Editing Rajput (section)

==Origin and Varna==
The origin of the Rajputs has been a much-debated topic among historians. Historian [[Satish Chandra (historian)|Satish Chandra]] states: "Modern historians are more or less agreed that the Rajputs consisted of miscellaneous groups including [[Shudra]] and tribals. Some were [[Brahmin|Brahmans]] who took to warfare, and some were from Tribes- indigenous or foreign".<ref name="Chandra2008"/> Thus, the Rajput community formation was a result of political factors that influenced caste mobility, called [[Sanskritization]] by some scholars and [[Rajputization]] by others.<ref name="Chandra2008">{{cite book |author=Satish Chandra |author-link=Satish Chandra (historian) |title=Social Change and Development in Medieval Indian History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_XYMAQAAMAAJ |year=2008 |publisher=Har-Anand Publications |quote=M.N.Srinivas who had used the word "Sanskritization" to denote this process, now accepts accepts that he put too much emphasis originally on the movement of groups towards the varna status of Brahmans. Both Srinivas and B.Stein now emphasize not merely the process of Sanskritization, but other factors, such as the position of the dominant peasant and land-owning classes, political power and production system in the process of caste mobility of groups. Srinivas further surmises that the varna model became more popular during British rule. Thus, growing caste rigidity was an indirect effect of British rule. The rise of Rajputs is a classic model of varna mobility in the earlier period. There is a good deal of discussion regarding the origin of Rajputs - whether they were Kshatriyas of they were drawn from other categories in the population including indigenous tribes. Modern historians are more or less agreed that the Rajputs consisted of miscellaneous groups including Shudra and tribals. Some were Brahmans who took to warfare, and some were from Tribes- indigenous of foreign.|pages=43–44|isbn=9788124113868 }}</ref>{{sfn|Reena Dube|Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar|2012|p=59}} Modern scholars agree that nearly all Rajputs clans originated from peasant or pastoral communities.<ref name="EV2012">{{harvnb|Eugenia Vanina|2012|p=140}}: "Regarding the initial stages of this history and the origin of the Rajput feudal elite, modern research shows that its claims to direct blood links with epic heroes and ancient kshatriyas in general has no historic substantiation. No adequate number of the successors of these epically acclaimed warriors could have been available by the period of seventh-eights centuries AD when the first references to the Rajput clans and their chieftains were made. [...] almost all Rajput clans originated from the semi-nomadic pastoralists of the Indian north and north-west."</ref><ref name="Lorenzen1995">{{cite book |editor=David N. Lorenzen |editor-link=David N. Lorenzen |author=Daniel Gold |title=Bhakti Religion in North India: Community Identity and Political Action |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rpSxJg_ehnIC&pg=PA122 |date=1 January 1995 |publisher=State University of New York Press |isbn=978-0-7914-2025-6 |pages=122 |quote=Paid employment in military service as Dirk H. A. Kolff has recently demonstrated, was an important means of livelihood for the peasants of certain areas of late medieval north India... In earlier centuries, says Kolff, "Rajput" was a more ascriptive term, referring to all kinds of Hindus who lived the life of the adventuring warrior, of whom most were of peasant origins.}}</ref><ref name="Kling1993">{{cite book |author=Doris Marion Kling |title=The Emergence of Jaipur State: Rajput Response to Mughal Rule, 1562–1743 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gGBuAAAAMAAJ |year=1993 |page=30 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania |quote=Rajput: Pastoral, mobile warrior groups who achieved landed status in the medieval period claimed to be Kshatriyas and called themselves Rajputs.}}</ref><ref name="Wink1991">{{cite book |author=André Wink|author-link=Andre Wink|title=Al-Hind the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest : 11Th-13th Centuries |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=75FlxDhZWpwC&pg=PA171 |year=1991 |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|BRILL]] |isbn=90-04-10236-1 |pages=171 |quote=...and it is very probable that the other fire-born Rajput clans like the Caulukyas, Paramaras, Cahamanas, as well as the Tomaras and others who in the eighth and ninth centuries were subordinate to the Gurjara-Pratiharas, were of similar pastoral origin, that is, that they originally belonged to the mobile, nomadic groups...