Talk:Kshatriya

Ahirs/Yadavs are real Kshatriyas

Ahirs are doodhwalas, No, they were not thee kshatriyas, Why they are ashamed of saying themselves Ahir. The tribes and castes of Bombay, Volume 1 By Reginald Edward Enthoven

http://books.google.co.in/books?id=FoT6gPrbTp8C&pg=PA134&dq=yadavs+are+chandravanshi+kshatriyas&hl=en&ei=JA-sTaeLLofIrQfuzYSoCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.co.in/books?ei=6wJ_TbmGMMyxrAeUudmtBw&ct=result&id=zxtuAAAAMAAJ&dq=gujjars+are+ahirs&q=ahirs

Also according to The Vayu purana the colonies of Kshatriyas are Vahlikas, Vadha- dhanas, Abhiras, Kalatoyakas, Aparitas, Sudras, Pahlavas.

http://books.google.co.in/books?ei=4yOUTcUPibSsB7Pm9P8L&ct=result&id=XFUIAQAAIAAJ&dq=abhira+afghanistan&q=The+colonies+of+Ksattriyas3+

The Vayu purana, Part 1-page-296

"Gujjar are not kshatriya this is mislead -wrong"

"vedic origin " "Gujjar are not kshatriya this is not in any veda. gurjjar, gujar, goojar are never be rajput. this is 100% wrong article — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.215.178.44 (talk) 06:32, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I have removed the section for now. My reasoning is that the sources (eg: a book on costume) are poor, that there was an element of copyright violation in there, and that some of it was pure synthesis (the sentence trying somehow to infer that the Mihir name means that they must be kshatriya). I know that the position of Gurjars has been disputed on a few articles but cannot recall which ones. In any event, there is no harm in us thrashing out the pros and cons for there inclusion in this one. - Sitush (talk) 08:38, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 5 July 2012

I believe under the 'Khatriya Lineage" section we should list Punjabi Khatri's as representing kshatriyas of the Punjab region.

Raja4811 (talk) 02:56, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Are Punjabi thought of as a distinct, separate group? Do they have customs or behaviors that are different from those of other Kshatriyas? If so, could you point to some reliable sources that discuss this distinction? If there is some evidence that "Punjabi Kshatriyas" are distinct and different from other "Kshatriyas" then inclusion would be appropriate. But, for example, we don't have an article about Business owners in Punjab, because there isn't any specific reason to single out that group as "special". The key is that you'll need to provide sources that explain this distinction. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:07, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Since the Kshatriya Lineage section lists several categories of regional Kshatriyas, the listing is obviously incomplete as it leaves out a very important regional section, i.e. Punjabi Kshatriyas. Locally they have long and historically been calling themselves 'Khatris often referred as Punjabi Khatris. Any Northern India sunday newspaper typically carries matrimonials listing Punjabi khatris separately. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Raja4811 (talk • contribs) 23:56, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Much of this article is a mess. That is no reason to make it still more messy. Qwyrxian is correct: find some sources to distinguish your point. AS for what is there, well, it may not be for much longer as I have been tempted to wield my axe widely and vigourously. - Sitush (talk) 00:03, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Maurya, kushwaha and shakya clans are also kshatriyas

according to history and other sources there clans were also a Kshatriyas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.200.179.194 (talk) 05:10, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Please provide reliable sources to support those claims. "History" is too vague. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:33, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Pleaase make changes: Chera, Chola Pandys are belongs to Mukkulathor community who is a Kshatriya of Tamilnadu. Vellalars are higercast agriculturist community. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Moovendhan (talk • contribs) 21:20, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Thurston, Edgar; K. Rangachari (1909). Castes and Tribes of Southern India Volume I - A and B. Madras: Government Press. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Moovendhan (talk • contribs) 21:11, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Sitush will recall for certain, but I don't think Thurston is considered reliable for this type of information. I may, though, be confusing him with another author. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:30, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

The main problem with Thurston's nine-volume Caste & Tribes series originates from the fact that it is mostly a synopsis of the thoughts recorded by earlier commentators, often from many decades earlier. Thurston generally passes no comment upon those thoughts, although (unlike the much more recent series by the Anthropological Survey of India) he does usually attribute them. It is well-known that British Raj sources have numerous issues relating to amateurism, veracity, social engineering and even scientific racism, not to forget a distinct assumption (often contradictory) of good faith in recording the opinions of various social groups who were hell-bent on manipulating their position in society. This process has been described as Sanskritisation. Furthermore, much of the work of Thurston, H. H. Risley and similar people was intended to supplement the classification methods adopted for the decennial census exercises. Since those methods changed substantially from one decade to the next, and since even those who oversaw them - such as Denzil Ibbetson - admitted that they were massively flawed, the entire scenario becomes a nightmare.

