The exact varna status of Kayasthas has been a subject of debate.[6] According to multiple accounts, they are a literate and educated class of Kshatriyas,[7] and have been referred to as a twice-born caste "whose claims to Kshatriya status need not be caviled at."[8] Other sources rank Kayasthas higher than Kshatriyas (but below Brahmins).[9] Some Kayasthas have claimed Brahmin status, though this has been challenged by other Brahmin groups.[10] Brahmanical religious texts refer to Kayasthas as a caste responsible for writing secular documents and maintaining records from the 7th century AD onward. Kayasthas were originally recruited from the Brahmin, Kshatriya, and Vaishya castes, but gradually developed into a well-knit subcaste community. They have been mentioned as a "mixed caste", combining Brahman-Sudra(lower caste) and sometimes Kshatriya as well.[2] In Bengal, Kayasthas, alongside Brahmins, are regarded as the "highest Hindu castes"[11] that comprise the "upper layer of Hindu society."[12] According to Tej Ram Sharma, an Indian historian, the Kayasthas of Bengal had not yet developed into a distinct caste during the reign of the Gupta Empire, although the office of the Kayasthas (scribes) had been instituted before the beginning of the period, as evidenced from the contemporary Smritis. Tej Ram Sharma further says Noticing brahmanic names with a large number of modern Bengali Kayastha cognomens in several early epigraphs discovered in Bengal, some scholars have suggested that there is a considerable brahmana element in the present day Kayastha community of Bengal. Originally the professions of Kayastha (scribe) and Vaidya (physician) were not restricted and could be followed by people of different varnas including the brahmanas. So there is every probability that a number of brahmana families were mixed up with members of other varnas in forming the present Kayastha and Vaidya communities of Bengal.[13] In Maharashtra, the Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu claim Kshatriya status through descent from a Kshatriya king of the Haihaya clan.[14] In northern India and Pakistan, Muslim Kayasthas are descended from members of the Hindu Kayastha community that converted to Islam during the 15th-16th centuries.[15] During the British Raj, British courts classified Kayasthas as Shudras, based largely upon the theories of Herbert Hope Risley. However, the Kayasthas of Bengal, Bombay and the United Provinces repeatedly challenged this classification, producing a flood of books, pamphlets, family histories and journals to support their position of holding Kshatriya status.[16]
Posted on: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 18:36:30 +0000
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