}}</ref><ref name="Eaton87">{{harvnb|Richard Eaton|2019|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=aIF6DwAAQBAJ&pg=PP87]|p=87|ps=In Gujarat, as in Rajasthan, genealogy proved essential for making such claims. To this end, local bards composed ballads or chronicles that presented their patrons as idea warriors who protected Brahmins, cows and vassals, as opposed to the livestock herding chieftains that they actually were, or had once been. As people, who created and preserved the genealogies, local bards therefore played critical roles in brokering for their clients socio-cultural transitions to a claimed Rajput status. A similar thing was happening in the Thar desert region, where from the fourteenth century onwards mobile pastoral groups gradually evolved into landed, sedentary and agrarian clans. Once again, it was bards and poets, patronized by little kings, who transformed a clan's ancestors from celebrated cattle-herders or cattle-rustlers to celebrated protectors of cattle-herding communities. The difference was subtle but critical, since such revised narratives retained an echo of a pastoral nomadic past while repositioning a clan's dynastic founder from pastoralist to non-pastoralist. The term 'Rajput', in short, had become a prestigious title available for adoption by upwardly mobile clan in the process of becoming sedentary. By one mechanism or another, a process of 'Rajputization' occurred in new states that emerged from the turmoil following Timur's invasion in 1398, especially in Gujarat, Malwa and Rajasthan.}}</ref>

[[Alf Hiltebeitel]] discusses three theories by Raj era and early writers for Rajput origin and gives the reasons as to why these theories are dismissed by modern research. [[British India|British colonial-era]] writers characterised Rajputs as descendants of the foreign invaders such as the [[Scythians]] or the [[Huna people|Hunas]], and believed that the [[Agnikula]] myth was invented to conceal their foreign origin.{{sfn|Alf Hiltebeitel|1999|pp=439–440}} According to this theory, the Rajputs originated when these invaders were assimilated into the [[Kshatriya]] category during the 6th or 7th century, following the collapse of the [[Gupta Empire]].{{sfn|Bhrigupati Singh|2015|p=38}}{{sfn|Pradeep Barua|2005|p=24}} While many of these colonial writers propagated this foreign-origin theory in order to legitimise the colonial rule, the theory was also supported by some Indian scholars, such as [[D. R. Bhandarkar]].{{sfn|Alf Hiltebeitel|1999|pp=439–440}} The second theory was promulgated by [[Chintaman Vinayak Vaidya|C.V. Vaidya]] who believed in the [[Indo-Aryan migrations#"Aryan invasion"|Aryan invasion theory]] and that the entire 9th-10th century Indian populace was composed of only one race - the Aryans who had not yet mixed with the Shudras or [[Dravidian peoples|Dravidians]]. [[Nationalism|Nationalist]] historians Vaidya and R.B. Singh write that the Rajputs had originated from the [[Vedic Aryan]] Kshatriyas of the epics - [[Ramayana]] and [[Mahabharata]]. Vaidya bases this theory on certain attributes - such as bravery and "physical strength" of [[Draupadi]] and [[Kausalya]] and the bravery of the Rajputs. However, Hiltebeitel says that such "affinities do not point to an unbroken continuity between an ancient epic period" in the Vedic period (3500 BCE - 3000 BCE according to Vaidya) and the "great Rajput tradition" that started in sixteenth-century Rajasthan instead "raise the question of similarities between the epics' allusions to Vedic Vratya warbands and earlier medieval low status Rajput clans". Hiltebeitel concludes that such attempts to trace Rajputs from epic and Vedic sources are "unconvincing"{{sfn|Alf Hiltebeitel|1999|pp=440–441}} and cites [[Nancy MacLean]] and B.D. Chattopadhyaya to label Vaidya's historiography on Rajputs as "often hopeless".{{sfn|Alf Hiltebeitel|1999|pp=3}} A third group of historians, which includes Jai Narayan Asopa, theorised that the Rajputs were [[Brahmin]]s who became rulers. However, such "one track arguments" and "contrived evidence" such as shape of the head, cultural stereotypes, etc. are dismissed by Hiltebeitel who refers to such claims and Asopa's epic references as "far-fetched" or "unintelligible".{{sfn|Alf Hiltebeitel|1999|pp=441–442}}

Recent research suggests that the Rajputs came from a variety of ethnic and geographical backgrounds{{sfn|Catherine B. Asher|Cynthia Talbot|2006|p=99}} and various [[Varna (Hinduism)|varnas]].