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lrburdak
June 17th, 2003, 12:35 PM
The following URL has described connection between Jats in India and Romas:-http://www.romani.org/rishi/rnames.html
It also explains origin of word JAT. Members may like to see.
"Zott or Jaut.
Zott is the name by which the Gypsies were known to the Arabs and which they bear in Damascus even at the present day. The Arab historian Hamza of Ispahan who wrote half a century before Firdousi says that 12,000 musicians sent to Behram Gour from India were called Zott. In the Arabic dictionary al-Kamus, this entry occurs as follows : "Zott, arabicized from Jatt, a people of Indian origin. The word might be pronounced Zatt with equal correctness. A Zotti." In the lexicon Mohit we read : "Zott , a race from India, arabicized from Jatt; Zottish clothes were named after them, a single piece being called Zotti. These are the people who are called Nawar in Syria, and sometimes they are styled Motribiya (i.e. musicians), their avocation being that of Players upon stringed instruments and drums. They are likewise dancers". Under the heading 'Nawar", the Gypsies are described at great length in terms which recall the type with which we are familiar. Bocthor says in his French-Arabic dictionary that the Bohemians (i.e. Gypsies because they came to France from Bohemia) are called at Kesrowan Nawari, plural Nawar, and at Damascus Zotti, plural zott.

Pott was the first to declare in 1853 that the Gypsies are closely related to the Indian Jats (a name which the Arab historians transformed into Zott). This theory was elaborated by Bataillard in 1849 and has been Supported by Newold, Sir H. Rawlinson(5), Professor de Goeje (6), Captain Richard F. Burton (7). The last mentioned claims that he was the first to declare so in 1845 in his work "Sind and the Races that inhabit the Valley of the Indus" (London, Allen 1851), All of them arrived at the conclusion that the relation between the language spoken by the Roma and the language spoken by the Jats in India, even today, is so close that there could be no doubt that its foot, in spite of all changes, lay in the dialect spoken in the north of India. "



regards,

uday
June 17th, 2003, 12:44 PM
nice info...

lrburdak
June 17th, 2003, 03:16 PM
Here is some more information about Roma and the Romani language's similarity with Hindi on the URL-
http://www.hvk.org/articles/0401/137.html
Most of the Roma of Europe and Americas now believe that they are Rajputs or Jats from India who had migrated from their forefathers' land to the foreign countries. They now lead a settled or a semi-nomadic life. The community is divided in various groups known as Sinti (Sindhi), Luri or Lohar (Blacksmith) and Bargujjar, etc.
Romani is their language, which is akin to Hindi. A number of Romani words are almost the similar viz. nak (nose), kan (car), bar (hair), yakh (eye), de (give), le (take), ja (go), kha (eat), mar (beat), pi (drink), etc. There are some Punjabi, Gujarati and Marathi words also prevalent in Romani language. The Photos of Rama, Krishna and Goddess Kali are easily found in their houses. Although, a large number of Romas have adopted Islam and observe the rite of Sunnat (circumcision), there is no mosque in the Roma colony acid hence they are not particular about the prayer (namaj) also. Today there is a desire among Romas to study and understand their roots in India air to know more about their fatherland.

regards,

rkumar
June 17th, 2003, 03:27 PM
Very interesting information Luxman ji..More we read more we know how great a community we are. Now I think time has come to take our rightful place in the world community. Not only the Jats of India, but the Jats of world need to be brought under some common cultural umbrela. Uniting Jats politically may be a very difficult job ofcourse.