I think that our basis has to be whether or not Thurston is generally cited by modern writers on the subject and, to the best of my knowledge, he is not. A secondary consideration would be if we could use the "X noted that A considered themselves to be ..." formula. However, this formula does not work well in the sphere of Indian castes precisely because of the tendency for self-promotion etc. We need more recent sourced, in my opinion. - Sitush (talk) 23:42, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

BTW, a read of Kushwaha#Classification gives a decent example of the problems here. Disclaimer: I have worked long and hard to keep the pov-pushers in check at that and related articles, mostly connected with the related Kurmi and Yadav communities. These issues have been taken to WP:DRN etc before now and consensus has always been in my favour, to the best of my recollection. - Sitush (talk) 00:03, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Gujjars are Kshatriyas

I added Gujjars to kshatriyas and also added enough references to support the inclusion. I simply want to state that things can't go in good faith if someone is bent over doing something blindly. I request the senior contributors to please go through cited references before removing some content because we can't think of a good source of information if we go on removing from it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Author 91 (talk • contribs) 14:59, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Telling Gujjars are Kshatriyas is the same as telling Indians or English are Kshatriyas. Gujjars is the name of people, not caste. And most of them have converted to Islam.Rajkris (talk) 21:31, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

see this ref [1]: "Tribal leaders and nobles were accepted as Kshatriyas, the second order of the Hindus, while their followers entered the fourth (Sudra, or cultivating) order to form the basis of tribal castes, such as the Jats, the Gujars, and the Ahirs".Rajkris (talk) 21:39, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

one can mention that Gujjars nobles were accepted as Kshatriyas but writting that whole Gujjars are Kshatriyas or have Kshatriya origin is wrong.Rajkris (talk) 22:03, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I am not going to argue further on this but this attitude of yours would seriously lead to edit wars because being a contributor your responsibility is to check if the content added is valid or not. I am sorry to say this but you shouldn't bring your own invalid or biased logic in order to decide in matters such as these. You ,by authority, have removed the content and someone would definitely add it again and it may continue to God knows till when. If you seriously think that your point that only leaders were the only kshatriyas and followers were not then may I use your words as: "People serving our defense forces belong to kshatriya and everyone else to some other varna." That is not true for sure because it has nothing to do with being a king or follower, it is all about caste of the follower. Even if you say that Gurjar nobles were accepted as kshatriyas, why weren't nobles from other castes? Please go through the history properly once before acting because your actions surely do hurt sentiments.

And about conversion to Islam, I know varnas do not apply in Islam but obviously here we are talking about those religions to whom varna system was applicable at that time.Author 91 (talk) 21:19, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I checked your refs and they do not support what you wrote.Rajkris (talk) 23:14, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Author91, varna issues are notoriously contentious on Wikipedia. And, for what it is worth, Rajkris has been on what they probably still think is the "wrong end" of some kshatriya claims. They argued long and hard for retention of an article concerning kshatriyas but failed. Given that background, I think that their points here carry a reasonable amount of weight. Furthermore, there have been similar discussions at Gurjar etc from which it is evident that the situation is at best confusing.

To be honest, I am less than happy with the current situation in this article. The section heading at least in theory allows mention of any community that self-identifies as kshatriya and - for those of us who have some experience of these issues - that probably amounts to abou 70% of all castes, primarily because of crappy British Raj ethnology and sanskritisation. It is a farce and I would much rather that the bar was raised. - Sitush (talk) 02:09, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I certainly don't agree with Rajkris completely and respecting what Situshhas written above, I am again adding some content with the "other" references I have checked and got cross checked. One thing I want to clear is that we're not here to judge things on our "personal" knowledge. If someone is citing enough references that go with the claims, then we can't apply our own thinking to judge but should try to judge using references. I hope the newer references would help Rajkris and Sitush allow my edit to stay. Thank you. Author 91 (talk) 16:38, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

