The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations/The Jarta or Jartika or Jartrika theory

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The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations

Hukum Singh Panwar (Pauria)

Manthan Publications, Rohtak. ISBN 81-85235-22-8

Chapter III:The Jarta or Jartika or Jartrika theory

Theory based on similarity of sound

This is yet another theory based on similarity of sound of Jat, Jarta and Jarttika. Campbell and Grierson 1 are the pioneer linguits who probably find the earliest notice of the Jats in the Jarttikas of the Sanskrit literature. Prof; Lassen2 and Cunningham3, also did not lag behind to identify them with the Jarttikas. But the chief exponent of the theory is C.V. Vaidya who asserts that the Jats are the Jarttikas or Jartas, living in ancient time in the vicinity of Sakala and who are mentioned in the Karna Parva of the Mahabharata. He writes4, "Of the three communities i.e. the Marathas, Rajputs, and (Gujars) the Jats are the oldest. They are mentioned in the Mahabharat as Jartas. Their first mention is in the sentence "ajay jarto hunan" in the grammar of Chandra of the fifth century A.D. The ethnological characteristics, i.e. their fair complexion, tall stature, high nose and long head, clearly show that they are Aryans. The innate sense of caste prejudice in India has greatly prevented the mixture of races and the Jats have preserved their blood almost uncontaminated. Though treated as Shudra by modern opinion owing to their being agriculturists and their practice of widow marriage, they are the purest Aryans in India and belong to the first race of Aryan invaders, according to our view, the Solar race of Aryans who originally settled in the Panjab".

Dr. Siddhantashastree5 and Dr. B.N. Puri6 also connect the Jats with the Jartas or Jartikas of the Epic. Mr. B.S. Dahiya 7 concedes that Jat is as good a Prakrit form of the Sanskritised Jarta as Gujar is of Gurjara. Yet another historian of the Jats, Lt. Ram Sarup Joon8 for whom they are the descendents of the Lunar race of Aryans, believes that all the twelve Bahika tribes, including the Jarttikas, though ungracefully depicted in the Karna Parva, do prove the existence of the Jats (Jarttikas) in the Punjab at the time of Mahabharata. The Jats were known as Djats9 in the ancient Arab world. The Encyclopaedia of Islam10 also identifies them with the Jartas who were the Middle Indo-Aryans of post-Sanskritic Indian origin in the Punjab and Sindh.

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The supporters of the theory

The staunchest adherent of the theory is perhaps Buddha Prakash. He not only harps on the tune of C.V. Vaidya, but also furnishes additional information regarding the Jarttika, the alleged ancestors of the Jats. He11 writes. "It appears that the advent of the Jarttikas or Jartas, who are identical with the Iatii, who together with the Takhoroi, lived near the northern section of the Jaxartes around Taskend, according to Ptolemy, and whose modern descendents, called the Jats, are spread over the whole of the Panjab and mainly responsible for the outlandish features of the Madras. These Jartas were alien to Indian culture, as is manifested from the tone of denunciation, in which their habit of drinking wine, fermented from jaggery and rice, and eating beef with garlic in the form of rolls and chops, is referred to in the Mahabharata. As a result of these tribal admixtures, the Madras suffered a setback in the estimation, of the orthodox people".

He12 continues further that "in the ?mening centuries of the first, millennium B.C. the Jartas and Abhiras spread in the Punjab and caused a degeneration in the morals and manners of its people. In the post-Vedic period, the Jartas had moved in to the Panjab and occupied the Madra Capital Sakala... In the opinion of Rawlinson13, they were identical with the Saka people called Jata or Gata. They were divided in to two branches, the Massagetae (big Gata-Jata) and Thyssagetae (small Gata-Jata). Their western wing migrated into Europe and came to be known as Goth and eastern branch descended into India and was, called Jarta. Their modern representatives are the Jats, who constitute the backbone of the people of the Panjab". Buddha Prakash14 has also "a group of Scytho-Iranian tribes, viz. the Arjunayana, Virka, Yaudheyas, Balhikas, etc. penetrating into Punjab in that very period. The Balhikas are said to be offspring of the Pisacas, A variant of Balhika is Valhika in the Mahabharata and another is Vahika". Panini15 uses the term Vahika for the whole of the Punjab up to the confines of Usinara. Katayana16 derives Vahika from 'bahi' (outside) and considers the Vahika country outside the pale of Brahmanical society. The Epic17 also follows this etymology and all the people of this country were called Vahikas. These people are said to be offspring of two demons, Bahi and Heeka or Hika, residing in the Vipasa river and are denounced in the Mahabharata18.

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Buddha Prakash, like C.V. Vaidya, seems to have depended implicitly on the depiction of the character of the Vahika people, including Jartas or Jarttikas in the Mahabharata to support the theory, which has evoked mixed reaction in the scholarly world.

Vahikas of the Karna Parva

Before we attempt an assessment of the theory, it is, therefore, essential to have a bird's eye view of the description of the Vahika people given in the Karna Parva of the great Epic, the mainstay of the exponents as well as adherents of the theory. A perusal of the text indicates that the acrimonious reply of Karna to his charioteer, Shalya, contains a g1aphic, though derogatory description of the habits and character of these people.

"The Madras are always false to their friends .... without affection, always wicked, untruthful and cruel. They eat fried barley and fish and in their house father, son, mother, mother-in-law, father-in-law uncle, daughter, son-in-law, brother, grandsons with friends and guests, menial and maidservant, male and female together, drink wine with beef and garlic, some times cry and sometimes laugh and delight in indecent talk and songs .... Their women, overcome with wine, dance naked ..... They are of fair complexion and tall stature, wearing blankets, shameless and lax in the observance of laws of purity. The Bahikas who have been expelled from the region of Himalayas, the Ganges, the Jamuna, the Saraswati and Kurukshetra should be avoided. The Bahikas are not created by Prajapati, the creator of the orthodox Aryans. They are the off-spring of a Pisacha couple, named Bahi and Heek who dwelt on the bank of the Bipasa (Beas). Their sister's sons and not their own sons, become their heirs.

"There is a town named Sakala and a river named Apaga where a section of the Bahikas known as the Jartrikas dwell. Their character is very reprehensible .... Their women, .. .laugh and dance in public, sing indecent songs in a loud shrill voice like that of a camel or an ass. They become very unrestrained and boisterous specially on festive occasions when they dance and shout, calling one another "thou ill-fated one, husband slayer" etc. They make affaire d' amour indiscriminately. They are profligate and immoral barbarians who observe no canons of religion. Vainly are they (Madras etc.) born who do not eat the flesh of cocks, kine, asses, camel, sheep in earthen, stone and wooden vessels, and do not drink milk of mare, camel, donkey and sheep. They freely

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change their professions. Among the Bahikas, one at first becomes a Brahman, then a Kshatriya, then a Vaish, then a Shudra or a barber, then again a Brahman and again a slave19. This is the picture of the people of the Panjab in the classical age as described in the Mahabharata. Dr. Buddha Prakash, as noted above, opines that "the admixture ofthe alien Jarttikas or Jartas with the Madras caused the degeneration of the latter who suffered a setback in the estimation of the orthodox people". Since the degeneration of their character is imputed to Jartas or Jarttikas, it may, by way of corollary, be inferred that the onus falls on them and their character may not be, obviously, any better.

The critics of the theory

The main critics of this theory, who have discarded it, are Prof. Qanungo20 Thakur Desh Raj21, Ch. Niranjan Singh22, Dr. Girish Chandra Dwivedi23, Y.P. Shastri24.