Rajendra

lrburdak
June 17th, 2003, 05:19 PM
Rajendra ji, you are right. A detailed research is needed to rewrite Jat history. Here is some more info.. on the URL-
http://pages.slc.edu/~badams/anthropages.htm


" For any historian, journalist, Gypsiologist, anthropologist, ethnographer, etc. who studies the Roma with the intent to trace their origins, the linguistic and cultural connections are undeniable. Romani, the language of the Gypsies, is a sister language of Sanskrit.[8] This was first proven by a German philologist, H.M.G. Grellman[9], in the late eighteenth century, who conducted a study of Romani words ( later consolidated in a fifteen page catalogue) and compared it to Sanskrit, finding at least a third of them to be of Hindu origin. Future comparisons yielded the discovery that the grammatical construction and vocabulary of Romani very closely resembles that of the language spoken by the Jats, a nomadic tribe of northwestern India."

rajendersingh
June 17th, 2003, 05:51 PM
laxman ji namskar, indeed it is very intersting to read the information.
there is another book by dr d. p. singhal with the title"gypsies of indian origin". dr singhal also traces romas origin from indian jats.

ranjitjat
June 18th, 2003, 12:25 AM
Laxman bhai- RAMRAM
Very nice information - thank you for sharing.

ravichaudhary
June 18th, 2003, 03:05 AM
May I suggest , that those wishing to explore this topic, may also refer to the Jathistory list

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JatHistory/
and see messages 218,219,222,223,226,227,228.

The list has archives, and if you search for ' Roma', other messages will also show up.


Some Roma Historians and Indian scholars are pushing this Jat Roma Connection.

A DNA study was also quoted to me, which I the methodology of which I questioned, and is discussed in the messages quoted

I am personally not entirely convinced.


Ravi

lrburdak
June 18th, 2003, 12:31 PM
Rajenderji, Dharmpalji,Raviji namaskar !!!
Thank you all. Raviji, I have seen discussion on yahoo group. The theme is almost same. I searched answer of Ravi's querry why only jats are identified with Roma. Vishva Hindu Parishad is trying to answer this on following URL-
http://www.hvk.org/articles/0401/31.html
"Most of the Roma of Europe and Americas now believe that they are originally from India who migrated from their forefathers' land to the foreign countries. According to the secretary general of the Pratishthan and a gypso-anthroplogist Shyam Singh Shashi, the word "Roma" has been derived from Roma- which refers to one who pervades all or roams about.

They are more than 20 million in number and now lead a settled or semi-nomadic life. It is an established fact now that they are from erstwhile greater Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat and Maharashtra, Dr Shyam Singh Shashi told TheNewspapertoday.

According to Dr Shashi who has himself written more than 200 books on the subject, most of the Roma gypsies claim to be descendants of Brahmins, Rajputs and Jats. And not without reason too, for their women are good palmists and fortunetellers and carry it as part of their tradition."
It is clear from above that not only Jats but Brahmans and Rajputs have also links with Ramas. In this article The Romas have been defined as the children of RAMA.
If DNA studies are published here it can be of great help to establish links between two races.
regards,

ravichaudhary
June 18th, 2003, 09:28 PM
Let me put my concerns somewhat more clearly.

The Roma- Jat connection is one that has been espoused by some people, and that got picked up, repeated, and now is close to being believed as an established fact.

It then gets touted, to suit particular viewpoints.

There are some similarities between the Roma Language and Hindi, but the same can apply to any indo European language- Latin, German, Lithuanian, you name it.

The theme that is being pushed is that the Jats were enslaved by Ghazni and other Muslims, and deported to Europe. Or alternatively 12,000 musicians from Luristhan were given as a wedding gift to one King Bhamroz of Iran, and this formed tha Jat contingent which later on became known as Gypsies or Roma.

Even today , with a population of over 15 million, one would still be hard put to organize 12,000 musicians in Delhi let alone 1500 years ago.

The Roma Historians in trying to reconstruct their history see an excellent link, for to them along with the Jat relationships, come the Aryan Relations, the Getae relationship, and the world conquering Jat relationship.

Hence what started as a possibility, has now changed to belief, and will soon change to accepted fact. Something repeated often enough becomes fact.

The DNA Studies, much touted, I have examined, and posted my comments. Significantly none of the supporters of the these DNA theories, could come up with any answers to the questions I had raised.

In other words they quite simply backed off.

I ma not against the concept that some Jats did not end up in Europe as part of the Roma Milieu. Jat clans and tribes, I do belive the Jats did indeed migrate/invade Europe in several waves- in the form of people known to later historians, as Sakas, Scythian, Goths, Getae, Huns, Amals, Avars, Samarians and so on, but to imply push a simplistic Jat = Gypsy equation may be a little hasty.