<ref name="Banerjee-Dube-Mayaram-Shail2010"/><ref name="Banerjee-Dube2010"/><ref name=kolff>{{cite book|quote=Inevitably , a certain group identity grew up amongst these families : it was summed up in the name of Rajput . This word literally means 'son of a king'. At first used to denote various individuals who achieved such statuses as ' horse - soldier', 'trooper' or 'headman of a village' , and then pretended to the family of some king, it became a generic name for this military and landed class as a whole. |url=https://archive.org/details/naukarrajputsepo0000kolf/page/71/mode/1up?q=Pretended |author=Dirk H. A. Kolff |title=Naukar, Rajput, and Sepoy The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market of Hindustan, 1450-1850 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1990 |isbn=0521381320 |page=71}}</ref>{{sfn|Hastings|2002|p=54|ps=:The Indian historian K. R. Qanungo has pointed out that in " the middle ages ' Rajput ' ordinarily meant a trooper in the service of a chief or a free-lance captain(1960,98); and Dirk Kolff(1990), following both Quango and D.C.Sircar has surely settled the matter with his argument that many Rajput clans came out of pastoralist bands which achieved some degree of landed status in the first half of the second millennium, forming "largely open status groups of clans, lineages, or even families and individuals who achieved statuses as 'horse soldier', 'trooper' or 'headman of village', and pretended to be connected with the family of some king, it became a generic name for this military and landed class(p 71-72) }}<ref name="Peabody2003"/><ref name="Mukta1994"/> According to Norman Ziegler, the groups and individuals that rose to power in North India after Muslim invasions were no longer considered Kshatriyas although they performed similar functions; the fact that they had emerged from the lower rungs of the caste system are documented in the Rajput chronicles themselves.{{sfn|Norman Ziegler|1976|p=141|ps=:...individuals or groups with which the word was associated were generally considered to owe their origin to miscegenation or varna-samkara ("the mixing of castes") and were thus inferior in rank to Ksatriyas. [...] What I perceive from the above data is a rather widespread change in the subjective perception and the attribution of rank to groups and individuals who emerged in Rajasthan and North India as local chiefs and rulers in the period after the muslim invasions(extending roughly from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries). These groups were no longer considered kshatriyas and though they filled roles previously held by kshatriyas and were attributed similar functions of sustaining society and upholding the moral order, they were either groups whose original integrity were seen to have been altered or who had emerged from the lower ranks of the caste system. This change is supported by material from the Rajput chronicles themselves.}}

[[André Wink]] states that some Rajputs may be Jats by origin.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g2m7_R5P2oAC&pg=PA154|title=Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early Medieval and the expansion of Islam|page=154,155|year=2002|publisher=Brill|isbn=0391041738 }}</ref> Tanuja Kothiyal states: "In the colonial ethnographic accounts rather than referring to Rajputs as having emerged from other communities, [[Bhils]], [[Mer (community)|Mers]], [[Meena|Minas]], [[Gujars]], [[Jats]], [[Raikas]], all lay a claim to a Rajput past from where they claim to have 'fallen'. Historical processes, however, suggest just the opposite".<ref name="Kothiyal2016_265"/> She points to the fact that "both Rajputs and Jats appear to originate from the mobile cattle rearing and [[Cattle theft in India|rustling]] groups", hence it is understandable that they refer to each other in their chronicles, although they try to remain distinct. However, since Rajputs dominated the region, they were portrayed as "warriors" as opposed to Jats who were portrayed as "farmers", thus wiping out "Jat kingship" from the historiography.<ref>{{cite book | last=Kothiyal | first=Tanuja | title=Nomadic Narratives: A History of Mobility and Identity in the Great Indian Desert | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2016 | isbn=978-1-107-08031-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=be-7CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA257 | page=257|quote=  Given the fact that both Rajputs and Jats appear to originate from the mobile cattle rearing and rustling groups, it is not surprising that these groups find references in each other's narratives, while attempting to establish a separate identity at the same time. The dominance of Rajput perspective in the historiography of the region, not only obliterated references to Jat kingship or Jat resistance to Rajput kingship, but also increasingly poised Jats as sturdy, hardworking but simple minded peasant community, as opposed to the martial rajputs.}}</ref>  [[Christopher Bayly]] writes that the ruling dynasties among the Rajputs, Jats and [[Maratha_(caste)|Maratha]], that arose when the Islamic cultural influence diminished, mostly originated from peasant of nomadic castes, but they performed rituals such as [[Śrāddha]] by employing high status Brahmins. These communities hoped that such rituals would enable them to make a Kshatriya claim.