Qanungo assails the theory by pointing out that "the identification of the Jats] with the Jarttikas merely on the similarity-of sounds of the two names is most illusory, that the Jartas or Jarttikas, the Pisacha speaking outlandish Aryans with broad or medium heads cannot be the ancestors of the dolichocephalic Jats, that the Jats observe, unlike the Bahikas, some of the customary ceremonials of the Hindus" that the Jats are exogamous as contrary to the endogamous Bahikas, that in no case is the sister's son regarded as the lawful heir in preference to their own sons in Jat society, that it is least likely that the name of an insignificant Jarttika tribe, notorious for its immoral character and impurity of conduct, should be adopted by many millions of Jats, inhabiting the large stretch of country from Afghanistan to Malwa, and finally, that no Jat tribe remembers any connection with Sakala; they believe, rather, that their ancestors belonged to the interior of India". Experience shows that the Jats, in the absence of a male heir, have been adopting the daughter's or sister's son as an heir. But it was never a regular practice with them. Exception always proves the rule. It may also be clearly stated that cross-cousin marriage which, according to Tautmann24a, has been "a marked feature of Dravidian communities", never found favour with the Jats. Thakur Desh Raj, assaulting the alleged origin of the Jats from the Jarttikas, claims that there was neither a tribe of this name nor was a city of the name of Sakala in Panjab at the time of Karna. If we cast aside Cunningham's25 conjectural identification of Sakala, the (so-called She-Kie-lo of Heun Tsang, Sialkot) with Sankala or Sangala or

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Sangalawala Tiba (Sagala in Prakrita), we actually find that according to Panini26 (IV. 2. 75) it was a fortified stronghold of the Kathoi26a (Kathas in the Jhang district) and not that of the Jartas and Madras.

However, Thakur Desh Raj's assertion regarding non- existence of Sakala at the time of the Mahabharata war does not appear to be untrue. Had this city existed before sixth century B.C., it could not have escaped the penetrating eye of earlier writers. The towns and cities, mentioned by Sauti Ugrashrava, the last reciter of the Mahabharata, generally belong to the classical age during which the city of Sakala might have come into existence and was given by him a place in the Great Epic. "The earliest mention', according to Weber26b ,"of the word Sakala, in the immediate reference to the Rik, occurs in a memorial verse, 'Yajnagatha', quoted in the Aitreya Brahmana (111.43). But this Brahmana is a creation of post - Epic period. The next reference to Sakala, available to us, is of the Buddhist period, as the capital of the Madras27. This possibly strengthens Desh Raj's claim. Surprisingly, Fa-Hien also does not mention the name of this city.

Thakur Desh Raj's contention that the Jarttika tribe is of a much later origin (than of the period of the actual Epic war) can not be dismissed lightly. Sometimes the Jarta or Jarttika is also written as Jartrika, a probable derivation from Jartri. We know of a Sharinga Jaritri or Jarita mentioned in the Rig Veda (1,142, 1-2). But it is any body's guess if the Jartas are connected with this Rigvedic Sage. If in any way, they were, then we must say that they could not have escaped the bark and bite of Sauti lest they should go down in history as unstigmatised progeny of a Kshatriya seer of the earliest Brahmanic book. The present day Mahabharata has its literary ancestry in the original "Jaya", a short epic, which swelled into "Bharata" and which with further accretions and interpolations grew into the present bloated "Mahabharata". Thakur Desh Raj holds that the Jarttikas find no mention in the earlier versions (Jai & Bharata). A reference to them occurs only in the Mahabharata. Robert Shafer28 who exhaustively studied the ethnography of the tribes mentioned in the various versions of the Mahabharata from 1452 A.D. to 1879 A.D., including also the "Critical Edition", does not find the mention of Jarttikas or Jartas anywhere. If we accept 3102 B.C., given by C.V. Vaidya Mirashi and others as the date of the Epic War and place reliance on Buddha Prakash who would have us believe that the Jart as or Jartikas appeared

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on the historical canvas in the opening centuries of the first millennium B.C., i.e. two thousand years later than the Epic War (3102 B.C.), there is every reason to hold the assertion of Thakur Desh Raj as indisputably correct. That Robert Shafer does not find the mention of the Jartas or Jarttikas in any edition of the Mahabharata written up to 1879 strongly suggests that they must have been interpolated in the Epic after this date.

Ch. Niranjan Singh, in whose opinion Jarttika was a person, either a warrior or a king, wonders if C.V. Vaidya would have held the Jats as the descendents of the Jarttikas even after giving serious thought to every aspect of their life. Dr. G.C. Dwivedi, to whom "the Jarttikas, the savage people, could never be the ancestral stock of the simple, reasonable and comparatively cultured Jats", almost aligns himself with Qanungo in rejecting the theory. To Y.P. Shastri, "C.V. Vaidya, being ignorant of the life of the Jats of the North besides being influuenced by the Rajputs who considered the Jats asdegraded, has in connecting the Jats with the Jarttikas, shown himself as partial and biased historian".


The Jats might be indebted to the above scholars for rejecting this absurd and obnoxious theory, yet it may be said that their treatment of the theory does not go deep enough and their arguments are insufficient for condemning it because each of them examines the authenticity of the Mahabharata as the only source of this absurd theory. All of them, excepting Thakur Desh Raj seem to have taken the inclusion of the Jarttikas as a tribe of the Madras in the Mahabharata as authentic. All of them, including Desh Raj, fail to question the reliability of the Epic as a sociological document, which had so very often been revised by authors, who, with their religious vested interest, cannot be said to be unbiased when describing the warrior tribes living beyond the Saraswati, in the north-western part of our country at that time. None of them has scrutinized the nature of the Epic as a source of ethnic information. Such an assessment, in our view, is indispensable for refuting the contentions of C.V. Vaidya and Buddha Prakash. They equally share the blame of evading the contemporary evidence about the growth of the Epic through the ages. It is unscientific to put blind faith in the authenticity of the Epic as a commentary on the social picture of antiquity, for its comments are biased and its interpretations are influenced by deeply engraved ethnic prejudice.

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Mahabharata as a source for reconstruction of ethnic history

It is now an open secret that the authors of the Mahabharata, as it has come down to us, had exhausted their ink in revising and interpolating the Epic. We have already given a brief account of the history of the Epic; let us do so at some more length now. Initially, the Epic was written by an eye-witness and a contemporary of the war, Krishana-Dwaipayana Vyasa, and it was name as e "The Jai" which contained 8800 shlokas. Next, it was revised by Vyasa's disciple, Vaishampayana, a contemporary of Arjuna's son Janmejaya and was named as "The Bharata" which contained 24000 verses. Lastly, it was it was enlarged to its present volummous form by Lomharshana's son Sauti Ugrasharva, (a contemporary of Ashoka), who named it as "The Mahabharata" which contains nearly 100000 shalokas29. According to another authority (Raja Rao) It contains 2,14,778 shlokas. Additions and subtractions, revisions and distortions, continued to be effected in the great Epic up to the 19th century A.D. though the main revision and interpolations took place, according to R.S. Tripathi30 mainly between 5th century B.C. and 400 A.D. "The ballad of the Kauravas and the Pandavas had simultaneously been used for the caravansarais and the regal courts".