On the Vishwa Hindu Parishad as a reliable source of History.

The VHP is not a Lover of Jats and Jat society. Their desire is to push a Brahmin- Vaishya, Sudra Varnashrma society with the intellectual foundation being Vaishnavism, not Shaivism and certainly not vedicism of the Arya Samaj variety.

They have been engineering riots, and the latest Jhajjar incidents were very much organized them to destroy the Arya Samaj base. This gets to be very touchy for them, and their reaction is very strong, when these facts are brought to their attention.

The VHP have a fantasy view of History, history adapted to their particular ends, The scholar talks of Hindus having spread to America etc in ancient times, and claims to have written 200 books.

Luxmanji, Please ask the learned scholar, who wrote the HVK article, the names of these two hundred books. I will wager you will get no reply.

To see how a theory should be examined see: H.S Pauria’s scholarly analysis of the theory of the origin from the Jatas of Lord Shivaji.

From my perspective the more Jats who get interested in any aspect of their aspect and culture the better.

For through awareness, comes understanding, and justifiable pride, that we can pass on to the next generation.

While winnowing let us try and separate the wheat from the chaff.

Ravi

shokeen123
June 19th, 2003, 02:38 AM
Hi everyone...

All of this information makes me wonder how much we still don't know about our roots! It is a painstaking process, but some one has got to do it! I think it is time we started making concerted efforts to concise this information in a user friendly format and make available to the younger generation. My own information about our culture has been hear say and tidbits from elderly neighbors!

Please let me know if I can help!

Sujata

lrburdak
June 19th, 2003, 01:26 PM
Raviji and Sujataji,
In various history books wefind controversies.It is now for the scholars of history to rectify the mistakes. Jat historians have to come forward.We should have a strong group of jat history researchers.All jats should come forward to support it.
We were discussing origin of ROMA.There is one URL-which gives detailed information about Roma and other relevant links.
http://www.romani.org
There is one more URL- which gives chronological details of migration from India-
http://www.domresearchcenter.com
ROMANIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST - Part 3

By
Dr. Donald Kenrick, Director, Institute of Contemporary
Romani Studies & Documentation, London


A Tentative Chronology

226 AD - Ardashir becomes Emperor of Persia, and in 227 AD conquers parts of N. India. The Ka'be-ye-Zardusht inscription suggests the Persian Empire reached Peshawar and the Rann of Kutch by the reign of Shapur I (ascended throne 241 AD).

(Nomadic groups calling themselves Dom, Sindhi and Kale begin to travel in Iran but with return journeys to India. They make contact with the Alans, who were a nomadic group in the Black Sea region from whom they borrow both the idea of the 'living waggon' and the word 'ordon.')

370 AD - Home base of the Alans occupied by the Huns and the Alans flee to Europe.

415-500 AD - White Huns (Hephtalites) invade North India. Toramana and Mihirakula establish kingdom in Kashmir and Punjab.

(Sindhi plus some Dom and Kale do not return to India on their migration but their route extends to the north-west of Iran, taking over the territory where the Alans nomadised and bringing them into contact with speakers of Georgian and Armenian. By the time of the Arab invasion of Iran these groups had already left the country, which explains the limited number of Arabic loan-words in European Romani).

420-438 AD - Reign of Bahram V Gur

A large group of musicians and their families come from India. These have at times been described as Luri and, at other times, as Jat (Zott). Mohan Singh (ROMA 2,1) has probably hit upon the truth, they they are neither, but Gandharva. All we can be sure about is that they came to Iran in the reign of Bahram Gur and that (according to Firdausi's story) they ate beef (i.e., were not practising Hindus). I quote now from a less-well-known source.

"Bahram saw some men and blamed them for depriving themselves of music. They said: 'We looked for a musician and offered 100 dirhems but could not find one.' Bahram wrote to Schankalat the Indian to ask him to send to his court four
thousand of the most able musicians and dancers. After Schankalat had sent them, Bahram spread them through the province, ordering the people to employ them and be amused by them and pay them justly" (Zotenberg, p. 567).

These musicians may have been absorbed by later migration or remain as a distinct group of 'Motribiya' (see below).

(Zott-Jat emigrate into Iran in small numbers and are already there when the Arabs invade.)

632 AD - Presence of Zott in Bahrein recorded in the reign of Caliph Abu Bekr (632-634 AD) (Ibn al Atir, see MacRitchie, p. 15, JGLS (NS) vii pp. 310).

c. 642 AD - In the reign of Caliph Oma(?) I (635-644) the Arabs captured Haumatu-z-Zott (district of the Zott) on the border of Iraq and Iran. This was evidently an established settlement. "Six leagues south-east of Ramhurmuz on the road to Arrajan was the Hawmah or district of the Zott. The district was watered from the river Tab and here stood the two populous villages called Az-Zutt and Al-khabaran" (Le Strange, p. 244).

669 AD - In the reign of the Caliph Muawiya (661-680) "Muawiya removed to the coasts a race of Zutt of Basrah abd Sayabigah, and settled some at Antioch" (Baladhuri. See MacRitchie p. 17, JGLS ib. p. 308).

It seems that the Zutt had their own quarter in Basrah at that time, as they had in Bahrein. The Sayabigah were another Indian group who were clerks.

At about the same time we have a reference to a 4th group of Zott, probably a group of craftworkers attached to an Arab tribe (Tamim), in the same way as groups of Ghorbati are attached to Persian and Kurdish nomadic tribes today. "Tamim came and their Zott, and the Asawir" (Wellhausen, p. 397).

Finally we have the forced migration of larger number of Jat from India.

712 AD - In the reign of the Caliph Al-Walid (705-712) and Governor Al-Hajjaj of Iran (704-15) when the Arabs invaded Sindh some Jats fought with them. The Arabs, however, became suspicious of their allies and deported them with their families (ROMA 1,1 p. 9-11). Sources vary as to where they were settled, but the most probable is the marshlands between the Euphrates and the Tigris as Al-Hajjaj was engaged in draining and populating these marshlands. For a short period (820-834) these Jats succeeded in establishing their own state but were defeated and scattered throughout the Arab empire. One group of men were used as troops at Ainzarba against the Byzantine and were captured by them. They may possibly have stayed some time in Cilician Armenia before coming into European Byzantium.

It seems likely that three separate groups moved through the Middle East into Europe, then: Dom via Syria, Zott via Ainzarba (Aintab ?) and a third group (more Dom, Sindhi, Kale) through North Iran and Armenia proper.
******************************

I can not believe that jats can be all musicians. It is the DOMs who are musicians and are still found in Rajasthan.They claim to be descendants of Rajputs.Similar is the case with GARIA LOHARS who are still roaming in India and they are also descendants of Rajputs.Such nomadic jat groups are not seen in India.Jat groups in ancient times have migrated but they were not engaged in dancing and singing.Let us come forward with more facts to accept or deny the jat relationship with Romas.

ravichaudhary
June 19th, 2003, 07:46 PM
Luxmanji

What I am against is the simplistic

Gypsy( Banjara) = Jat.

Or Jat = Gypsy( Banjara)

Or Jat = robber, bandit, thief, low down scoundrel, servile.

Ravi

lrburdak
June 27th, 2003, 05:31 PM
Ravi Chaudhary (Jun 19, 2003 10:16 a.m.):
Luxmanji

What I am against is the simplistic

Gypsy( Banjara) = Jat.

Or Jat = Gypsy( Banjara)

Or Jat = robber, bandit, thief, low down scoundrel, servile.

Ravi

*******************************
I believe that Jats can't be equated with Gypsies. I have gone through an article in JAT SEVAK journal(oct 1994) which states-
.....jat swabhav se avinit(arrogant) the. Sindhu ki seema mein arab vyaparion ko bina chungi chukaye pravesh karane walon ko maar bhaga dete the. unaka maaltal loot lete the. purani parasi aur arabi bhasha mein aase shastra jivi logon ko aesa vyavahar karane walon ko "hindu" kaha karate the.adhik shikayat hone par paras ke saeras raja ke pratham bete dwara(522-486b.c.) inhen dand dene ke liye sindhu desh par hamala kiya. jaton ki veerata se prasan hokar unaki rani eesa bela se samjhota kar, 10000 jat sainik bharti kar apane sath paras le gaya. inke sath manoranjan ke liye kuchh bhand, nat banjara bhi saath le gaya jo ab gypsy(roma) banjara jiwan vyatit karate europe mein ghumate han.....
********
This version explains the presence of Roma Gypsies in Europe. Why the Romas are claiming to be descended from jats is to rise their social status. But the quetion arises where those Soldiers have gone ???

dineshm
August 1st, 2003, 10:38 PM
Ravi ji aapane waastav mein ek acchi baat kahi hai.....now the time has come that we put forward our own jat historians & gather the facts not what people say or believe .
Then only we can come up with our history.

abhishek
August 2nd, 2003, 02:52 AM
One of the first documents I found on jat history was one relating them to Roma. To be frank it is not convincing.I mean I have seen gypsies in Hungary and must tell you I cant find any link between them and modern day jats. Even for a second if we accept roma hypotheses if one see their way of living and ethos of their culture I just cant accept that they share same gene pool as us.Even one takes physical attributes they are not very tall and have broad noses.And as of language well we got something which is called Proto Indo European language family, latin is very similar to sanskrit so do we say that romans were aryans????They may be caucasians but counting as scythians doesnt sound all that appealing.
It is one absurd propagated to malign our roots.
As Ravi jee has pointed this trend of equating jats with rogues or nomads should not be allowed.Atleast jats themselves should not buy these phoney arguements.

dineshm
August 2nd, 2003, 06:27 PM
Lakshmanji's reference of document about presence of gypsies as that of banjaras .
In Rajasthan the class who sings is referred to as Bhopa & they are Banjaras & as the 10,000 singers who went there are referred to as Jats cannt be as Jats were never a singing class .But we should findout that who are the descendents of the Jat soldiers who went there.
Atleast we Jats should not buy the ideas like that of gypsies to be descendents of Jats.
We should go for the facts not for the beliefs of people.
I am sure this theory of Gypsies being descendents of Jats would have been taken by most of us until Raviji gave a contradiction to that.So these discussions continue and we start approaching new facts & findinggs.
RAM RAM JAT BHAIO

lrburdak
March 12th, 2005, 09:48 AM
Here are some more facts on the subject of Roma people and their connection with India and Jats. It was posted on September 10, 2004 on a Japanese website of which URL address is given at the bottom of this article.

It seems there were four waves of migration of Indians to rest of the world. The first was after the earthquakes which caused the drying up the river Saraswati. The second wave 1500 years later when Indian soldiers battled in Persian armies. The third wave was when the Roma or Gypsies left India.
The third wave is remembered with greater clarity. This was the Roma, or Gypsies, who left India a thousand years ago as a result of the Arab and Turkish wars. According to the Chachnama, a contemporary account of Muhammad al-Qasim's campaigns in Sindh in 712-3, several thousand Jat warriors were captured as prisoners of war and deported to Iraq and elsewhere as slaves. A few hundred thousand women were likewise enslaved. The process of enslavement was accelerated during the campaigns of Mahmud of Ghazni. Abu Nasr Muhammad Utbi, the secretary and chronicler of Mahmud, informs us that 500,000 men and women were captured in Waihind alone in 1001-2. During his seventeen invasions, Mahmud Ghaznavi is estimated to have enslaved more than a million people. According to Utbi, "they were taken to Ghazna, and merchants came from different cities to purchase them, so that the countries of Mawarau-un-Nahr, Iraq and Khurasan were filled with them."

Now a new genetic study shows that the Gypsies came from India and not Egypt as it was believed.

As well as looking at over 1100 samples of Romany from Europe, they studied six samples from India and found that the similarity in genetic markers supported the theory that the founder group, of perhaps under 1000 people, came from India. The idea that Romany people came from India was first proposed 200 years ago based on similarities between their language and the Indian language Sanskrit, said Kalaydjieva. But such studies were inconclusive.

"There are quite a few examples where a population adopts a language but this does not necessarily mean its biological roots belong to the same place as the larger population that speaks this language," she said. "So from the biological point of view we have provided we have provided the best evidence so far that this is indeed a population that derives from the Indian subcontinent." Kalaydjieva and team's analysis of disease genetic markers supported the scientists' previous research on male and female genetic markers. "It all points in the same direction," she said.

Source- http://www.varnam.org/blog/archives/history_india/
Automaticaly translated from Japanese version

Regards,

ravichaudhary
March 13th, 2005, 02:18 AM
Here are some more facts on the subject of Roma people and their connection with India and Jats. It was posted on September 10, 2004 on a Japanese website of which URL address is given at the bottom of this article.

Regards,

Luxmanji

With due respect

If I was you, I would question this article a little more than you have done so far.

How do the authors know it was the Jats who were captured and enslaved?

Are we then to conclude , that assuming this extensive enslavement took place, that only Jats were enslaved, and thewefore these Roma gypises were/ are of Jat descent ???


The Muslim chroniclers were known for considerable exageration.

I am also not entirely sure that Ubti has been quoted correctly.

It is fairly easy to check- look up Elliot and Dowson's 'History of India as told by their own Historians", where Ubti's Manuscript appears in an english translation. There should be a copy in your local University library.

The DNA study is another Red Herring. Earlier in this thread, I have referred to such DNA studies, and that they were deconstructed, i.e. shown to be invalid and without foundation.

One should be careful before citing such material as fact.

Best regards


Ravi Chaudhary

lrburdak
March 13th, 2005, 02:03 PM
Ravi ji, Namaskar, Thanks for suggestions.

The objective to give material from above site was to reject the theory that gypsies are musicians and they are Jats. Soldiers might have been taken from India to Arab countries. It is possible. But we have to reject it with evidences. Here is one site which has no relation with jats or even India. This site rejects links of Roma with Jats. See the excerpts-

"A widespread erroneous theory claims that also Roma (Gypsies) are Jats or else connected with them, such hypothesis is utterly groundless, but as is not the subject of this chapter, it has been exposed in other essays (see: Origin of Roma and Sinti and Myths, Hypotheses and Facts about the Origin of Roma)"
Source- http://www.imninalu.net/Eurasians.htm

Regards,

ravichaudhary
March 13th, 2005, 10:15 PM
LuxmanJi

Thank you

May I suggest, that when you next post the material,which you have obviously spent much time and hard work in accumulating, you also post a few comments of your own.

Otherwise people may just think, you concur with views in the material.

What you bringing out is the need, for more activism on the part of the Jats, to get these web sites changed, and get this kind of false and erroneous data removed.


Ravi

lrburdak
March 14th, 2005, 04:45 PM
Ravi ji, Thank you.

I did not give my comments wth a view to get more fresh unbiased ideas. Problem with us is that we do not have records at all. All the websites are full of matter with Jat-Roma relationship. Finally I got the website as given above which completely rejects Jat-Roma relationship. This site has given details to reject Jat-Roma relationship.

There are certain low castes in Rajasthan like Bhopa, Dholi, Daroga,Dom,Banjara, Sansi,Banwaria, Gadia Lohar etc trying to assocate themslves with upper castes. They consider themslves to be of Rajput origin. To some extent they are successful as they have adopted surnames of Rajputs. To my surprise Rajput community has no objection.

One of the above castes i.e.Sansi assocites with Jats. It is also given in Encycopidea Britanica. Sansi is very low in status. In no way it can be descendant of Jats. As jats have preserved their gotra with great sanctity. It is missing in Sansi caste.

Similarly in Madhya Pradesh I find that in some areas there are Jatavs belonging to scheduled caste. Of late, they have started putting Jat as surname.

We have to think what to do in such cases ?

Regards,