<ref name="Jwhaley2012">{{cite book | editor =Joachim Whaley|author= C.A.Bayly | title=Mirrors of Mortality (Routledge Revivals): Social Studies in the History of Death | publisher=Taylor & Francis | series=Routledge Revivals | year=2012 | isbn=978-1-136-81060-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JIksZtWqrd0C&pg=PA164 | access-date=2025-03-14 | page=164|quote= It was among the rulers of these new predominantly, Hindu states - the Mahrattas in the west, the Jats near Delhi and the Bhumihar and Rajput rulers of the ganjetic plane itself - that the holy and funerary rites found their most energetic patrons. These ruling dynasties were often themselves drawn from nomadic or peasant communities of relatively low caste status. An essential aspect of the consolidation of their power was a claim to legitimacy which entailed regular association with the cult centers of orthodox Hinduism. By acquiring priests of sufficiently high status to perform ceremonies such as shraddha, these princes could hope to their claims to kshatriya(warrior) which was the pride of the old Hindu ruling houses.}}</ref><ref name="c156">{{cite book | last=Bayly | first=C.A. | title=Origins of Nationality in South Asia: Patriotism and Ethical Government in the Making of Modern India | publisher=Oxford University Press | series=Oxford India paperbacks | year=1998 | isbn=978-0-19-564457-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FTNuAAAAMAAJ | page=144}}</ref>

According to scholars, in medieval times "the political units of India were probably ruled most often by men of very low birth" and this "may be equally applicable for many clans of 'Rajputs' in northern India". [[Burton Stein]] explains that this process of allowing rulers, frequently of low social origin, a "clean" rank via social mobility in the [[Varna (Hinduism)|Hindu Varna system]] serves as one of the explanations of the longevity of the unique Indian civilisation.<ref name="Studies1969">{{cite book |author=Association for Asian Studies |title=Social Mobility in the Caste System in India: An Inter Disciplinary Symposium |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PQVuAAAAMAAJ |year=1969 |publisher=Mouton |editor=James Silverberg |page=79|isbn=9783112026250 }}</ref><ref name="Lorenzen2004">{{cite book |editor=[[David N. Lorenzen]]|title=Religious Movements in South Asia, 600–1800 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0cAoAAAAYAAJ |year=2004 |publisher=Oxford University Press |author=[[Burton Stein]]|isbn=978-0-19-566448-5 |page=82 |quote=When the rank of persons was in theory rigorously ascribed according to the purity of the birth-group, the political units of India were probably ruled most often by men of very low birth. This generalization applies to south indian warriors and may be equally applicable for many clans of Rajputs in northern India. The capacity of both ancient and medieval Indian society to ascribe to its actual rulers, frequently men of low social origins, a "clean" or "Kshatriya" rank may afford one of the explanations for the durability and longevity of the unique civilization of India.}}</ref>{{sfn|Reena Dube|Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar|2012|p=257}}

Historian Janet Tiwary Kamphorst mentions the medieval tales on [[Pabuji]] depicting Rajput, [[Charan]], [[Bhil]] and [[Rabari]] warriors fighting side by side as well as other medieval and contemporary texts show claims made by [[Nomads of India|Nomadic tribes]] of the Thar desert to a higher rank in the society. Thus, she says that it is said that "formerly all Rajputs were once [[Maldhari]] (cattle-keepers) or vice-versa, it is asserted that all nomadic peoples have Rajput ''ansa'' (essence) in their veins".<ref>{{cite book|title=Epic Adventures: Heroic Narrative in the Oral Performance|chapter=Deification of South Asian epic Heroes-Methological Implications|editor1=Hendrik Maier|editor2=Jan Jansen|author=Janet Tiwary Kamphorst|date=2004 |page=95|publisher=LIT Verlag Münster |isbn=9783825867584 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UJEyHSUy8GMC&pg=PA95}}</ref>

Gradually, the term Rajput came to denote a [[social class]], which was formed when the various tribal and [[Nomads of India|nomadic groups]] became landed aristocrats, and transformed into the ruling class.{{sfn|Tanuja Kothiyal|2016|p=8}} These groups assumed the title "Rajput" as part of their claim to higher social positions and ranks.{{sfn|Richard Gabriel Fox|1971|p=16}} The early medieval literature suggests that this newly formed Rajput class comprised people from multiple [[Indian caste system|castes]].{{sfn|Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya|1994|p=60}} Thus, the Rajput identity is not the result of a shared ancestry. Rather, it emerged when different social groups of medieval India sought to legitimise their newly acquired political power by claiming Kshatriya status. These groups started identifying as Rajput at different times, in different ways. Thus, modern scholars summarise that Rajputs were a "group of open status" since the eighth century, mostly illiterate warriors who claimed to be reincarnates of ancient Indian Kshatriyas – a claim that had no historical basis. Moreover, this unfounded Kshatriya status claim showed a sharp contrast to the classical varna of Kshatriyas as depicted in Hindu literature in which Kshatriyas are depicted as an educated and urbanite clan.