The Akhanyasilas (legendary minstrels), the Vaitalikas (genealogists) and the Narasamsis (encomiasts, called Sutas, Magdhas and Vandinas, with their own political and religious vested interests as well as those of their masters, created gods and supernatural demons, dragons and giants with fictitious names of tribes and places. The Jarttikas seem to be such a tribe. They are described as the offspring of the two Rakshasas, Bahi and Hika. Like many tales of such nature, this study, too, was added to the Epic at an unknown date, perhaps as late as towards the end of the nineteenth century. N.K. Sidahanta31 has aptly observed that "the Heroic Poem, preoccupied as it was with deeds of valour and prowess, had little to do with a picture of the family or the domestic life of the hero or the average individual". Such pictures, obviously enough, are interpolations of a much later date. Hence, the voluminous character thus acquired by the Mahabharata leaves us little scope for distinguishing the genuine from the spurious.

The fact, that Karna, who was not a Kshatriya32, the mouthpiece of Sauti etc., was made to make use of the fictitious Brahman travellers33 who, in turn, attributed all sorts of filthy utterances of falsely-

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created Rakshasas and Rakshasis34. Such accretions greatly impair (he reliability of the Mahabharata, particularly in its presentation of the Kshatriya tribes living outside the pale of the Madhyadesha. The "Jai" grew into "Bharata", and was inflated into the "Mahabharata" on account of cleverly interpolating, to a great extent, absurdly created anecdotes, to counter Buddhism in its glorious period and to decry almost all the Kshatriya tribes of the Panjab and Sindh who embraced the new religion35. At least one reason for the phenomenal spread of Buddhism was that Lord Buddha was a fellow Kshatriya, the Martin Luther or Swami Dayanand of that period, who stood up against the exploitation of Kshatriyas by the orthodox champions of the Vedic religion. The enlarged Mahabharata was, in effect, a propaganda weapon of Brahmanism to stem the rising tide of heresy. To treat it as a reliable document for ethnic history is untenable.


Interestingly, Weber also vehemently confirms this in his own way, making a distinction between the Brahmanical and the Vedic view points, the latter giving place to Buddhism. According to him, "The races and tribes found by Alexander on the banks of Indus appear to stand entirely on a Vedic and not on a Brahmanical footing. As a matter of fact, this is true but we should not be justified in drawing from this any conclusion whatever with regard to India itself. For these people of the Panjab never submitted to the Brahmanical order of things, but always retained their ancient Vedic standpoint, free and independent, without either priestly domination or system of caste. For this reason, too, they were the objects of cordial hatred on the part of their kinsmen, who had wandered father on, and on this account also Buddhism gained an easy entrance among them." He further vivifies why migrations took place from Sapta Sindhu "for the beautiful tracts of Hindustan" and what the attitude of the migrants has always been towards their ancestral home and her people. "According to a legend preserved in the Brahmana of the White Yajus, the priests were in great measure the cause of this movement, by urging their Own theology upon the Kings, even against their will (Weber's Indische Studien, Vol.1, p. 178). The connection with the ancestral home on the Indus remained, of course, at first a very close one; later on, however, when the new Brahmanical organisation was completely consolidated in Hindustan.

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a strong element of bitterness was infused into it, since the Brahmans looked upon their old kinsmen who had remained true to the customs of their forefathers as apostates and unbelievers 35a."

The purpose of interpolating the modified legends, in the Mahabharata was to "invigorate the cries of Aryanism" which was 'confronted with Buddhism'. The republican tribes, who adopted Buddhism, stood condemned in the Great Epic by the authors who were the adherents of monarchies and Brahmanism. Karna is represented as rebuking Shalya and his countrymen in the extremely reprehensible tirade in retort to Shalya, who at the instance of Yudhishthira tried to decapacitate Karna. C.V. Vaidya36 also considers this incident not only ludicrous but also as an interpolation. If so, all the verses embodying the acrimony of Karna against Shalya's countrymen in the Karna Parva are equally likely to be interpolations. But unfortunately, Vaidya does not draw the logical conclusion on his own stand.

Some facts about the Madras

There is no dearth of the inherent evidence in the Epic to refute the theory. The lofty ideals, prevalent in the Epic society, will ever remain enviable. The woman in general, as mother, was considered "weightier than the earth"; as wife, the reverend, "the sacred lamp of the house", and man, as father, was regarded "higher than the heavens"; as husband, "higher than the divinities". We find no parallel in the heroic stories of the west for such reverence for the mother found only in our Epic37. The Madras sacrificed their entire army, their king Shalya and his Son, Rukmaratha38, for Karna, who accuses them of being false friend and who indulges in an exercise of their character-assassination unsurpassed anywhere. Shalya does his self-imposed duty most faithfully, protects and assists Karna whenever necessary39. The tirade of Karna against his tribe, even when Mahabharata is assessed as a literary masterpiece, may be no more than the outpouring of an incensed warrior. After all, the caste-proud Bhishma had accepted Shalya's sister, Madri, as a wife for Pandu. How could the Madras, then, be so degraded?

The Madras, condemned as the Bahikas and Vratyas, produced the renowned teachers like Maragara Saungayani an Kapaya Patra-chala40, experts in Vedic learning. They also produced Yajusha, Charaka41 and Jivaka the famous physicians; and Panini, the celebrated 'Father of Sanskrit Grammar'. The Madra women were

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expected to have emulated Bhadra, heir mother, the wife of Vyusitasva. Among the Madras where so women like Malavi (of the Mallavas), the wife of the Madra king Asvapati, Madri, wrongly entitled as Bahliki, the mother of the two Pandavas, Nakula and Sahdeva, personifying the striking examples of good character, and so was Satyavan's wife, Savitri, daughter of Madra king Asvapati. All these are famous in Hindu legends and lore for their virtues and good nature. It is this great tribe, with such a glorious record in all fields of life, whom some interpolator has singled out for the base invectives of Karna. What authenticity can such an epic have as a source of establishing ethnicity?


Had the accusations, as given in the Karna Parva, even an iota of truth, the parents of Pippali Manavaka of the Brahmana village named Mahatittha in Magadha, would never have sent emissaries to search a bride for him "in the likeness of a golden image of exceptional beauty", to Madradesha42, the accursed land, where they found one in Bhadra Kapilyani43 who even excelled that image in her brilliance and beauty. It is equally significant that the Brahmins and Kshatriyas from the Gangetic region are said44 "to have gone in that period, to the land of the Vahikas, for higher education, for the Yajna (Brahmin mantra incantations ), for proper Aryan manners, medicine and correct Sanskrit. Despite their lisping pronunciation, poor syntax, rustic accent and often downright barbarous vocabulary, these disciples from the Gangetic region were accepted by the Vahikas as good pupils without too close an inquiry into their caste and lineage". This is clearly supported by the Kausitaki Brahmana (7.6) statements, namely, that those, who want to learn the best speech, go to the northwest (Vahikadesa), for it is spoken there only44a. This does not tally with Karna's tirade, for if what he says is true, sages from Madhyadesh would not have repaired to study every science to this benighted land. There seems to be a conscious effort, in the Karna episode, to brand the fore-fathers of the Jats, i.e. the Kshatriya tribes of Panjab and Sindh as outlanders (Vahika) and fallen (Vratyas), as if all the evils of the world' were due to them. This seems to be a part of a large pattern of demeaning tribes that showed an independent spirit in defying Brahmanical dominance. It is a part of a deliberate campaign of vilification of those who had the common sense and the courage to oppose and reject Brahmanism.

