The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations/The Origin of the Jats from matted locks (Jata) of Lord Siva
| The full text of this book has been converted into Wiki format by Laxman Burdak. |
Manthan Publications, Rohtak. ISBN 81-85235-22-8
Chapter II:The Origin of the Jats from matted locks (Jata) of Lord SivaContents
Mythological theory in Deva Samhita
Another mythological theory was propounded in the Deva Samhita1, written probably by Gorakh Sinha during the early medieval period. The fanciful story runs as follows:
Once Parvati asked Siva, "O Lord Bhutesha, knower of all religions, kindly narrate to me the birth and exploits of the Jat race. Who is their father? Who is their mother? Which race are they? When were they born ?" Having read the mind of Parvati, Lord Siva said, "O mother of the world, I may tell you honestly the origin and exploits of the Jats about whom none else has so far revealed any thing to you.They are a symbol of sacrifice, bravery and industry. They are like gods, firm of determination and of all Kshatriyas the Jats are the prime rulers of the earth. They are the progeny of Virabhadra (Siva's son) and Gani, the daughter of Daksha, son of Brahma. Their history is extremely wonderful; and their antiquity glorious. The Pundits of history did not record their annals lest it should injure and impair the false pride of the vipras and gods2".
The two ethnologists, Russell3 and Hira Lal4, give it different version of the above anecdote in the "Brahmanical legends of the origin of the Jats" which is reproduced below.
"The Jats relate the legend thus. On the occasion when Himachal or Daksha Raja, the father-in-law of Mahadeva was performing a great sacrifice, he invited all the gods to be present except his son-in-law Mahadeva (Siva). The latter's wife, Parvati, was, however, very eager to go; so she asked Mahadeva to let her attend, even though she had not been invited. Mahadeva was unwilling to allow her, but finally consented. Daksha treated Parvati With great want of respect at the sacrifice, so she came home and told Mahadeva about her plight When Mahadeva heard all this he was filled with wrath and untying his matted hair (jata) dashed it on the ground, whence two powerful beings arose from It. He sent them to destroy Daksha's sacrifice and they went and destroyed it, and from these were descended the race of Jats, and they take their name from the matted locks (jata) of the Lord Mahadeva.
The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations: End of page 33
Another saying of the Jats is that ancestor of the Rajputs was Kashyapa and that of the Jats Siva. In the beginning these were the only two races in India."
Shiva:the chief deity of Jats
This theory was set afloat during the medieval age which is marked by the ascendancy of powerful Rajput warriors. It was a period of "the unhealthy growth of blind superstitions, the decay and death of the spirit of adventure in science and thought in practical life", a period during which "the fairy of the fortune of the Jats, particularly after Harsha Vardhana, had gone to sleep. The theory cast a spell on the mind of the simple Jat folk and soon became popular with them. They were taken in by the pious fraud that they were born of the highest bodily part (jata) of the highest god (Siva) whereas all others are born of lower parts of Brahma. In comparison to other communities who boast of their having descended from Lord Siva, they are also Sivagotri. Almost every Jat village in the North is sanctified with a Siva temple called 'Sivalaya'. The Jats commemorate their association with Siva, their alleged progenitor, by bedecking every newly born male child with an amulet, popularly known as 'Siva's Crescent,' made of silver or gold and gifted either by the maternal-uncle of the child or the head of the family on the auspicious sixth night after the birth of the child. Lord Siva is believed to visit the new baby and bless him with good fortune. The ladies of the family keep vigil during that night and do lot of singing and dancing with distribution of sweets around. On the festival of Sivaratri the Jat young ladies (Sivasana) observe a total fast, pass the whole night singing in honour of their highest deity (Siva), and offer grain and sweets the following morning to the god and the poor.
Har har Mahadeva, besides Jai Bajrang Bali Ki and especially Jat Balwaan Jai Bhagwaan (Krishna) is the war cry of the Jat Kshatriyas. The Bull, the mount (Vahana) of Siva is held in the highest reverence by the Jat peasantry. "The Jats," writes Dr.M.C. Pradhan5, feel nearer to Siva than to the other incarnations, he being their deity whom they worship regularly and pray to. Attributing the character of the Jats to Siva, he6 further observes that "Siva is the chief deity of the Jats. His attributes are simplicity and asceticism, but he is believed to be easily excited and can be revengeful when aroused. On the whole, however, he is believed to be benevolent; he really comes to the help of his devotees The sum total of these desirable as well as not so desirable
The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations: End of page 34
qualities, attributed to Siva, mirror themselves in the general day-to-day behavior of the Jats to an appreciable extent. Taking revenge, being vindictive, or having an excitable temper, are of course, not considered very desirable qualities, but the rationale makes these human frailties more understandable, and the Jat society takes a somewhat permissive view of these. Similarly, simple living and helping others are qualities commonly found among the Jats. They believe that observing these qualities they win the approbation of their deity and would gain his grace and favour." Such is the magic cast by the theory on the Jat-mind and their ethos.