At this stage, it would be best to continue discussion rather than further edit the article. The point is clearly controversial and there is nothing to stop you listing your sources for review here. - Sitush (talk) 16:46, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Sitush, I had edited the article before noticing your message here. No offences, but I don't think it would be a good idea to revert my last edit since the references I have provided are more than enough. Can we let that edit stay because of lack of clear reason to revert it and discuss things here if you have any to say about it.- Author 91 (talk) 17:08, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It would be a good time because we do have a convention and that is described in the bold, revert, discuss essay. Btw, no way are H. A. Rose or a Christian advocacy group reliable sources for any kshatriya claim by any community. - Sitush (talk) 17:11, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Why would the religion of a historian or a researcher determine if he/she is a reliable source of information on Indian history. And as far as conventions are concerned, I don't think conventions were being followed earlier. I am open to discussion here but I still believe that removal of content without a VALID reason is a solution to this conflict. -Author 91 (talk) 17:22, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

OK. I am going to revert you per consensus regarding reliability of British Raj sources, WP:BRD and the dubious nature of non-expert Christian advocacy groups. Feel free to continue discussion but insertion of contested statements in an article when discussion is ongoing is never preferable to omission of the same. - Sitush (talk) 17:27, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I note, by the way, that your most recent edits appear to be copy/pastes from other articles. You cannot do this without providing attribution, eg: "X copied from article Y". I'd be grateful if you could let us know which articles you used to assemble those snippets. - Sitush (talk) 17:32, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

For ease of discussion, I list your most recently cited sources below.

1. The Gujur Rajasthani of South Asia, Bethany World Prayer Center, 1997, archived from the original on 2007-03-15, retrieved 2007-05-31

1. Rose, Horace Arthur (1990), Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North West Frontier Province, Asian Educational Services, p. 300, ISBN 81-206-0505-5 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

1. Jamanadas, K., "Rajput Period Was Dark Age Of India", Decline And Fall Of Buddhism: A tragedy in Ancient India, New Delhi: Bluemoon Books, retrieved 2007-05-31 {{citation}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)

1. Bhandarkar, Devadatta Ramakrishna (1989), Some Aspects of Ancient Indian Culture, Asian Educational Services, p. 64, ISBN 81-206-0457-1

1. University of Kerala, Dept. of History (1963), Journal of Indian history, Volume 41, Dept. of History, University of Kerala,Original from the University of California, p. 765, Gurjara-Prathiranvaya, of the Rajor inscription, which was incised more than a hundred years later than Bhoja's Gwalior prasasti, nearly fifty years later than the works of the poet rajasekhara. - Sitush (talk) 17:43, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Claims versus reality

I mentioned in the preceding section that I have some concerns regarding listing of communities that claim kshatriya status rather than being recognised as kshatriya by their peers. Kshatriya is a classification in the varna system, it lies right at the heart of the caste concept and it applies to entire communities. Many are the occasions when communities have attempted to bolster their socio-economic standing by making claims to kshatriya rank. Indeed, so often has it happened that it is quite common for the regular contributors to Wikipedia's Indic articles to note that, if all these claims were accepted, everyone must once have been a king and no-one a cook, barber, stonemason etc. And the list here would be huge.Of course, the sanskritisation theory explains away many of the claims, and there are other causes of doubt. For example, there is the problem - particularly evident in south India - where some people within a community obtained a pseudo-kshatriya status but the community as a whole were regarded as shudra or whatever. Since kshatiya status is a communal concept, it is simply irrational that members of a community could be classified in multiple varna.

I propose that we should confine listing specifically to those communities whose claims are generally recognised and to avoid listing those where doubts are expressed. We can provide a section that points out the issues of sanskritisation etc, in which we could perhaps give a couple of practical examples, but the only way we are going to get some sort of stability in this article is to prevent the continual addition and deletion of contested claims. - Sitush (talk) 17:24, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Sitush for starting this discussion. All I want to say is that if we were to go by what you think, doubts can be raised about each and every community listed in CLAIMED MEMBERS and as you say, everybody will be a cook,barber or whatever. If there are doubts about some community being ranked differently according to different people, how can one ignore the valid claims. Why are we following what we want to see. As per my knowledge, Gurjars,Jats and Ahirs have common origin and Rajputs originated from them. But I'm not getting into any caste based arguments here. All I'm saying is if you can't prove my references to be invalid, you've got no right to claim that they are invalid. All the claimed members seem to enjoy "BENEFIT OF DOUBT" as per your words. Then let us just rename the section that it clears to the readers what it contains rather than seeing things rigidly. If that is not what you're going to do, then lets delete then whole list because according to my knowledge which I attribute to references I've found, nearly all the castes listed there have common origin. -Author 91 (talk) 17:45, 17 November 2012 (UTC)