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The meanings of Bahika and Vratya

A careful examination of the meanings of Bahika or Vahika may clear the position. Bahika is sometimes confused with Bahlika or Vahlika as a synonym of Vahika or Vaheeka. (Bahlikas or Vahlikas were actually the inhabitants of Gandhara country). Its meanings, in the ethnic sense, are one behaving irreligiously 45 in external or formal conduct, the people of the Panjab. The root of these words (Bah or Vah) means carrying, current, stream, male river. There is no greater improbability that the interpolators of the Mahabharata and consequently the later Sutrakaras, in denouncing the Kshatriya tribes as outlanders or foreigners, exploited the meanings of pun on this word, as suitable to their convenience, otherwise, the root46 of the word removes every shadow of doubt that it means- a land of rivers and its inhabitants, Vahikas. K.P. Jayaswal47 also supports our contention when he says that "the significance of the word Vahika has not yet been considered, winch means the country of rivers and as such, the VahiKa-land would comprise the Sindh valley and the Panjab". Hence it may be concluded that the Kshatnya tribes, who lived in their Gana-Sanghas in the Sapta-Sindhu or the Vahikadesa, were, no doubt, outlanders so far as the Madhyadesa is concerned, but certainly not foreigners as efforts had been afoot to represent them in classical Sanskrit. Dr. R.S. Tripathi48 holds the same opinion regarding the land of the Vahikas.


As far as clarification regarding the opprobrious epithet Vratya applied by the ancient 'masters of Pen and Press' to the republican Kshatriya tribes of the Vahikadesa, we have again to resort for help to the meanings of the term. Apastamba49 and Paraskara50 called them Vratya for non-observance of upanayana. Manu51 and Yajnavalkya52 considered them fallen from Gayatri or Savitri-Patita, and as such, outside the pale of the Aryan Society. Baudhayana53 calls them Varanashankara. Hence, they were neither to be taught the Vedas, nor allowed to officiate in the ceremonies or sacrifices and social inter- course with them was forbidden54. To Patanjali55 they were unskilled artisans. To Dange56 they were agriculturists and to Blunt57 they were the descendents of the twice-born Aryans.

Barring the assertions of Blunt and Dange, all the connotations given by the above authors are used in the Karna Parva to denounce the Vahika tribes by Sauti and others. The authors of the interpolated

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Mahabharata forgot the dictum that "thee older the evidence, the more reliable and unprejudiced it is". Panini58 tells us that the Vratyas were those who lived in or belonged to the Vratas (Samgha) To Katayana59 and Sayana60 Srini, Puga, Gana; Sangha and Vrata mean Samuha and Varga, but to Katayana61 they were backward in their political organisation (because they were not rajanyaka). The Tandya Maha Brahmana62 considers them as the dependents, left behind on earth by gods who rose up to the heavenly world; meaning thereby the people left behind in the villages by those who migrated to urban centres where better amenities of life might be available. Panini's63 assertion that their leader was called gramani, confirms the reading of the Tandya Maha Brahmana and also our belief that they might have been simple rural folk. To crown all, Vrata is a special term in the Rig Veda for a social unit, which is philologically allied to bhratr, and evidently means a brotherhood (R.V. 1.163.8 & IX. 14.2)63a. In fact the Vratyas were unbrahmanised Aryans, living outside the pale of Brahmanism,who openly resisted the orthodox creed (Weber, 1914, 110 f.).

The Kshatriya tribes, living in the Vrata-gana-Sangna or Samuhas (democratic republics and confederacies), were derided and rebuked for all condemnable things that could be thought of. The socalled socially advanced apostles of the Vedic religious tradition, forgot that, in showing contempt for the Vratyas, "they were condemning the ancient institution of the Vedic Aryas and that their own ancestors also in the remote past, used to live in the Vratas', otherwise, they would never have descended from heaven. The chief characteristic of the Vrata-ganas was that they had no private property, no classes, no slavery and no exploitation64. Hence, the hatred, taken to its extreme by Kautalya, the champion of monarchy and by the Mahabharata, against them, though in the Vedas they enjoyed quite high reputation. The Vedic sages, far from being unfavourably disposed towards the Vratyas, sang their glory. The Atharva Veda65, expresses their glory on a grand cosmic scale, and the Rigveda66, the first and foremost book of the Aryans, also attributes a peculiar glory to the Vratas and Ganas.

The writers of the slavery period and protagonists of monarchy reserved the worst descriptions for the Vahika-desa Vrata-ganas. As noted before, the Vahika and Madra men changed their varna in rotation. This was considered sinful by the champions of the culture of

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the slave-owners, who riding on the backs of their Sudra slaves, wanted to monopolize all pleasure and freedom for themselves. R.C. Jain61 informs us that the word Vrata is derived from 'Vr' which means to choose, select, to like better than, prefer to, (see also Monier-Williams, Skt. Eng. Dic., p. 1007). As such, it may be inferred that the Vratyas had a preference for the free classless society of the Vrata-ganas in which their members, as opposed to the orthodox class-ridden society, were afforded equal opportunity for their individual as well as social and political advancement. This way of life of the Vratyas did not subscribe to the Brahmanical rules of life, it rather defied it. The Vratyas (gramani] being Aryans outside the later Vedic circle (Brahmavrata Antravedi between Yamuna & Ganga) were always against the orthodox Vedic Aryans and their priests67a. The Vratyas also performed their own yajnas and sacrifices in which their leaders also participated68,but, even then, they were described as impure and barbarous, living outside the pale of Brahmanism. They followed their own breviary, but even then were execrated as heretics. The word Vratya is employed in the Atharvaupanishadas69 in the sense of "pure in himself" to denote the supreme being and perhaps refers to anti-brahmanical Buddhist teachers. Hence, there is no doubt that with the emerging rigidity of the caste system in the Madhyadesa and with the adoption of Buddhism by the Vratya Kshatriya tribes of the Vahikadesa they became the victim of onslaughts of the Brahmans and were stigmatised as unbrahmanised Aryas, and hence, 'fallen'. To say the least, they calumniated and traduced the time-honoured institutions, rites and rituals of the Kshatriyas of the Vahikadesa.

The Vrata were the tribal confederation of the Arya Ganas in Bharata during and after their military victory over the other original inhabitants 70. They are referred to as Panchavratah in the Rig Veda 71, Who are the Panchajna manusya of Sayana 72 and 'five kindred sacrificing races' of Wilson 73, Pargiter 74 also but rather reluctantly identifies them as the five races descended from Yayati, who truly dominated the whole earth.The Panchavratah of the Rig Veda or the five races of Wilson and Pargiter were undoubtedly, as also corroborated by Zimmer75, and A.C. Das76, the Yadus, Turvtsus, Druhvus, Anus and Purus. They were known as the Aila race of the Aryans. It may be noted that the Anavas were the descendents of Anu,who had two sons, Usinara and Titiksu. The progeny of the first were the Sivis,

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Sindhus, Sauviras, Kaikeyas, Madras, Vahikas (all progenitors of Jats) who dominated the Panjab and Sindh, wereas those of Titksu through his son Bali, were the Angas, Vangas, Kalingas, Pundras and Suhmas; who dominated eastern Bihar, Bengal proper and Orissa77. Hence their ethnological identification with the eastern and western Anavas by R.Shafer (1954), The authors of the Mahabharata directed their attack against the Chinas, Kiratas, Khasas, Sakas, Vasatis, Lichhavis, Mallas of the north; the Karaskaras, Mahishakas, Kalinga Keralas of the South ; the Virkas and Karkotakas of the interior, the Saurastras of the West, but their main target were Aila-Anava tribes of the Panjab and Sindh. 78 They were dubbed as Vratyas and Vrsla for their non-Brahmanical beliefs and faith.

