Kapahi

Kapahi (कपही) Kapai (कपाई)/(कपाही) is a gotra of Jats. Kapai (कपाई), Jat clan is found in Multan.

Origin

Gotra started after place called Kapisha (कपिशा).

Kapahi (कपाही), (of the colour of the cotton-plant dower) , a section of the Khattris.

Jat Gotras Namesake

• Kapai = Capeus (Pliny.vi.32)

Mention by Pliny

Pliny mentions Arabia......... We will now proceed to describe the coast after leaving Charax¹³, which was first explored by order of king Epiphanes. We first come to the place where the mouth of the Euphrates formerly existed, the river Salsus¹⁴, and the Promontory of Chaldone¹⁵, from which spot, the sea along the coast, for an extent of fifty miles,¹⁶ bears more the aspect of a series of whirlpools than of ordinary sea; the river Achenus, and then a desert tract for a space of one hundred miles, until we come to the island of Ichara; the gulf of Capeus, on the shores of which dwell the Gaulopes and the Chateni, and then the gulf of Gerra¹⁷. Here we find the city of Gerra, five miles in circumference, with towers built of square blocks of salt.

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13 Or rather, as Hardouin says, the shore opposite to Charax, and on the western bank of the river.

14 Called Core Boobian, a narrow salt-water channel, laid down for the first time in the East India Company's chart, and separating a large low island, off the mouth of the old bed of the Euphrates, from the mainland.

15 The great headland on the coast of Arabia, at the entrance of the bay of Doat-al-Kusma from the south, opposite to Pheleche Island.

16 This is the line of coast extending from the great headland last mentioned to the river Khadema, the ancient Achenus.

17 So called from the city of Arabia Felix, built on its shores. Strabo says of this city "The city of Gerra lies in a deep gulf, where Chaldæan exiles from Babylon inhabit a salt country, having houses built of salt, the walls of which, when they are wasted by the heat of the sun, are repaired by copious applications of sea-water." D'Anville first identified this place with the modern El Khatiff. Niebuhr finds its site on the modern Koneit of the Arabs, called "Gran" by the Persians; but Foster is of opinion that he discovered its ruins in the East India Company's Chart, situate where all the ancient authorities had placed it, at the end of the deep and narrow bay at the mouth of which are situated the islands of Bahrein. The gulf mentioned by Pliny is identified by Foster with that of Bahrein.

In Mahabharata

Mahabharata Shalya Parva, Mahabharata/Book IX Chapter 44 mentions names of combatants armed with diverse weapons and clad in diverse kinds of robes and ornaments, All of them came to the ceremony for investing Kartikeya with the status of generalissimo. Shalya Parva in Sanskrit mentions in shloka 53 Kapahi along with Kanchaps as under:

द्रॊण शरवाः कपिस्कन्धः काञ्चनाक्षॊ जलं धमः

अक्षसंतर्जनॊ राजन कुनदीकस तमॊ ऽभरकृत (Mahabharata.IX.44)

History

Bhim Singh Dahiya writes about Kapāhi that these people, now found among the Jats as well as among the Khatris in Punjab, are to be identified with Kaphaios of Alexander's historians. It is also possible that the people called Ekpada (one footed) in Brihat Samhitā are but these people whose name is wrongly Sanskritised. Kapahi is very much like Ekapahi in pronunciation and means one footed in the later sense, hence this suggestion.

Tej Ram Sharma writes about Kapiia  : It is a name based on colour. Kapiia means 'monkey-coloured' or 'yellow-coloured'. He was one of the teachers of the Mahesvara cult and has been mentioned as Bhagavan Kapiia.

Distribution in Punjab

Villages in Sangrur district

• Kapial is village in Sangrur tahsil of Sangrur district in Punjab.

Distribution in Pakistan

Kapahi/Kapai Jats are found in Multan area in Pakistan.,

References

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