizational Perspective . 24 August 2013 . 1 January 1997 . M.D. Publications Pvt. Ltd. . 978-81-7533-034-4 . 33–.
  12. Book: André Wink . Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7th-11th Centuries . 24 August 2013 . 2002 . BRILL . 978-0-391-04173-8 . 282–.
  13. Book: The Indian Princes and their States, The New Cambridge History of India. Barbara N. Ramusack. Cambridge University Press. 2003. 9781139449083. 14.
  14. Book: Valisinha, Devapriya . Buddhist shrines in India . 1948.
  15. Web site: "Evolution and Spatial Organization of Clan Settlements: A Case Study of Middle Ganga Valley". Ansari . Saiyad Hasan . 27 September 1986 .
  16. Book: Kshatriya Pawar (72 clan). Maa Tapti Shodh Sansthan. 2024. 9786207462391. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.
  17. Book: Kshatriya Pawar (72 clan). Maa Tapti Shodh Sansthan. 2024.
  18. Book: History of Tomars, Part1 – Tomars of Delhi by Harihar niwas Dwivedi. Vidyamandir publications. 1983. Gwalior.
  19. Book: Tarikh-i-Firishta, tr. Briggs, Vol.1. 26.
  20. Book: Waltraud Ernst. Biswamoy Pati. India's Princely States: People, Princes and Colonialism. 18 October 2007. Routledge. 978-1-134-11988-2. 57.
  21. Book: M. S. Naravane. The Rajputs of Rajputana: A Glimpse of Medieval Rajasthan. 1999. APH Publishing. 978-81-7648-118-2. 23.
  22. Book: Jai Narayan Asopa. A socio-political and economic study, northern India. 26 May 2011. 1990. Prateeksha Publications. 89.
  23. Some Medieval Sculptures of North Gujarat, H. A. Majmudar, Gujarat University, 1968, p. 155
  24. Book: Jai Narayan Asopa. A socio-political and economic study, northern India. 26 May 2011. 1990. Prateeksha Publications. 94.

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