The history of the development of Brahmanism since the 'night of time' reveals 'the riddle enshrouded by mystery in an enigma". Historical publications are replete with surmises that Brahmanism is bounteous and benign gift of the Aryans, which initially was not so, the available evidence warrants. As we know from Pargiter79, "Brahmanism originally was not an Aila or Aryan institution. The Brahmans were connected with and were established among the non-Aryan. The Ailas, who were their own sacrificers, actually opposed the Brahmans." The victorious expansion of the Ailas over the non-Aryans in the east and south seriously affected the position and prestige of the Brahmmans. The Brahmans, with a view to share the benefits of the victory of Ailas, as the Rajputs did under the Mughals, tried to gain access to Aila chiefs through matrimonial alliances with them, which ultimately influenced the religious beliefs and practices of the Brahmans. Thus Brahmanism appears to have developed in accordance with Aila ideas and to have owed much of its advancement to the influence of the Kshatriyas. "The Ailas", in fact, "Aryanised the Brahmans as they did the other people". As for the condemnation of the descendents of the north-westerly Vahikadesh, it seems but natural that to wreak vengeance upon them for the defeat of their erstwhile non-Aryan Yajyamaans, the Brahmans, at a later stage, spared no device, not even the sword, to denounce them as opprobrious Danavas, Dasyus , Asuras, Mlecchas, Rakshasas and Pisachas.

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Coming now to the contemporary evidence of the classical period during which the Mahabharata was mainly interpolated, we know that it is not deficient to thwart the claim of the authors of the Mahabharata and that of the later writers who propagated the flimsy picture of the Vahika tribes. General Chesney80 informs us that "the Greeks were loud in praise of the Indians; never in all their eight years of constant warfare had they met with such skilled and gallant soldiers, who, moreover, surpassed in stature and bearing all the other races or Asia .... The Indian village community flourished even at the distant period, and in the brave and manly race which fought so stoutly under Poros twenty two centuries ago we may recognise all the fine qualities of the Panjabi agrarian people of the present day, the gallant who fought us in our turn so stubbornly, and now the most valuable component of the Indian empire, and the best soldiers of its Queen Empress'. This reference, undoubtedly, points to "the accursed" Ayudhajivi ganas of the Bahikadesa and their descendents, the Jats.

External sources on Jarta

It is worth mentioning that some external sources also throw light on the Jartas but the neither connect them with Jarttikas or Madras, nor do they denounce them. Pliny81 , the Elder, a Roman scholar (A.D.23-79) places Gratae (Jartas) In the level country of Amanda near Taxila82. Ptolemy83 also refers to Zaratoi of Indo-Scythia in Lower Indus, which to N.L.De84 lies near Jalandhar. These sources establish the existence of the Jartas in Panjab and Sindh, but they do not speak adverse of them. Rather, the Bahikas are admired "for decorous behavior and good ways of life85". Strabo86 and Megasthenes87 found them "simple and frugal, orderly in behaviour, observing self restraint in theft and not given to drinking except at sacrifices'. Diodorus88 found them' governed by laws in the highest degree salutary and their political system as one to admire; beauty was held among them in the highest estimation in preferences to dowry etc." and "the inhabitants of these cities (Sangala or Sakala)" are generally held "in higher estimation than the rest of their countrymen".

Nevertheless, we know three other equally important sources - i.e. Milinda-Panho of Menander (2nd Cen. B.C.), Mahabhashya of Patanjali and the Ashtadhyayi of Panini (6th Cen. B.C.), which throw a flood of light on the life and civilization of the Bahikas and their

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habitat, the Vahikadesa, but surprisingly enough, none of them corroborate the version of the Mahabharata regarding the nefariously depicted Vahika tribes. Rather, the descriptions of their social, political, economic and religious life available in the works of the two Indian scholiasts89 and in that of the Graeco-Bactrian King, Menander, (Milindo of Sanskrit or Pali Prakrit90) oppugn the assertion of the Karna-Parva. Milindo Panho furnishes us with a diametrically opposite picture of the people of the Punjab. "Her country (Punjab) was paradise; men were handsome and women were beautiful; pious were her people and the city of Sakala was so full of money, gold and silver ware, copper and stone ware; corn, food and drinks of every sort; syrups and sweet-meats of every kind; that in wealth it rivalled with Uttra-Kurus and in glory it was the Alakananda, the city of gods". It may not be inopportune to mention here that the very exponent of the theory, I mean, C.V. Vaidya91 himself believes that the evidence of the Mahabharata is of less value than that of the Greek scholars.

Further refutation of the claim of the Epic and fairness to the Vahika people require us to add what the Chinese travellers said about them. Fa-Hien92 held them in high esteem for their courteous manners and accommodating spirit."The food and clothes of the common people (of north-western frontiers-Udyana) were the same as in the Central Kingdom (Mathura)", where "the people were numerous and happy; they had not to register their households, or attend to any magistrates and their rules, only those who cultivated the royal land had to pay a portion of the grain from it; the king governed without decapitation or corporal punishments; criminals were simply fined, lightly or heavily according to circumstances; only in cases of repeated attempts at wicked rebellion, had they their right hand cut-off; throughout the whole country the people did not kill any living creature, nor took intoxicating liquor, nor ate onions or garlic (except the Chandals who were, according to Manu, the progeny of Shudra male & Brahmin female, who lived outside the city and who while entering the city had to beat a drum to warn others to avoid them); they did not keep pigs and fowls and did not sell live cattle; in the markets there were no butcher's shops and no dealers in intoxicating drinks". Fa-Hien was greatly moved with the compassion and the sympathy displayed by the people of Bhida (Punjab), who supplied him and his followers with what they needed and treated them in accordance with the rules of the

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law. The evidence cited above may, however, be considered unnecessary, yet it has a relevance. The whole of the Sanskrit literature was revised during the Gupta period. The Mahabharata could not have escaped its revision and interpolations. Hence, to counteract the interpolations that defame the Vahika people, it is very essential to bring into service what Fa-Hien, a contemporary authority, has to say about those people.

Though the accounts of Hieun Tsang relating to the life of the people of the western Madradesa are comparatively of a later date (7th cen. A.D), yet it will not be irrelevant to explore the same to substantiate our defence against the theory. In spite of being robbed by brigands near Sakala93, the observation of the unruffled Hieun Tsang regarding the people of that region appears to be unbiased. According to him94 "all wash themselves before eating; never eat left-over meals, do not pass dishes, destroy wooden and stone vessels after use, rub and polish those made of gold, silver, copper and iron, cleanse their teeth with a willow stick, wash their hands and mouth and until these ablutions are finished they do not touch one another; they are not deceitful or treacherous in their conduct and are faithful to their oaths and promises." This is the evidence from non-Brahmanical sources which controverts conclusively the version of the Mahabharata and which should not be lightly dismissed. There is no greater improbability that the slanderous condemnation of the warrior tribes of Madradesa might have been again inserted in the Epic after Hieun Tsang's visit to take shine out of his rosy depiction of those people as well as to shadow the lustre of 'Ajay Jarto Hunan' which pays a growing tribute to the bravery of the Jartas in 599 A.D. and which served as a clue to C.V. Vaidya to connect the Jartas with the Jats.


