1894.] E. Vansittart— Tribes , Clans , and Castes of Nepal. 
219 
thread also, and thereby gave them a higher social standing than the 
Magars and Grurungs. This is most clearly and graphically described 
by Brian Hodgson. After describing how the Muhammadan conquest 
and bigotry continued to drive multitudes of Brahmans from the plains 
of Hindustan to the proximate hills, which now form the western terri¬ 
tories of Nepal, Brian Hodgson says— 
“ The Brahmans found the natives illiterate, and without faith, but fierce and 
proud. They saw that the barbarians had vacant minds, ready to receive their 
doctrines, but spirits not apt to stoop to degradation, and they acted accordingly. 
To the earliest and most distinguished of their converts they communicated, in 
defiance of the creed they taught, the lofty rank and honours of the Kshatriya 
order. 
“ But the Brahmans had sensual passions to gratify, as well as ambition. They 
found the native females—even the most distinguished—nothing loth, but still of a 
tempei', like that of the males, prompt to resent indignities. 
“ These females would indeed welcome the polished Brahmans to their embraces, 
but their offspring must not be stigmatized as the infamous progeny of a Brahman 
and a Mlechha. To this progeny also, then, the Brahmans, in still greater defiance 
of their creed, communicated the rank of the second order of Hinduism ; and from these 
two roots (converts and illegitimate progeny), mainly spring the now numerous pre¬ 
dominant and extensively ramified tribe of Khas, originally the name of a small clan 
of creedless barbarians, now the proud title of Kshatriya, or military order of the 
kingdom of Nepal. The offspring of the original Khas females and of Brahmans, 
with the honours and rank of the second order of Hinduism, got the patronymic 
titles of the first order ; and hence the key to the anomalous nomenclature of so 
many stirpes of the military tribes of Nepal is to be sought in the nomenclature of 
the sacred order. 
“ It may be added, remarkably illustrative of the lofty spirit of the Parbattiahs 
(highlanders), that, in spite of the yearly increasing sway of Hinduism in Nepal, and 
the various attempts of the Brahmans in high office to procure the abolition of a 
custom so radically opposed to the creed both parties now profess, the Khas still in¬ 
sist that the fruit of commerce (marriage is out of the question) between their females 
and males of the sacred order, shall be ranked as Kshatriyas, wear the thread and as¬ 
sume the patronymic title.” 
Now, as has been shown, from the advent of these thousands of 
foreigners, and their numerous progeny, sprang up a new race, called 
Khas, and with this new race also came a new language, a kind of 
Hindi patois, which was called the language of the Khas, or Klias- 
khura and is now-a-days the lingua franca of Nepal. 
Dr. E. Hamilton, in his book published in 1819, says that the 
Magars who resided in the hills to the west of the Grandak river, seem 
to have received the Rajput princes with much cordiality. 
They have submitted to the guidance of the Brahmans, but formerly 
had priests of their own, and seem to have worshipped chiefly ghosts. 
The Khas are sprung from two sources : (1) from the first converts 