<ref name="AndreWink2002">{{cite book |author=André Wink|author-link=Andre Wink|title=Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7Th-11th Centuries |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g2m7_R5P2oAC&pg=PA282 |year=2002 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=0-391-04173-8 |pages=282 |quote=In short, a process of development occurred which after several centuries culminated in the formation of new groups with the identity of 'Rajputs'. The predecessors of the Rajputs, from about the eighth century, rose to politico-military prominence as an open status group or estate of largely illiterate warriors who wished to consider themselves as the reincarnates of the ancient Indian Kshatriyas. The claim of Kshatriyas was, of course, historically completely unfounded. The Rajputs as well as other autochthonous Indian gentry groups who claimed Kshatriya status by way of putative Rajput descent, differed widely from the classical varna of Kshatriyas which, as depicted in literature, was made of aristocratic, urbanite and educated clans...}}</ref>{{sfn|Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya|1994|p=59}}{{sfn|Norman Ziegler|1976|p=150|ps=: Rajputs were, with some exceptions, almost totally illiterate as a caste group}}<ref name="Bendix1998">{{cite book |author=Reinhard Bendix |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C_j_2nOUIpcC&pg=PA180 |title=Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait |publisher=Psychology Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-415-17453-4 |pages=180– |quote=Eventually the position of the old Kshatriya nobility was undermined not only by the Brahmin priests but also by the rise of a warrior caste in northwest India. Most of the Rajputs were illiterate mercenaries in the service of a king.}}</ref><ref name="Farris2013">{{cite book |author=Sara R. Farris |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nf5AAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA140 |title=Max Weber's Theory of Personality: Individuation, Politics and Orientalism in the Sociology of Religion |date=9 September 2013 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-25409-1 |pages=140– |quote=Weber however explained this downgrading of their status by the fact that they represented a threat to the cultural and intellectual monopoly of the Brahmans, as they[Kshatriyas] were also extremely cultured and educated in the art of administration. In about the eight century the Rajput thus began to perform the functions that had formerly belonged to the Kshatriya, assuming their social and economic position and substituting them as the new warrior class. Ancient illiterate merceneries, the Rajput did not represent a threat to the Brahmininc monopoly and were more inclined to accept the Brahmans' superiority, thus contributing to the so called Hindu restoration.}}</ref> Historian [[Thomas R. Metcalf]] mentions the opinion of Indian scholar [[K. M. Panikkar]] who also considers the famous Rajput dynasties of medieval India to have come from non-Kshatriya castes.<ref name="Metcalf1990">{{cite book|author=Thomas R. Metcalf|title=Modern India: An Interpretive Anthology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BSNuAAAAMAAJ|year=1990|page=90|publisher=Sterling Publishers|isbn=9788120709003|quote=Since then every known royal family has come from a non - Kshatriya caste, including the famous Rajput dynasties of medieval India . Panikkar also points out that “ the Shudras seem to have produced an unusually large number of royal families even in more recent times"}}</ref>

Historian Kapur writes that "divergent social groups got incorporated in the new socio-political fold of rajputras including Shudras. That’s why the [[Brihaddharma Purana]] regarded rajputras as a mixed caste and ''Shudra-kamalakara'' equates the Rajputs with ugra, a mixed caste born of the union of a Kshatriya man and a Shudra woman"<ref>{{cite web|publisher = Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi|title = Unit-14 Social structure and gender relations: c. 700-1200 CE(BHIC-132 History of India from c. 300 to 1206)| date=2020 |page=224|quote=Divergent social groups got incorporated in the new socio-political fold of rajputras including Shudras. That’s why the Brihaddharmapurana regarded rajputras as a mixed caste and Shudra-kamalakara equates the Rajputs with ugra, a mixed caste born of the union of a Kshatriya man and a Shudra woman|url=http://egyankosh.ac.in//handle/123456789/61929 |author=Prem Kumar, Nandini Sinha Kapur}}</ref> In ''Sudrakamalakara'' (17th century), the Sanskrit term ''rajapūta'' has been compared with ''ugra'' - "a mixed caste born out of the union of a Kshatriya man and a Shudra woman. This makes rajapūta a "sankarajāti" (mixed group) ie equivalent to shudras.