We may deal, next, with the derogatory references made in the Karna Parva about Madra women. Modern scholars, have made an intensive study of the Mahabharata especially in relation to the position and status of women in the Epic Age in particular and in the Hindu civilization in general. We know that no importance, worth the name, is given by them to the reprehensible description of the character of the women of Madradesa. They have, on the other hand, rejected it as absurd. Dr. Altekar95, who had delved extensively into the co-curricular and extracurricular activities, "including military training. in

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which unmarried and married women participated during the Epic period", holds that the fantastic tales regarding astonishing laxity in sexual morality of the women in the Mahabharata "are no doubt written deliberately to blacken the character of women, the sentiment they conveyed found no acceptance in the society; they carry no conviction with a reasonable person and should not be taken at their face value". Dr. Apte96 also remarks that "while we should not entertain highly exaggerated notions of unfailing chastity during that age, disproportionate importance need not be attached to isolated cases."

The most vehement critic in this respect is Dr. (Miss) Shakambari Jayal97 who asserts that "references in the Great Epic to free societies and freedom exercised by women are utterances of the interested parties. Karna's abuse of Madra women cannot be considered seriously. It is rather difficult to locate unchastity of women in any particular society or country and associate it with a particular race. Therefore, those descriptions based on hearsay are very dubious and unreliable, and may have been added to make accounts of battle more interesting". Dr. Jogiraj Basu98 says that "there might have been an instance of laxity but such isolated exception cannot impair the general rule that the standard of sexual morality was very high and chastity of women was regarded as a priceless treasure". Hence, in the light of the above, the condemnation of the Madra women in the Karna Parva is rejected as absurd and preposterous. It only points to the total irresponsibility of the interpolators who could slander a whole people with impurity to grind their own axe and to serve their narrow caste ends.

The treatment of the theory may remain incomplete unless the mystery shrouding the existence of the Jartas or Jarttikas is tackled satisfactorily, Vardhman99, a Jain scholar of twelfth century A.D., mentions three tribes named the Sakas, Khasas and the Jartas, and informs us that "a warrior of the last defeated the Hunas". Acharya Gopika100, without naming the warrior, "admired the king who exterminated the Hunas". D.C. Ganguli101 refers to modern Kutch as the Jartradesa of tenth century A.D. with her Kings Phula and his son, Laksha, but it is dubious if they were in any way connected with] Jarttikas of the Epic. Hemchandra102 identifies the Jartas with a wild tribe of the white jungle (Shavet-Vanvasi), Durga Sinha103 refers to the Jartah Dirgharoma (people with long hair) in the seventh Century A.D.

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Chandragomin104 states Ajay Jarto Hunan (the invincible Jartas defeated the Hunas) in the sixth century A.D. Yaska105, a fore-runner of Panini mentions a people Jatya Atnaro, but does not call them Jarta, Bhagwaddutta followed by B.S. Dahiya106 assert that the people with long hair (Jarta Dirgharoma) are none else but the Shakas, Tukharah, Kankascha Romasha Shringnonarah (Sakas, Tukhara, Kankas etc. with long hair) of the Mahabharata (47.26) but they are not called Jartas in the Epic.

From works of the above scholars we find one fact being high-lighted that a Jarta warrior or king defeated the Hunas.

Who was the conqueror of the Hunas?

After all, who was this conqueror of the Hunas?

  • Majumdar read the versions of Chandragomin as 'Ajay Gupto Hunan' and to him this conqueror was a Gupta monarch, but this erroneous view was later on corrected by himself and Belvalkar107.
  • Now the general consensus on chronological and ethnological grounds, among the scholars, is that this exterminator of the Hunas, was the Malwa King,named Yashodharma, of the Mandsor Inscription108 (532-33 A.D.).
  • Majumdar109 connects him with Aulikaras where as
  • Carlleyle and Cunningham110 take him to be a Bains,
  • But to all intents and purposes, as evidence by the said inscription, he belonged to the Virk dynasty.

It goes without saying that the Tukharas (Tusharas), Kankas or Kang, Aulikaras or Aulikas or Aulakhas, Bains or Bainswalas, Virkas or Birkas, are all the names of the Jat tribes and they claim no connection with the Jartikas of the Great Epic. But the Sanskrit scholars of the medieval period seen to have used the so-called sanskritised term Jarta for the warrior chiefs of such tribes without specifically mentioning their names. Hence they seem to have taken a cue from the suggested Jartikas thrown up by the Epic to perpetuate their gloomy picture in the popular mind, otherwise they could have easily used for those tribes the term Jat or Jatt or Zutt which had, without any shadow of doubt, come to be applied to various warrior tribes of north-western India since the time of Panini and Herodotus112.

A signal challenge here has been the evident intention of various subsequent scholars, acting as authorities but with apparent racial and religious bias to confuse Jat and Jarta in the mind of general public. The term Jartika or Jarta has come down to be notorious for symbolsing all impurity and indecencies. The purpose of its use for the Virka

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conquerors of the Hunas was not to represent the former as Jat but to decry them and to dilute and pollute the perfume of their heroic and historical deeds. The version of their absurd origin, highlighted by Buddha Prakash113, as "chimerical offspring of the union of a prince and a she-wolf, (a biological impossibility) further strengthens our suspicion regarding the intention of the scholar vis-a-vis the Jats. The Virkas were a republican Vahika warrior tribe. Instead of giving credit to their martial qualities they were denounced as sons of a she-wolf, if not those of a bitch. 'The etymology of Vahikas from the two imaginary demons, Bahi and Heeka, residing in the Vipasa river, is considered fanciful by the learned scholar, but even then, they are said to have degenerated the people of the Panjab, conveying probably the concealed sense that they, too, are the sons of the demons. Above all, the same scholar refreshes, rather authoritatively, in the popular psyche, the idea that the admixture of the Jarttikas or Jartas with the Madras etc. led to the degeneration of the latter's character. He seems to be so much convinced with the version of the Epic as if he himself accompanied the Jartas in the Madradesa. What a pity, that an insignificant "jarta-fish" spoiled the whole water of Vahika rivers and her warriors, and a pinch of Jarttika Yoghurt" turned the whole milk of all the Vahika Madras sour! The normal tendency is for new-comers to be coloured by the culture of the majority, for every body follows the dictum: "while in Rome, do as the Romans do". What a surprise, that the Jartikas escaped the civilizing influence and acculturation by the highly advanced Vahika tribes; instead, they barbarised the latter'. The Brahman writers have made wide use of the formula: "Give the dog a bad name and hang it". The Jats were named as Jartas and were defamed throughout Indian history.


No less confusing is the view of C.V. Vaidya, according to whom the Jats, on the one hand, are "the purest of the Aryans, belonging to the Solar race", but, on the other hand, the Shudras in modern opinion for following the Vedic practice of widow marriage and the noblest profession of agriculture and animal husbandry besides their arms, and connects them with the denounced Jarttikas of the Karna Parva of the Mahabharata. He tries to establish his assertion with the statemate, 'Ajaya Jarto Hunan' of Chandragomin of the fifth century A.D. A close analysis of Vaidya's assertion also compels us to remark that the Jats, as descendents of the Solar race of the Aryans, lose their ancestral lustre

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As soon as they are connected with "the Jarttika or Jartas who were not created by the Prajapati." This eminent scholar, too, had contributed to build a psychosis that the Jats are the Jarttikas or Jartas, the immoral and the notorious people of the Mahabharata time. Had he, to whom "the: Jats are the purest [[Aryans and are the descendents of the first race, the: Solar race", disenchanted himself from the racial and religious prejudices, he could have, in all fairness to them, identified the Jats, are also called Asuras, as the progeny of Jata114, one of the seven sons of Brahma, probably from his Asuri wife. In common parlance in northern India there are only two 'devatas', the 'Jat devata' and the 'Brahmana devata' 114a, but the orthodox scholars can ill afford to pay this glowing tribute to their adversaries, the Jats, for their honourable origin from the son of Brahma.

