Translations:Rajput/106/en
Rajputs were involved in nomadic pastoralism, animal husbandry and cattle trade until much later than popularly believed. The 17th century chronicles of Munhata Nainsini i.e. Munhata Nainsi ri Khyat and Marwar ra Paraganan ri Vigat discuss disputes between Rajputs pertaining to cattle raids. In addition, Folk deities of the Rajputs - Pabuji, Mallinath, Gogaji and Ramdeo were considered protectors of cattle herding communities. They also imply struggle among Rajputs for domination over cattle and pasturelands. [1] The emergence of Rajput community was the result of a gradual change from mobile pastoral and tribal groups into landed sedentary ones. This necessitated control over mobile resources for agrarian expansion which in turn necessitated kinship structures, martial and marital alliances.[2][3][4]
- ↑ Tanuja Kothiyal 2016, p. 266, [1]Unlike the popular perception, even Rajputs remained engaged with nomadic pastorialism, animal husbandry and cattle trade till much later than it is assumed. Munhata Nainsini in his seventeenth century chronicles, Munhata Nainsi ri Khyat and Marwar ra Paraganan ri Vigat refers to a number of disputes between Rajputs that involved cattle raids. Also, a close reading of the lore regarding Rajput folk deities like Pabuji, Mallinath, Gogaji and Ramdeo, who are viewed as protectors of cattle herding communities actually indicates the intense struggle for control over cattle and pasturelands that Rajputs were engaged in. Rajputs extended patronage to Brahmins and Bardic communities like Bhats and Charans who composed detailed genealogies linking Rajput clans to older kshatriya lineages as well as celestial sources, which not only legitimised their claims to aristocracy but also distanced them from their tribal pastoral origins.
- ↑ Tanuja Kothiyal 2016, p. 265, [2]...from gradual transformation of mobile patoral and tribal groups into landed sedentary ones. The process of settlement involved both control over mobile resources through raids, battles and trade as well as channelizing of these resources into agrarian expansion. Kinship structures as well as marital and martial alliances were instrumental in this transformation.[...]In the colonial ethnographic accounts rather than referring to Rajputs as having emerged from other communities, Bhils, Mers, Minas, Gujars, Jats, Raikas, all lay a claim to a Rajput past from where they claim to have 'fallen'. Historical processes, however, suggest just the opposite.
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedEaton87 - ↑ Kolff, Dirk H. A. (2002). Naukar, Rajput, and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market of Hindustan, 1450-1850. Cambridge University Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-521-52305-9.
What at first sight might seem to be a change of religion, is often a device to register either recruitment or professional success whether military or otherwise. Very often the Rajput to Afghan change — and, one may add, the peasant to Rajput change — was a similar kind of affair, indicating the pervading impact of soldiering traditions on North Indian social history. The military labour market, in other words, was a major generator of socio-religious identities.