86 The Ethnology of India, 



are not a part of the original Hindu system, but rather something 

 engrafted upon it, is (I think) to be found in the difficulty of defining 

 what is and what is not a Rajpoot. I have already shown, in noticing 

 many tribes, that it is almost impossible to say where the Rajpoots 

 begin and where they end. I shall now, however, confine myself as 

 far as possible to the tribes who are generally acknowledged to be 

 real Rajpoots of blue blood. 



They can scarcely be said to have any broad general tribal name 

 like that of the Jats. It is hardly contended that they are really the 

 old Kshatryas of the early Braminical accounts ; and though, in a 

 military point of view, they have occupied and more than occupied 

 the place assigned to the Kshatryas, still their numbers, their position 

 and the existence among them of the institutions shared with them 

 by the Jats and unknown to the old Hindoo Shasters (in them we 

 find no trace of democracy) would all go to show that the Rajpoots 

 are another race. In fact the days of the Kshatryas were those of the 

 earliest Hindu annals, many hundred years before Christ, while the 

 Rajpoots may be considered to have been the immediate predecessors 

 of the Mahommedans in the rule of Hindustan. Except then in 

 an affected way and with direct reference to the old Sanscrit Nomen- 

 clature, the Rajpoots are not usually called ' Kshatryas,' while the 

 name Rajpoot also is by no means universal among them, and merely 

 means ' Son of a Raja' or ' Royal.' In some parts of the country, 

 they usually call themselves ' Thakoors,' a word which also means 

 Chiefs or Nobles. 



They are more frequently known by the names of their tribes 

 as ' Chouhans,' ' Soorujbansees,' ' Bais,' ' Rahtores,' l Baghels' (or 

 Waghels') or the like, but the practice of marrying into another tribe 

 makes all these high-caste tribes identical for ethnological purposes, 

 I shall continue, then, to call them Rajpoots. 



They are chiefly known to Europeans in their military character 

 and as feudal conquerors. But in reality, in their own villages in 

 the plains of the Granges, they are simple agriculturalists of a con- 

 stitution very much like that of the Jats, only less pure and complete. 

 The fact is that the Rajpoots have had their day, and are now a 

 down-going race. Partly the furnishing of armies and feudal hosts 

 has exhausted the material and corrupted the simplicity of their ori- 