<ref>{{cite book| title=Traditions in Motion |chapter=Excavating Identity through Tradition : Who was Shivaji? |editor=Supriya Varma, Satish Saberwal |author=Ananya Vajpeyi |publisher=Oxford University Press, USA | publication-place=New Delhi | date=2005 | isbn=0-19-566915-0 | page=257, 258|quote=According to the ''Sudrakamalakara'', an authoritative Sanskrit text on the dharma of sudras written by Gagabhatta's own uncle, Kamalakarabhatta, in the early part of the seventeenth century, the progeny of a ksatriya man and a sudra woman would be an ''ugra'', otherwise known as ''rajapūta''. In Kamalakara' s classification, being a ''sankarajati'', or mixed group, ugras, or rajapūtas are  ''sudrasamāna'' as good as (or as bad as!) sūdras.}}</ref> [[Ananya Vajpeyi]] argues that ''rajapūta'' has a different meaning from ''Rājpūt'' in realpolitik. With an unhistorical meaning, even if the dharmashastras attempt to fix the place of a jati like 'rajapūta' close to shudra, the socio-historical type 'Rājpūt' always gravitates to the Kshatriya varna, which makes the lexical similarity between the two words semantically misleading.<ref>{{cite book| title=Traditions in Motion | chapter=Excavating Identity through Tradition : Who was Shivaji? |editor=Supriya Varma, Satish Saberwal |author=Ananya Vajpeyi |publisher=Oxford University Press, USA | publication-place=New Delhi | date=2005 | isbn=0-19-566915-0 | page=258|quote=Now Gāgābhatta, master of dharmasastra, was himself, like his famous uncle, the author of an entire text on the rights and restrictions of the sūdras...So when he cleared Shivaji as a Rājpūt and therefore a true ksatriya, he too must have agreed to take the term ''Rājpūt'' for its contemporary meaning in realpolitik, and not for its normative and unhistorical meaning in dharmasastra texts, even the ones he himself had written! Gaga clearly understood a Rājpūt and a rajapūta - one a type of socio-historical subject, the other a category in Sanskrit legal discourse, which may or may not have corresponded to any such type- were two different things in the world...The dharmasastra text may try to fix the place of a jāti like 'rajapūta' somewhere low down on the varna scale, close to the sudra, the socio-historical type 'Rājpūt' always gravitates to the ksatriya varna, making the lexical similarity between the two terms semantically utterly misleading. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S8EoAAAAYAAJ&q=Lexical}}</ref>

In past, the Rajputs made fanatical attempts to assert their Kshatriya status which differentiate them from other communities.<ref>{{harvnb|Pradeep Barua|2005|p=831}} "What made the Rajputs stand out from the rest of Indian society was not their foreign origins but their fanatical attempts to assert their Kshatriya status"</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Global Medieval Life and Culture |page=831 |quote=The Rajputs considered them to be members of the ancient Kshatriya varna and were known for their fanatical attempts to assert their Kshatriya status. This assertion distinguished the Rajputs from other similar castes who migrated from outside India. |url=https://books.google.co.in/books?id=IbfOEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA831&dq=this+distinguished+rajputs+from+greenwood |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2008 |author=Joyce E. Salisbury, Nancy Sullivan}}</ref> [[Dipankar Gupta]] says that the reason that originally low castes, such as Rajput, who had a shudra status in the early medieval era, have been enabled to claim Kshatriya status in modern times is due to political power.<ref name="Gupta2000">{{cite book | last=Gupta | first=Dipankar | title=Interrogating Caste: Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian Society | publisher=Penguin Books India | date=2000 | isbn=978-0-14-029706-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WIuZ5WdSzl0C&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PA124 | page=124|quote=Each caste would like its own hierarchy to be realized but to do so it must have power at its bidding. This is what has allowed castes that were once low to claim undisputed kshatriya status today. The transformation of Rajputs , Gujars and Jats from their early medieval Shudra positions to upper caste Kshatriya status is clearly a case in point.  Today if Jats or Rajputs were reminded of their shudra past it would hardly carry with it a ring of credibility.}}</ref> He also says that Rajputs, Jats, Marathas - all claim Kshatriya status but do not accept each other's claim. There is no agreement on who is a true kshatriya caste.