Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/258

KAPU perversion for 'Ratta,' which is the same as the Kanarese and Telugu 'Reddi.' Dr. Buhler is unable to record any opinion as to 'whether the Rāshtrakutas were an Āryan Kshatriya, i.e., Rājput race, which immigrated into the Dekkan from the north like the Chalukyas, or a Drāvidian family which was received into the Āryan community after the conquest of the Dekkan. The earliest inscriptions, at any rate, show them as coming from the north, and, whatever may be their origin, as the word Rāshtrakuta is used in many inscriptions of other dynasties as the equivalent of Rāshtrapati, i.e., as an official word meaning 'the headman or governor of a country or district,' it appears to me that the selection of it as a dynastic name implies that, prior to attaining independent sovereignty, the Rāshtrakutas were feudal chiefs under some previous dynasty, of which they have not preserved any record."

It is a common saying among the Kāpus that they can easily enumerate all the varieties of rice, but it is impossible to give the names of all the sections into which the caste is split up. Some say that there are only fourteen of these, and use the phrase Panta padnā- lagu kulālu, or Panta and fourteen sections. The following sub-divisions are recorded by Mr.Stuart * as being the most important: —

Ayōdhya, or Oudh, where Rāma is reputed to have lived. The sub-division is found in Madura and Tinnevelly. They are very proud of their supposed connection with Oudh. At the commencement of the marriage ceremony, the bride's party asks the bridegroom's who they are, and the answer is that they are Ayōdhya Reddis. A similar question is then asked by