Rājput: South India

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This article is an excerpt from Castes and Tribes of Southern India By Edgar Thurston, C.I.E., Superintendent, Madras Government Museum; Correspondant Étranger, Société d’Anthropologie de Paris; Socio Corrispondante, Societa,Romana di Anthropologia. Assisted by K. Rangachari, M.A., of the Madras Government Museum. Government Press, Madras 1909.

Rājput

The Rājputs (Sanskrit, rāja-putra, son of a king) have been defined as “the warrior and land-owning race of Northern India, who are also known as Thākur, lord, or Chhatri, the modern representative of the ancient Kshatriya.” At the Madras census, 1891 and 1901, the number of individuals, who returned themselves as Rājputs, was 13,754 and 15,273. “It needs,” Mr. H. A. Stuart writes, “but a cursory examination of the sub-divisions returned under the head Rājput to show that many of these individuals have no claim whatever to the title of Rājput. The number of pure Rājputs in this Presidency must be very small indeed, and I only mention the caste in order to explain that the number of persons returning it is far in excess of the actual number of Rājputs.” Mr. Stuart writes further concerning the Rājputs of the North Arcot district that “there are but few of this caste in the district, and they chiefly reside in Vellore; a few families are also found in Chittoor and Tirupati.

They assert that they are true Kshatriyas who came from Rājputāna with the Muhammadan armies, and they, more than any other claimants to a Kshatriya descent, have maintained their fondness for military service. Almost all are sepoys or military pensioners. Their names always end with Singh, and in many of their customs they resemble the Muhammadans, speaking Hindustani, and invariably keeping their wives gosha. They are often erroneously spoken of by the people as Bondilis, a term which is applicable only to the Vaisya and Sūdra immigrants from Northern India; but doubtless many of these lower classes have taken the title Singh, and called themselves Rājputs. Members of the caste are, therefore, very suspicious of strangers professing to be Rājputs. Their cooking apartment, called chowka, is kept most religiously private, and a line is drawn round it, beyond which none but members of the family itself may pass. At marriages and feasts, for the same reason, cooked food is never offered to the guests, but raw grain is distributed, which each cooks in a separate and private place.”

It is noted, in connection with the battle of Padmanābham in the Vizagapatam district, in 1794, that “no correct list of the wounded was ever procured, but no less than three hundred and nine were killed. Of these two hundred and eight were Rājputs, and the bodies of forty Rājputs, of the first rank in the country, formed a rampart round the corpse of Viziarāma Rāzu. Padmanābham will long be remembered as the Flodden of the Rājputs of Vizianagram.”