<ref>{{cite book | author = Dipankar Gupta| title=CheckPoint sociology | date=2023-05-16 | url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Checkpoint_Sociology/num2EAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PT60&printsec=frontcover | page=60|quote=As almost everybody aspires to be a warrior, king and conqueror, it is hardly surprising that there is no consensus in India’s four caste model (or chaturvarna) on who is a true Kshatriya. From earthy Jats and Marathas, to princelings and their hangers on, such as the Rajputs and Thakurs, a wide range of castes call themselves ‘Kshatriyas’, but without a shred of mutual admiration.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | title=Social Change in Modern India | author = Mysore Narasimhachar Srinivas| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZrJB-MsbWvoC&newbks=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PA9&hl=en&source=newbks_fb&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false |quote='while there seems to be some agreement in each area in India as to who are Brahmins and who Untouchables, such consensus is absent with regard to Kshatriyas and Vaishyas}}</ref>

[[Stewart N. Gordon|Stewart Gordon]] writes that during the era of the Mughal empire, [[Hypergamy|hypergamous marriage]] "marrying up", combined with service in the state army was another way a tribal family could "become" Rajput. This process required a change in dress, diet, worship, and other traditions, ending [[widow remarriage]], for example. Such a marriage between someone from a tribal family, and a member of an acknowledged - but possibly poor - Rajput family, would ultimately enable the non-Rajput family to transform themselves to Rajput. This marriage pattern supports the fact that Rajput was an "open caste category", available to those who served the Mughals.{{sfn|Stewart Gordon|2007|p=16|ps =: Eventually, kinship and marriage restrictions defined this Rajput group as different from other elements in the society of Rajasthan. The hypergamous marriage pattern typical of Rajputs tacitly acknowledged that it was a somewhat open caste category; by successful service in a state army and translating this service into grants and power at the local level, a family might become Rajput. The process required changes in dress, eating patterns, the patronage of local shrines closer to the "great tradition", and an end to widow remarriage. A hypergamous marriage with an acknowledged (but possibly impoverished) Rajput family would follow and with continued success in service the family would indeed become Rajput. All this is well documented in relations between Rajputs and tribals...}} [[Badri_Narayan_(writer)|Badri Narayan]] has written in his paper on mobility of the [[Dalit]] castes, that some [[Pasi_(caste)|Pasi]]s that married their daughters to Rajput men, were able to become part of the Rajput community themselves.<ref>{{cite book | editor=D Gupta | author=Badri Narayan| title=Caste in Question: Identity Or Hierarchy? | publisher=SAGE Publications | series=Contributions to Indian Sociology series | year=2004 | isbn=978-0-7619-3324-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bgpEIb4tNjgC&pg=PA2046 | access-date=2025-04-04 | page=210}}</ref>

Rajput formation continued in the colonial era. Even in the 19th century, anyone from the "village landlord" to the "newly wealthy lower caste [[Shudra]]" could employ Brahmins to retrospectively fabricate a genealogy and within a couple of generations they would gain acceptance as Hindu Rajputs. This process would get mirrored by communities in north India.  This process of origin of the Rajput community resulted in hypergamy as well as [[female infanticide]] that was common in Hindu Rajput clans. Scholars refer to this as "[[Rajputisation]]", which, like [[Sanskritisation]], was a mode for upward mobility, but it differed from Sanskritisation in other attributes, like the method of worship, lifestyle, diet, social interaction, rules for women, and marriage, etc. German historian [[Hermann Kulke]] has coined the term "Secondary Rajputisation" for describing the process of members of a tribe trying to re-associate themselves with the former chief of their tribe who had already transformed himself into a Rajput via Rajputisation and thus become Rajputs themselves.<ref name="Kantowsky1986">{{cite book |author=Detlef Kantowsky |title=Recent Research on Max Weber's Studies of Hinduism: Papers Submitted to a Conference Held in New Delhi, 1.-3.3. 1984 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j1cRAQAAIAAJ |year=1986 |publisher=Weltforum Verlag |isbn=978-3-8039-0333-4 |page=104}}</ref><ref name="Kulke1993">{{cite book |author=Hermann Kulke|author-link=Hermann Kulke|title=Kings and Cults: State Formation and Legitimation in India and Southeast Asia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nAYFAQAAIAAJ |year=1993 |publisher=Manohar Publishers & Distributors |page=251|isbn=9788173040375 }}</ref>{{sfn|Reena Dube|Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar|2012|p=59-62|pages=59, 62, 63, 257 |ps=(59)In our view Rajputization refers neither to a caste nor a race, instead it signifies a highly mobile social process of claiming military-political power and the right tocultivable land as well as the right to rule. Rajputization is unparalleled in traditional Indian society for its inventiveness in ideologies of legitimation and self-invention. The fabrication of a Rajput genealogy in the process of climbing from [[Vassal|feudatory]] to king does not constitute an isolated historical event in the early medieval period. In nineteenth-century India, the village landlord, the Brahmin priest, the tribal chieftain, the local Raja who has recently converted from Islam, the newly wealthy lower caste Sudra, the professional soldier or the member of a community with traditions of military labor, any of these men could Rajputize themselves and their families by adopting the lifestyle traditionally recognized as Rajput. These aspirants deployed Brahmins to compose a genealogy that would retrospectively endow the aspirant’s lineage with ritual purity. These social processes get repeated continually and mirrored by communities all over north India that Rajputize themselves to make a bid for political power. '''With surprising rapidity the newly Rajputized family or clan can gain, over a generation or two, social acceptance of their claim to Rajput status'''(62, 63) We have culled from the sociological literature, particularly from Srivinas's analysis of Sanskritization, the key differences between the two modes of upward mobility, Sanskritization and Rajputization. Despite the excellent fieldwork on Rajputization by Sinha (1962) and Kulke (1976), there is no clear theoretical definition of the key features of Rajputization, and its differences and similarities to Sanskritization. We argue that theorizing is as important as fieldwork, principally because of the colonial misreading of the term Rajput and its relation to Rajput history and to Rajputization. As a corrective we demarcate the distinction between Sanskritization and Rajputization in terms of attributional criteria - which denotes a code of living, dietary prohibition, modes of worship-and social interactional criteria, which signify the rules of marriage, rules pertaining to women, and modes of power. The attributional criteria for Sanskritization are vegetarianism, prohibition against beef eating, teetotalism, and wearing the sacred thread; the attributional criteria for Rajputized men consists of meat-eating, imbibing alcohol and opium, and the wearing of the sword; the attributional criteria for Rajputized women are seclusion through purdah or the veil and elaborate rules for women's mobility within the village. The religious code for Sanskritization is a belief in the doctrine of karma, dharma, rebirth and moksha and the Sradda ceremony for male ancestors. Conversely, the religious code for Rajputization consists of the worship of Mahadeo and Sakto and the Patronage of Brahmins through personal family priests (historically the Rajputized rulers gave land grants to Brahmins) and the priestly supervision of rites of passage. The social interactional criteria for Sanskritization is claiming the right to all priestly intellectual and cultural vocations, patronage from the dominant political power, and prohibition against widow remarriage. The interactional criteria for Rajputization consists of claiming the right to all military and political occupations, the right to govern, the right to aggrandize lands through wars, sanctioned aggressive behavior, the adoption of the code for violence, compiling clan genealogies and the right to coercively police the interactions between castes.}}<ref name="Banerjee-Dube-Mayaram-Shail2010">{{cite book|editor=Ishita Banerjee-Dube|author=Mayaram, Shail|title=Caste in History|chapter=The Sudra Right to Rule|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6n7OQwAACAAJ|year=2010|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-806678-1|page=110|quote=In their recent work on female infanticide, Bhatnagar, Dube and Bube(2005) distinguish between Rajputization and Sanksritization. Using M.N.Srinivas' and Milton Singer's approach to social mobility as idioms they identify Rajputization as one of the most dynamic modes of upward mobility. As an idiom of political power it 'signifies a highly mobile social process of claiming military-political power and the right to cultivate land as well as the right to rule. Rajputization is unparalleled in traditional Indian society for its inventiveness in ideologies of legitimation and self-invention. This was a claim that was used by persons of all castes all over north India ranging from peasants and lower-caste Sudras to warriors and tribal chiefs and even the local raja who had recently converted to Islam.}}</ref><ref name="Banerjee-Dube2010"/>

According to some scholars, the term ''rajputra'' was reserved for the immediate relatives of a king; scholars like BD Chattopadhyay believe that it was used for a larger group of high-ranking men.{{sfn|Cynthia Talbot|2015|p=119}}