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Khatri is a caste from the northern Indian subcontinent. Khatris in India are mostly from the Punjab region. Khatris played an important role in India's trans regional trade during the Mughal Empire. They adopted administrative and military roles outside the Punjab region as well. Scott Cameron Levi describes Khatris among the "most important merchant communities of early modern India."〔 〕 All the Sikh Gurus were Khatris.〔 ==Origin and varna status== Khatris consider themselves to be of pure Vedic descent and thus superior to other claimants to kshatriya status, such as the Rajputs. Their standards of literacy and caste status were such during the early years of the Sikh community that, according to W. H. McLeod, they dominated it. Nath called Khatris a warlike race, a claim further supported by their employment as soldiers by Mughal emperors. But if Khatris were once warriors, then, why they are found to be involved in merchant and scribe occupation. Khatris sources explained it as the act of Mughal emperors who terminated the services of Khatris chieftains as they moved against their order of widow re marriage.〔Syan, Hardip Singh (2013). Sikh Militancy in the Seventeenth Century: Religious Violence in Mughal and Early Modern India. I. B. Tauris. 29-Jan-2013 - History - 315 Macmillan ISBN 9781780762500. |pages=31 |quote=...Nath goes on to say...〕 Kenneth W Jones quoted that "the Khatris claimed with some justice and increasing insistence, the status of Rajputs, or Kshatriyas, a claim not granted by those above but illustrative of their ambiguous position on the great varna scale of class divisions" Khatris claim that they were warriors who took to trade. The 19th-century Indians and the British administrators failed to agree whether the Khatri claim of Kshatriya status should be accepted, since the overwhelming majority of them were engaged in Vaishya (mercantile) occupations. There are Khatris that are found in other states of India and they follow different professions in each region. The Khatris of Gujrat and Rajasthan are said to have tailoring skills like "Darji" (tailor) caste.〔Indian settlers: the story of a New Zealand South Asian community, p48, Jacqueline Leckie, Otago University Press, 2000/ quote :"Tailoring was a caste occupation that continued in New Zealand by those from Darji and Khatri castes who had been trained in appropriate skills. Bhukandas Masters, a Khatri, emigrated to New Zealand in 1919. He practiced as tailor in central Auckland..."〕 Dasrath Sharma described Khatris as a mixed ''pratiloma'' caste of low ritual status but suggested that Khatris could be a mixed caste born of Kshatriya fathers and Brahmin mothers.〔Early Chauhān dynasties: a study of Chauhān political history, Chauhān political institutions, and life in the Chauhān dominions, from 800 to 1316 A.D., Dasharatha Sharma, p 279, Motilal Banarsidass, 1975〕 According to ''Bichitra Natak'', said to be the autobiography of the last Sikh Guru Gobind Singh, but whose authenticity is a matter of ongoing dispute,〔Different approaches to Bachitar Natak, Journal of Sikh studies, Surjit Singh Hans, Volume 10, 66-78, Guru Nanak University.〕〔The Sikh Struggle in the Eighteenth Century and Its Relevance for Today, W. H. McLeod, History of Religions, Vol. 31, No. 4, Sikh Studies (May, 1992), pp. 344-362, The University of Chicago Press/ quote: " "Although Bachitar Natak is traditionally attributed to Guru Gobind Singh, there is a strong case to be made for regarding it as the work of one of his followers..."〕〔Dasam Granth: A historical study, Sikh Review, 42(8), Aug 1994, 9-20〕 the Bedi sub-caste of the Khatris derives its lineage from Kush, the son of Rama in the Hindu mythology. The descendants of Kush, according to the disputed Bachitar Natak legend, learned the Vedas at Benares, and were thus called Bedis (Vedis). Similarly, according to the same legend, the Sodhi sub-caste claims descent from Lav, the other son of Rama.〔The Cosmic Drama: Bichitra Natak, Author Gobind Singh, Publisher Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy of the U.S.A., 1989 ISBN 0-89389-116-9, ISBN 978-0-89389-116-9〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Khatri」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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