Rajput: Nagvansi

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This article was written in 1916 when conditions were different. Even in 1916 its contents related only to Central India and did not claim to be true of all of India. It has been archived for its historical value as well as for the insights it gives into British colonial writing about the various communities of India. Indpaedia neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this article. Readers who wish to add fresh information can create a Part II of this article. The general rule is that if we have nothing nice to say about communities other than our own it is best to say nothing at all. Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly on their online archival encyclopædia only after its formal launch. See examples and a tutorial.

From The Tribes And Castes Of The Central Provinces Of India

By R. V. Russell

Of The Indian Civil Service

Superintendent Of Ethnography, Central Provinces

Assisted By Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, Extra Assistant Commissioner

Macmillan And Co., Limited, London, 1916.

NOTE 1: The 'Central Provinces' have since been renamed Madhya Pradesh.

NOTE 2: While reading please keep in mind that all articles in this series have been scanned from a book. During scanning some errors are bound to occur. Some letters get garbled. Footnotes get inserted into the main text of the article, interrupting the flow. Readers who spot errors might like to correct them, and shift footnotes gone astray to their rightful place.

Rajput: Nagvansi

This clan are considered to be the descendants of the Tak or Takshac, which is one of the thirty-six royal races, and was considered by Colonel Tod to be of Scythian origin. The Takshac were also snakeworshippers.

" Naga and Takshac are synonymous appellations in Sanskrit for the snake, and the Takshac is the celebrated Nagvansa of the early heroic history of India. The Mahabharat describes in its usual allegorical style the war between the Pandus of Indraprestha and the Takshacs of the north. Parikhlta, a prince on the Pandu side, was assassinated by the Takshac, and his son and successor, Janamejaya, avenged his death and made a bonfire of 20,000 snakes." " This allegory is supposed to have represented the warfare of the Aryan races against the Sakas or Scythians.

The Tak or Takshac would be one of the clans held to be derived from the earlier invading tribes from Central Asia, and of the lunar race. The Tak are scarcely known in authentic history, but the poet Chand mentions the Tak from Aser or Aslrgarh as one of the princes who assembled at the summons of Prithwi Raj of Delhi to fight against the Muhammadans.

In another place he is called Chatto the Tak. Nothing more is known of the Tak clan unless the cultivating Taga caste of northern India is derived from them. But the Nagvansi clan of Rajputs, who profess to be descended from them, is fairly numerous. Most of the Nagvansis, however, are probably in reality descended from landholders of the indigenous tribes who have adopted the name of this clan, when they wished to claim rank as Rajputs. The change is rendered more easy by ^ Mr. Crooke's Tribes and Castes, ^ Rajasthiin, i. p. 94 ; Elliot's Supart. Kachhwaha. plemcntal Glossary, art. Gaur Taga.

the fact that many of these tribes have legends of their own, showing the descent of their ruHng famihes from snakes, the snake and tiger, owing to their deadly character, being the two animals most commonly worshipped.

Thus the landholding section of the Kols or Mundas of Chota Nagpur have a long legend ^ of their descent from a princess who married a snake in human form, and hence call themselves Nagvansi Rajputs ; and Dr. Buchanan states that the Nagvansi clan of Gorakhpur is similarly derived from the Chero tribe.^ In the Central Provinces the Nagvansi Rajputs number about 400 persons, nearly all of whom are found in the Chhattlsgarh Districts and Feudatory States, and are probably descendants of Kol or Munda landholding families.