Jarta or Jartika origin theory rejected

To sum up our discussion of the theory, it may, in capsule, be remarked that the version of the Mahabharata, regarding the Jarttikas and their gloomy picture, cannot be considered reliable because of its more-than one redactions, revisions and interpolations at different times by different scholars with vested interests. The contention of scholars, who question the very existence of the Jarttikas and Sakala at the time of the Epic war, cannot be dismissed lightly and deserves further investigations. The evidence from other sources pertaining to the contemporary period, during which the Great Epic is believed to have been largely interpolated, not only does not support the calumny but, on the other hand, it forcefully contradicts the picture purporting to assassinate the character of the Vahika warrior tribes, the progenitors of the Jats, Modern scholars, who have burnt mid-night oil in making an intensive as well as extensive study of the Great Epic and of the position and status of women in the Heroic Age of Indian history, are not found wanting in rejecting the nefarious depiction of the Vahika women as absurd and preposterous.

The purpose of the theory, instead of tracing the origin of the Jats, was threefold i.e.

  • primarily to represent the Jats as out landers (Vahikas or Bahikas) in the sense that they hailed from other adjoining countries where they are, being the purest Aryans, the autochthons in India;
  • secondly to denounce them perpetually in popular estimation, by identifying them with the Obnoxiously painted Jartikas or Jartas, as fallen and degenerate as depicted in the Great Epic;
  • thirdly to denounce the ancestors of the present Jats for adopting Buddhism and for not submitting to the yoke of Brahmanism

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which after its revival sought to impose on them in ancient period. A clever play upon words with similar sounds has been made to conceal the truth, which cannot be easily understood by common man.

Even if we accept the identification of the modern Jats with the ancient Jarttikas or Jartas, we, as noticed above, find the life and character of the two people poles apart. In all probability the Jartas were followers of Zoroastara (Zaratushtra = Zarat + ushtra, Trara- porevala, 1951: 73f and Rahurkar, 1964: 130) who, as informed by Max Muller115, before their schism with the followers of Vedic religion, "were a colony' from northern India and who were Ahura Worshippers". The coins of Kanishka116 present besides others the Zoroastrian gods also. We have every reason to gather from it that some of the Zoroastrians must a so be in the Panjab and Sindh during his reign. Like the Sakas and Kushanas they must have been naturally denigrated by the champions of the Brahmanical faith. Just as the later Kushan-Saka Jats were assimilated with the aboriginal Jats, so might have Jartas been absorbed into them. But we must remember that the Jarta admixture is some thing different from Jarta origin of the Jats.

Hence, the theory is rejected as much a futile effort as the scaling of the height of the Everest by a blind with a raw cotton thread."

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Notes and References

1. Qanungo, op.cit., p. 5 & fn.
2. ASR, Vol. 11, 1863-64, p. 3.
3. Anc. Geog. of Ind., 1924, Calcutta, p. 696.
4. His. of Med. Hindu Ind., Vol. 1, 1979, N. Delhi, pp. 86 ff.
5. Correspondence with author.
6. Ind. in the Time of Patanjali, 1957, Bombay, p. 77. But he does not hold the Jarttikas as Jats.
7. Jats (The Anc. Rulers), 1983, Delhi, pp. 22f.
8. His. of Jats, 1967, Delhi, p. 15.
9. Strange, G. Le.; Eastern Caliphate, 1966, London, pp. 244 331. Westphal-Hellbusch Sigrid and Heinz Westphal; Zur Geschichte un: Kultur der Jat, 1968, Berlin, p. 12.
10. Ency. of Islam, Vol. 11. p. 488.
11. Pol. & Soc. Movements in Anc. Pb. 1964, Delhi, pp. 114, 2.)1.
12. Ibid. pp. 219, 243, 251.
13. His. of Herodotus, Vol. III, pp. 185, 209.
14. Buddha Prakash, op. cit., pp. 135f.
15. Ashtadhyayi, IV, 2, 117-118; V: 3, 114.
16. Buddha Prakash, op.cit., pp. 136.
17. Mbt., VIII, 44.
18. Infra.
19. Mbt., Karna Parva, XL 22-23; XLIV, 6-7,10-21,35-37,42-46; XLV, 6-7,13, etc.
20. Op.cit., pp. 7f
21. Op.cit., pp. 81.
22. Op.cit., pp. 15f.
2. Op.cit., pp. 379.
24. Op.cit., Urdu Ed. p. 31.
24a. Tautmann, Thomas, R. 1974 "Cross-Cousin Marriage in Anc. N. Ind.?", in Kinship & History in South Asia, Michigan Papers on S. & SE Asia, No. 7; Ann Arbor, Centre for S. & SE. Asian Studies, Uni. of Michigan, p. 84.
25. Op.cit., pp. 206-19, 696. cf. also McCrindle, 'Invasion', pp. 347,411.
26. Aggarwal, V. 5.; op.cit., pp. 73.

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26a. Kathai (Kathis), The Hittis of Jews. romanised into Hillite, where: the 'Vahiti gana deva-ganita', the worshipped Lords of the Parthian (Bhartian) ganas of Vahikadesha or Airyana (Waddell, op.eit., pp. 107; cf also C Lassen. Indi. che Alter Thumakunde, 1847, 1,9).
26b. Weber, Albrecht; His. of Ind. Lit., London, 1914, p. 33 fn. Cf. also Weber. Indi che Studien, Vol. 1, p.277.
27. Camb. His. of Ind., Vol. 1, p. 496; Sacred Bks. of East, Vol. XV, Pt.II, p. 132.
28. op.c t.
29. Vaidya, CV.; Mahabharata-A Criticism, 1904. Bombay. pp. 1-7; Weber, A.; His. of Ind. Lit., 1914, London pp. 183-89. Beniprasad, Ane. Cul. of Ind. (Hindi Ed.), 1950, p. 150.
30. Op., cit., pp. 66.
31. Op., cit., pp. 145.
32. Ibid , 192.
33. Mbt ,XL, 20f; XLV, 23f, 30, 33f, 391; XLV, 2.
34. Ibid XLIV, 22, 41, 43, 48; XLV, 25.
35. Vaidya, CV.; His. of Med. Hindu Ind., Vol. 11, 1924, Bombay, p. 313.
35a. Weber, A.; His. of Indian Literature, London 1914 pp. 4,39.
36. Mbt. A Criticism, p. 28.
37. Siddhanta, op.cit., pp. 147, 155, 162.
38. Bhagwaddata, Bharatvarsh Ka Brihad Itihas, Vol. I, p. 156.
39. Vaidya, CV.; Mbt. A Criticism, p. 29. Y.P. Shastri, op.cit., Hindi ed., p. 614.
40. Vedic Index, Vol.I, p. 138. A.D. Pusalker, Hist., and Cul. of Ind. People- 'Vedic Age', pp. 262-63. Bhagwaddutta op.cit., pp. 156. B.C Law, Kshat. of Anc Ind., 1975, p. 214.
41. Bhagddutta, op.cit., pp. 156.
42. Buddha Prakash, op.cit., pp. 112-13.
43. Ibid ,p. 43.
44. Kosambi, D.D.; Cul. and Civ. of Anc. Ind., New Delhi, 1976, p.118.
44a. Also see Keith, Rigveda-Brahmanas, Harvard Oriental Series, No. 25 (1920), p. 387. S.K. Chatterji, Indo-Aryan & Hindi, 1960, Pinna, K.L. Mul hopadhyaya, Calcutta, p. 50; H.C Chakladar, Eastern Ind. and Aryavarta a in IHQ 4, No.1 (1928).
45. Apte:, V.S., Skt. Eng. Dic., Part II, 1959 pp. 1164,1405,1422. Dwarka Prasad Chaturvedi Sharma, Skt. Shabadarath Kaustumbh, 1957, p. 804.
46. Mookerji; Radha Kumud; Anc. Ind., Allahabad, 1956, p. 141.
47. Hindu POlity, p. 32, Part 7; p. 33, Part 18.
48. op.cit., pp. 252.