A critical analysis of the theory
With such a background in view, to attempt a critical analysis, and consequently, to reject the theory propounded in the Deva Samhita and noted by Russell and Hira Lal, particularly when the Jats seem to have tacitly accepted it, may not be less embarrassing for the analyst. Moreover, to question the validity of the theories, in which venerated gods are involved, especially when the orthodox section of the Jats place their reliance upon them, may not always be free from danger for the critic who may be censured as a heretic. This is quite a dilemma. If we accept the theory, we continue to be victim of the orthodox Brahmanical pia fraus and if reject it, we may incur the wrath of Siva as well as of his Jat devotees. Whatever be our fate here or hereafter, in this age of science and reason our conscience compels us to pierce the curtain or mythology to reveal the truth concealed there under.
This theory might have been successful in "be fooling some people for all the time or all the people for some time but certainly not all the people for all the time." Y.P. Shastri, G.C. Dwivedi, Russell and Hiralal, A.B. Mukerjee, B.S. Dahiya and N.S. Chaudhary are the scholars who have quoted and criticized the theory. According to Y.P.Shastri7 the theory was propounded to win back the Jats, who had en mass embraced Buddhism, to Neo-Hinduism preached and propagated by Shankracharya and his followers. As Shastri noted, The main argument used by them to influence and win over the simple Jats was that "the Shudra is born of the feet, the Vaishya from the navel, the Khsatriya from the arms and the Brahaman from the mouth of Brahma where as the Jats are born of the hair of the head (the highest part of the human body) of Lord Siva and so the Jats are the highest of all people". N.S. Chaudhary follows Shastri. The theory, as the Jats are no
The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations: End of page 35
longer followers of Buddhism, seemed to have worked magic with them, but Y.P. Shastri and Chaudhary observe silence over the fact whether a man can be born of the hair (jata) of a man or god, however long, strong and thick it may be. If it were a fact, the problem of population explosion could easily be solved now by shaving all breeding heads. The world would also be freed of the taxing burden of marriages.
Whereas Y. P. Shastri hints at the religious purpose of the theory, Dr. A.B. Mukerjee8, an ethno-geographer stresses its political and social purpose. According to him "at the end of the ancient period of Indian history great instability prevailed in the social structure of the people and great political changes were effected. The Rajputs became the rulers and the Jats their subjects, a fact very well borne out by historical data (Ibbetson: 1916). Consequently, the social status of the latter groups declined and they were regarded as of lowly ranks. Possibly to counteract the intolerable superiority assumed by the Rajputs the Jats might have invented the Siva myth of their origin. Through this story they could claim themselves to be descendants of god himself and thus raise themselves socially." Of course, after the fall of Harsha Vardhana of the Aulikara or Virk gotra, the political and social status of the Jat peasantry, especially in Rajasthan, had declined to a great extent; but can the devising of such theories restore the lost status of people? To Dr. Mukerjee the myth appears to indicate the Himalayas as the place of the origin of the Jats, some Himalayan king as their ancestor and Siva as their chief deity whom they warship. But in the next breath he contends that "there is no trace of the Jats in that region and they, with totemistic and animistic religion, have never been the worshipers of Siva," and finally rejects the theory as with no base in history, He also suggests that to counteract the prevailing opinion which "considers the Jats as of foreign origin, they might have claimed descent from Siva, to prove their native origin". Since the Rajputs began claiming to have descended from the Sun and the Moon, the Jats started taking pride in being the descendants of Lord Siva. (cf. Addenda also)
Bhim Singh Dahiya's view on the theory
B.S.Dahiya9 points to yet another purpose of the theory. According to him "Something must have happened in the 6th or 7th century A.D., during the course of the revival of the orthodox Brahmanism, which made these people (Jats) persona non grata with the new orthodox. That is why, when the Puranas were revised, their
The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations: End of page 36
historical details and even their names were removed therefrom. It is perhaps to this state of affairs that the Deva Samhita refers when it records that "nobody has published the truth about the origin and activities of the Jat race." At another place, he10 assumes that "the Jats were the first rulers in the vast central Asian plains as per Deva Samhita". Dahiya seems to have placed credence on the theory under review. He has collected from classical Sanskrit books certain words as jarta, Jartah dirgharoma, Jatya which all mean hair or long hair and gutt or jatta (hair) in Punjabi language, and which all are similar in sound as the name Jat. He also cites examples of the Sakas, Tukharas and Kankas etc. with long hair from the Mahabharata and whom he count among the Jat clans. His belief, that traditionally the Jats kept long hair and beards, led him to associate them with jata (long hair) of Lord Siva. But our contention is that the people other than those mentioned by him also, in the probable absence of the art of barbering, or out of fashion, used to keep long hair and beard. Will Mr. Dahiya include them also among the Jats ? Even today, all the Sikhs sport long hair and beard but all of them are not Jats or Jatt Sikh. No doubt, the tribes mentioned by Dahiya have their descendants among the Jats but they are the ones who were amalgamated with the basically native Jat stock at a very late stage.
