Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 3.djvu/45

 RAJPOOTS OF BAREILLY. (119, 120)

AJPOOT (Raja Pootra, the sons of princes) is the title claimed by all of the Kshuttri, or second grade of Hindoos, according to the established four great divisions of Brahmin, Kshuttri, Vyse, and Soodra. Of these the Kshuttri are the military class or warriors, and belong to the original stock of the Aryan invaders and conquerors of India, Colonel Tod, in his History of Rajpootana, traces the genealogies of many of the Rajpoot tribes and then princes to a very early date, and relates the history of their divisions, and the struggles by the Solar and Lunar races for local supremacy, as detailed in the Mahabharut. There can be little doubt that the northern Indian armies, which opposed Alexander 330, were chiefly formed from Rajpoot levies, and from none of the people of India did the early Mahomedan invaders experience more constant and devoted opposition than from the various clans of Rajpoots. The chronicles of the earliest Mahomedan kings of India also, give details of constantly recurring campaigns against them, and of their eventual reduction to the condition of feudal tributaries. Long antecedent to the Grecian invasion of India, the Kshuttries, under Rama, Iving of Oude, had invaded the south of India, and conquered Ceylon, laying the foundation of civilization among; the rude and barbarous tribes whom they encountered there, and colonizing also many portions of the southern portion of the peninsula, which eventually formed the powerful and civilized kingdoms of the Pandoos and Cholas, of Madura and Kanchi, the Andras of Wanungole, the Chalukyas of Kulyan and Guzerat, and others, of which many splendid architectural remains are the still existing monuments. In the north and north-west of India, however, several independent states, such as Jypoor, Joodhpoor, and others, yet flourish, while the power of their Mahomedan conquerors has perished.

Rajpoots are divided into many classes and clans, some of which can intermarry; while others, as well from the assumption of exceeding purity of descent, as from degeneracy of mixed extraction, can only many in their own grades. There is no class of Hindoos in India so fastidious upon the score of unblemished descent as the Rajpoots, and, as a consequence, none more difficult to satisfy in marriage