Kayastha: Encyclopedia - Kayastha

Kayastha

Kāyastha or Kayasth is a Hindu caste in South Asia, whose place inside the four Varnas or main castes is disputed. Chitragupta decided that his lineage would wield the pen (quill) as its weapon rather than the sword. Legend says that he is employed by Yama, the God of Death, to maintain records about every human in Mrityulok or the mortal world. Hence Kāyastha became caste of scribes.

Modern day Kayasthas probably number around 5-7 million (50-70 lakhs). They are subdivided into 12 main sub-castes who are believed to have originated from the 12 sons of Maharaj Chitragupta and his two wives. These 12 subcastes are:

• Ambashth
• Asthana
• Balmik
• Bhatnagar
• Chitrey
• Gour
• Karan
• Kulshreshta
• Mathur
• Nigam
• Priye
• Saran
• Saxena
• Srivastava
• Suryadhwaja
• Karuneegar

In older days, Kayasthas practiced family exogamy and caste endogamy marriage even within sub-caste. However, things have changed and inter-caste marriages are very common now. Most Kayastha are non-vegetarian, unlike other Hindu castes such as Brāhmanas. All Kayasthas belong to Kashyap gotra.

The actual position of the Kayastha in the caste hierarchy (the varna system of the Hindus) is a matter of dispute. Calcutta High Court of Bengal ruled that they belonged to the Sudra, the lowest hierarchy which was strongly disputed. To add to the confusion Patna High Court ruled that they were Kşhatriyas. In most of North India, Kayastha are regarded as vaiśyas, the third varna of the caste system which includes businessmen and traders.The goverment of India has refrained from accepting any of these interpretations. Kayastha have made notable contributions to the Indian way of life.

Kayastha live mainly in northern and eastern part of India and in Nepal.There are Kayastha in Bengal viz. Sur, Bose, Ghosh, in Orissa, viz. Patnaik, in Assam viz. Chaliha, Barua and in Maharashtra viz. Thackeray and Samarth. The script of the courts in the 19th and the early 20th century was Kaithi and not Devanagari. This script was primarily used by Kayastha.

In Tamil nadu, the Kayasthas are Karuneegars who are scribes. Their job is to maintain the village accounts. They also collected taxes.Thay also inhabit Kerala. The temple for Chitragupta is available in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu.

Kayastha have contributed to the Indian way of life in various fields. The first president of independent India Dr Rajendra Prasad, Socialist revolutionary Jayaprakash Narayan the noted Hindi author Premchand, poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and the great scholar were from the Kayastha community. Lal Bahadur Shastri, the second prime minister of India, was also from this community. The prominent names from film and media world are the famous actors Amitabh Bachchan & Shatrughan Sinha, TV personality Shekhar Suman and singers Mukesh,Manna Dey & Sonu Nigam.Renowned scientists like Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar, Jagadis Chandra Bose,Satyendra Nath Bose,Ashesh Prosade Mitra, Mriganka Sur, Ashoka Jahnavi-Prasad, Sisir Kumar Mitra also come from this community as do painters like Nandlal Bose and Jatin Das .Other notable Kayasthas are Jyoti Basu, film stars Utpal Dutt ,Nutan ,Tanuja, Motilal, and literary figures like Ramkumar Verma, Mahadevi Verma, Vrindavanlal Verma, Bhagwati Charan Verma,Bimal Mitra ,Premendra Mitra, Raghupati Sahai 'Firaq' Gorakhpuri and Dhirendra Verma, freedom fighters like Chittaranjan Das and revolutionaries like Bipin Chandra Pal, Subhash Chandra Bose,Khudiram Bose, Sri Aurobindo, Rashbehari Bose and Lala Hardayal and historians like Ashirwadi Lal Srivastava, Sir Jadunath Sarkar and Tara Chandra. Famous con artist Natwarlal was also from this caste.

Categories: Social groups of India | Indian people

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Kayastha", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki