The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations/The Jaathra theory of Lahiri Singh
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Manthan Publications, Rohtak. ISBN 81-85235-22-8
Chapter I B:The Jaathra theory of Lahiri SinghContents
The Jaathra theory of Lahiri Singh
This theory is contained in a small booklet entitled "The Ethnology of the Jats", written by Ch. Lahiri Singh1, a Jat pleader of Meerut, at the request of the Census Officials in 1883. The author derives the word Jat from Jathara (जठर), but he differs from Angad Sharma, the author of the Jattharouttpatti in treating the Jaatharas (जाठर) as foreign people2, attributing their name to the mountain Jatthara, mentioned in the Mahabharata, Vishnu and Bhagawata Puranas3. The first two books describe the country of the Jaatharas along with Kalinga, Kashi and Aparkashi.
Lahiri Singh's theory is untenable
Lahiri Singh's theory is as untenable as that of Angad Sharma. Bare assertion is no proof of the matter asserted. The hollowness of a similar theory has already been exposed in extentio in the foregoing pages. The only difference between the theories propounded by Angad Sharma and Lahiri Singh is that whereas the former despatches the de novo created native class of the Jaathara Kshatriyas, the supposed progenitors of the Jats, from the hot region of the Deccan to the health resorts of the Devkuta (देवकूट) and the Jatthara mountains across the Himalayas, the latter has very kindly brought them down to save them from the freezing cold of these mountains, into the Indo-Gangctic plains or the 'Fertile Sapta Sindhu'. The two theories may not be relevant to the origin of the Jats but they do unmindfully point to the to-and-fro migrations4 of the ancient Indo-Aryans.
K.R. Qanungo refutes the theory
Prof. K.R. Qanungo5 refutes the theory on the ground that "the Jats cannot be held to be the same people as the ancient Jaatharas because the doubtful testimony of the similarity of sounds breaks down in the face of the significant absence of any tradition, whatsoever, connecting the two people. Lahiri Singh's claim is strong enough to startle the majority of the Jats. One might close one's eyes to the absurdity of the case. But the Jaatharas still survive in Southern India, without c1aiming any connexion with the Jats". These Jatharas belong to a sub-section of the Deccan Maratha Brahamans called Karhadas, living near Karhada about the junction of the Krishna and the Koyana rivers, some 15 miles from Satara. It is least convincing that the name of an insignificant Brahman branch of the Karhadas6 of Maharashtra would have been adopted by the millions of the Jats living in
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north western India. Had it been so. the Jats or a section of them might have been known as Jatharia, Jatharya or Jatharwal etc., which names are conspicuous by their absence In the Jat Gotras.
Finally, it may be said that it seems to be a case of one blind man leading the other. Lahiri Singh, the pleader Chaudhary of Meerut appears to be less imaginative but more ignorant than Angad Sharma and his theory to trace the origin of the Jats is just like "fathoming the depth of the ocean with a salt-doll".
Notes and References
- 1. Qanungo, op.cit. p. 17. Y.P. Shastri, op.cit., p. 40.
- 2. Ibid. pp. 8-9.
- 3. Ibid. Supra. p. 3.
- 4. Cf. Calvin Kephart, Races of Mankind, Peter Owen Ltd., London, 1961, for Aryan migrations.
- 5. His. of Jats, p. 17.
- 6. Russell, RV and Lal, Hira; op.cit., Vol. I, 1975, p. 374.
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