Allied communities

The account

The world of the Rajputs was held together by a ring of allied communities — bards who kept their genealogies and sang their exploits, priests who married and buried them, retainers who served in their houses, and artists who carved their palaces. Several of these carried, or claimed, Rajput blood.

The Charans and Barots were the treasuries of memory: the Charan the honoured genealogist and reciter, the Barot the keeper of the vahi — the written family record. It was through them, more than through the Brahmin, that the great tradition reached the village. The Rajgors were the Rajputs’ own hereditary Brahmin priests, and the Khavas the personal retainers of wealthy houses — some of whom, in time, rose in status themselves.

The Salats were the stone-carvers and sculptors whose work is seen in the old palaces — the battle-scenes of the Sihor palace are called the ‘Salat school’. And the Molesalams were Rajputs converted to Islam who kept many of the old Rajput customs; among them the Makhwan-Miyans of Lalpur-Mandva and the Kasbatis of Dholka.