178 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Assuming it was not a fabrication, [1] how can it justify the recognition of Shivaji’s claim to be a Kshatriya? Far from establishing that Shivaji was a Kshatriya, the genealogy could do no more than raise another question, namely, whether the Sisodiyas were Kshatriyas. The Sisodiyas were Rajputs. There is considerable doubt as to whether the Rajputs are the descendants of the original Kshatriyas who formed the second Varna of the ancient Indo-Aryan community. One view is that they are foreigners, remnants of the Huns who invaded India and established themselves in Rajputana and whom the Brahmins raised to the status of Kshatriyas with the object of using them as means to suppress Buddhism in Central India by a special ceremony before the sacred fire and who were therefore known as the Agnikul Kshatriyas. This view has the support of many erudite scholars who are entitled to speak on the subject. Vincent Smith says : [2]
In this place I want to draw attention to the fact, long suspected and now established by good evidence that the foreign immigrants into Rajputana and the upper Gangetic valley were not utterly destroyed in the course of their wars with the native princes. Many of course perished but many survived and were mixed in the general population of which no inconsiderable part is formed by their descendants. These foreigners like their fore-runners the Sakas and the Yue-chi universally yielded to the wonderful assimilative power of Hinduism and rapidly became Hinduised. Clans or families which succeeded in winning chieftainships were admitted readily into the frame of Hindu polity as Kshatriyas or Rajputs and there is no doubt that the Parihars and many other famous Rajput clans of the north were developed out of the barbarian hordes which poured into India during the fifth and sixth centuries. The rank and file of the strangers became Gujars and the castes ranking lower than Rajputs in their precedence. Further to the south, various indigenous or aboriginal tribes and clans underwent the same process of Hinduised social promotion in virtue of which Gonds, Bhars, Kharwas and so forth emerged as Chandels, Rathors, Gaharwars and other well-known Rajput clans duly equipped with pedigree reaching back to the sun and the moon.
William Crooke [3] says :
Recent research has thrown much light on the origin of Rajputs. A wide gulf lies between the Vedic Kshatriyas and the Rajputs of mediaeval times which it
1 The Sisodiya family of Mewar was important for two reasons (1) They were
a branch of the Sisodiyas of Udaipur who were descendants of the family of Lava
the eldest son of Rama, the hero of Ramayana. (2) The Sisodiyas of Mewar were
pure because they had refused to give their females in marriage to the Moghul
emperors and had refused to intermarry with other Rajput families such as Jaipur
and Jodhpur who had done so. Was it because of these reasons that this attempt
to establish that Shivaji was the descendant of the Sisodiyas of Mewar was made?
2 Quoted by C. V. Vaidya in his History of Mediaeval India, Vol. II. P. 8.
3 Quoted by Vaidya, ibid., p. 9.