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49. S.B.E., Vol. XXX, Part II, p. 37. Cf also Atharva Veda, XV.
50. Ibid., Vol.II, Part I, pp. 4-5.
51. Ibid., Vol. XXV, p. 37.
52. Chattopadhayay, Lokayat, p. 167.
53. S.B.E., Vol. XIV, Part II, p. 198.
54. Camb. His, Ind., Vol. I, p. 276.
55. Aggarwal, V.S.; Ind. Kn. to Panini, pp. 442-44.
56. Dange, S.A Ind. (From Primitive Communism to Slavery, 1951, p. 154.
57. Blunt, E.A.H.S.; Caste Sys. of N. Ind., 1969, p. 21.
58. Jayaswal, op.cit., pp. 243, fn. 61.
59. Kane, P.V., His. of Dharmashastras, Vol.II, 1941, p. 66.
60. Rigveda, 10.5.5.5; 10.4.15.5. Chattopadhayaya op.cit., pp. 165.
61. Ibid., p. 167. Aggarwal, V.S. op.cit., pp. 442.
62. Chattopadhayay, op.cit., pp. 167.
63. Aggarwal, V.S., op.cit., pp. 443.
63a. Chattopadhyaya, K.P.; Anc. Ind. Cul. Contacts & Mig., 19,:), Calcutta, pp. 2f.
64. Dange, op.cit., pp. 149.
65. S.B.E., Vol. XLII, p. 134. Atharv Veda, XV.
66. 1.22.7.8; 10.3.5.8; 10.4.15.5.
67. The Most Anc. Aryan Society, p. 211.
67a. Cf. Kimura Ryukan; A His. Stu. of the Terms Hinayana & Mahayana, etc. 1927., Calcutta, pp. 26ff.
68. Ibid., p. 213. Weber Albrecht; His, Ind. Lit., London, 1914, p. 141.
69. Weber. op.cit., pp. 147.
70. R.C. Jain, op.cit., p. 216.
71. 1.7.9; VI. 14.4; IX 1.14.2.
72. Q. by Jain, op.cit., p. 213.
73. Rigveda, Vol. V, p. 212.
74. Anc. Ind. His. Trad. p. 295.
75. Macdonald and Keith, Vedic Index, Vol. I, 1958, pp. 466-68
76. Das, AC.; Rigvedic Culture, pp. 32, 45-46, 67.
77. Ibid., p. 293.
78. XLIV, 42. 46; XLV, 29.
79. Op.cit.. p. 303.21.
80. McCrindle, J.W.; Anc. Ind., (New Ed.) New Delhi, p. 345.

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81. Majumdar, R.C.; Class, Accts. of Ind., p. 345.
82. Pliny, VI. 23; ASR, Vol. 11, 1863, p. 6.
83. Anc. Ind. As Desc, by Ptolemy, ed. McCrindle rep. by Surendra Nath Majumdar, Cal. 1927.
84. Majumdar, op.cit., p. 373.
85. Satya Shrava, Sakas in Ind., N. Delhi, 1981, p. 5.
86. Strabo, Bk., XV. 1.53,54-59, Q. by Majumdar, R.c. Class Accts. of Ind., pp. 269-75.
87. Ibid. His. and Cul. of Ind. People, Vol. II (The Age of Imperial Unity), p. 69.
88. Majumdar, op.cit., p. 170-171. Jayaswal, op.cit., p. 56.
89. Cf. V.S. Aggarwal and B.N. Puri for details.
90. Rhys David, S.B.E. Vol. XXV, Part I, pp, 2-3.
91. Vaidya, C.V.; op.cit., Vol.II, 1924, pp. 263.
92. Legge, Travels of Fa-Hien, pp. 28, 41-43.
93. Beal, Samuel; Buddhist Records of the Western World, 1969, Bk, IV. p.165, fn.5.
94. Ibid., Bk.II, pp. 75-88, Bk. IV, pp. 165-76.
95. Altekar, Dr. A.S.; op.cit., (1938), pp. 12, 17-18,24-26, Siddhanta, op.cit., p. 151,162-65.
96. Apte, V.M.; The Vedic Age, Bk. VI. Ch. XXIII.
97. Jayal, Dr. (Miss) Shakarnbari; The Status of Women in the Epics, 1966, pp 35-36,216-17.
98. Basu, Dr. Jogiraj; Ind. of the Age of the Brahmanas, 1969, pp. 37-38.
99. Bhagwaddutta. op.cit., p. 325.
100. Ibid.
101. His. and Cul. of Ind. Peop. Vol. IV (Age of Imp. Kanauj), 1955, p. 101.
102. Bhagwadduta, op.cit., p. 325.
103. Ibid.
104. Vaidya, op.cit., Vol. 1 pp. 87-88.
105. Rishi, Prof. Umashankar Sharma; The Nirukta of Yaska (Hindi Trans.) Vol.I,1977, p. 35, Ch. 1-7 (Niruktam, 1.4.14).
106. Dahiya, B.S.; Jats-The Anc. Rulers, 1980, p. 22.
107. A New His. of Ind. Peop., Vol. VI, p. 197.
108. Des Raj, op.cit., pp. 57-58, Y.P. Shastri, op.cit., Hindi ed., p. 618. Urdu ed, p. 421; Vaidya, op.cit., Vol. I, p. 88.
109. The His. and Cul. Of Ind. Peop., Vol. III (Class. Age) p. 39, fn. 1-2.
110. Archae, Sur. of Ind., Vol. VI, (1871-73), p. 60.

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111. B.S. Dahiya, op.cit., p. 210.
112. Panini for Jatt, Jhatta Sanghate, Niruktam for Jatya Atnaro, Herodotus for Getae etc., George Rawlinson, His. of Herodotus, Vol. III, pp. 185, 209, Tod, Vol.I, pp. 621-24. A.S. Basum Ansari, q. by Dr. Sigrid Westphal-Hellbusch, The Jat of Pakistan, Berlin, 1964, p. 102 fn. 53.
113. Buddha Prakash, op.cit., p. 102.
114. Cf. Asiatic Researches, Vol.II, p. 99.
114a. Jindal, M.S; Jat and Jutland, 1982, Agra, p. 2.
115. Science of Language, Vol.II, p. 279 (5th edition).
116. Upadhyaya, Bhagwat Saran; Feeders of Indian Culture, PPH., N. Delhi, 1973, p.172.

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