Russell and Hira Lal have merely given another version, as reproduced above, of this theory. They have observed silence over its validity. An argumentum ex silentio is seldom conclusive.
Dr. G.C. Dwivedi 11 doubting the reliability of the Devasamhita as a much later work, opines that "the legend is obviously trying to explain the origin of the Jats on the flimsy grounds of similarity of the names jata (locks) and Jat. Locks, after all, cannot give birth to any human race and this is simply carrying speculation to the extreme." Truly, the theory cannot stand the test of scientific scrutiny. The assumption is as good a hoax as to say that the Virkas were born of a she-wolf, the Nagas of a serpent and the Shergills of a lioness-in-ditch which are genetic and biological impossibilities. Lice are born of hair human beings, certainly not.
The meaning theory conveys
The theory is obviously figurative and its use is simply allegorical. The meaning which it conveys is that there were so many ganas of warrior tribes at the command of Virabhadra or Kartikeya, the son of
The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations: End of page 37
Lord Siva, whose abode was the Sivalak mountain. The function of this mythological theory is to ensure a more honourable antiquity and status to the Jats in comparison to others, especially the Brahmans, which evidently seems to have been vindicated by scholars like Kephart, Hewitt and Waddell who12 count the Jats among the ruling races of prehistoric times in India. Whatever may be the psychological importance and purpose of the theory, it cannot be accepted as a plausible hypothesis on the origin of the Jats. It may cast its hypnotizing magic on the ignorant but not the least on the rational mind. Even if Lord Siva's snakes bite us to death, we cannot help saying that the theory is as futile "as filling the pot with dew."
It may, however, be interesting to note that a Jat tribe, living in about 25 contiguous villages in Jind district of Haryana and a out five villages in Nangloi block in Delhi, goes by its gotra name as Shivakhande or Sheokhande. Though the name has now been Arabicised as Shokeen in Delhi villages, yet the elders of the Sheokhande Khaap (Kshetra) take pride in the fact that they originally hail from the Dharanas whose kingdom was rather misnomered as the Gupta Empire in Indian history. Be that as it may, one thing is plausible about the Sheokhande Jats. They must be the Sivas who fought against the Bharatas on the Jamuna river in one of the ten Rigvedic wars. They are identitled by scholars with the Sivis13 or Sibis of the Usinara country in the north Of Haridwar near the source of the Ganges 14. As the Tibetia Jats are Indianised as Tevatia (among whom was Ch. Charan Singh Tevatia, the late Prime Minister of India), so Sivas or Sibis became known as Shivakhande or Sheokhande from and after the Shivalaks, the bode of Lord Siva, the highest deity of the Jats. Their descent from the Shivalak hills has provided good grounds to the author of Devasamhita to expound the theory. Even if we accept It in case of this tribe of the Jats, It may not be misunderstood that all other tribes of the Jats emanated from there, i.e. the Shivalak hills, which have since ages past been under the umbrella of Siva's Jatas (hair). The use, It may be again noted, is only metaphorical.
The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations: End of page 38
Notes and References
- 1. Shastri, Y.P.: op.cit., pp 40-41. Dr. Ram Sarup: History of the Jats (Eng), 1967, pp. 14-15: Urdu edn., 1936, pp. 33-35. Chaudhary, Niranjan Singh : Jat-Questions and Answers. pp. 6-7. Desh Raj, Thakur:Jat Itihas (Hindi) 1934, pp.85-87.
- 2. Shastri, Y.P.: op.cit., Urdu ed., p. 29; Niranjan Singh, op.cit.; pp. 6f.
- 3. Russell, R.V. and Lal, Hira: op.cit. Vol. III. Delhi, 1975, pp. 232.233.
- 4. Ibid., p. 236.
- 5. Pradhan, Dr. M.C. et al.: Anthropology and Archaeology, Oxford University Press, 1969, p. 236.
- 6. Ibid., p. 234.
- 7. Op.cit., p. 40.
- 8. Mukerjee, Dr. A.B.: The Deccan Geographer, Jan., 1968, No.1, pp. 32-33.
- 9. Dahiya, B.S.: Jats-The Ancient Rulers, Delhi, 1980, p. 18.
- 10. Ibid., p. 22.
- 11. Dwivedi, Dr. Girish Chandra: Origin of the Jats, JIH. Vol. XLVIII, Part II, Aug., 1970, p. 378.
- 12. Ch. Shraddhanand Sheokhanda of Piragarhi near Nangloi (Delhi), an ex Edn. Officer, was the person who first of all wrote his gotra as 'Shokeen' in place of Sheokhande.
- 13. Kathasaritsagar, Vol. I, p. 11.
- 14. ABORI, Vol. XXIX, p. 117, fn. 9.
The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations: End of page 39