of one of the Scythian invading hordes
who entered India shortly before and after the commencement of the
Christian era. The Scythians, as they were called by Herodotus,
appear to have belonged to the Mongolian racial family, as also did
the white Huns who came subsequently. The Gujar and Ahir castes, as
well as the Jats, and also the bulk of the existing Rajput clans, are
believed to be descended from these invaders; and since their residence
in India has been comparatively short in comparison with their Aryan
predecessors, they have undergone much less fusion with the general
population, and retain a lighter complexion and better features,
as is quite perceptible to the ordinary observer in the case of the
Jats and Rajputs. The Jats have a somewhat higher status than other
agricultural castes, because in the Punjab they were once dominant,
and one or two ruling chiefs belonged to the caste. [48] The bulk of
the Sikhs were also Jats. But in the Central Provinces, where they are
not large landholders, and have no traditions of former dominance,
there is little distinction between them and the Kurmis. The Gujars
for long remained a pastoral freebooting tribe, and their community
was naturally recruited from all classes of vagabonds and outlaws, and
hence the caste is now of a mixed character, and their physical type
is not noticeably distinct from that of other Hindus. Sir G. Campbell
derived the Gujars from the Khazars, a tribe of the same race as the
white Huns and Bulgars who from an early period had been settled in
the neighbourhood of the Caspian. They are believed to have entered
India during the fifth or sixth century. Several clans of Rajputs,
as well as considerable sections of the Ahir and Kunbi castes were,
in his opinion, derived from the Gujars. In the Central Provinces the
Gujars have now settled down into respectable cultivators. The Ahirs
or cowherds and graziers probably take their name from the Abhiras,
another of the Scythian tribes. But they have now become a purely
occupational caste, largely recruited from the indigenous Gonds and
Kawars, to whom the business of tending cattle in the jungles is
habitually entrusted. In the Central Provinces Ahirs live in small
forest villages with Gonds, and are sometimes scarcely considered as
Hindus. On this account they have a character for bucolic stupidity,
as the proverb has it: 'When he is asleep he is an Ahir and when he is
awake he is a fool.' But the Ahir