Coming now to the contemporary evidence of the classical period during which the Mahabharata was mainly interpolated, we know that it is not deficient to thwart the claim of the authors of the Mahabharata and that of the later writers who propagated the flimsy picture of the Vahika tribes. General Chesney [33] informs us that "the Greeks were loud in praise of the Indians; never in all their eight years of constant warfare had they met with such skilled and gallant soldiers, who, moreover, surpassed in stature and bearing all the other races or Asia .... The Indian village community flourished even at the distant period, and in the brave and manly race which fought so stoutly under Poros twenty two centuries ago we may recognise all the fine qualities of the Panjabi agrarian people of the present day, the gallant who fought us in our turn so stubbornly, and now the most valuable component of the Indian empire, and the best soldiers of its Queen Empress'. This reference, undoubtedly, points to "the accursed" Ayudhajivi ganas of the Bahikadesa and their descendants, the Jats.[34]
External sources on Jartas
It is worth mentioning that some external sources also throw light on the Jartas, but they neither connect them with Jartikkas or Madras, nor do they denounce them. Pliny [35] the Elder, a Roman scholar (AD 23-79) places Garatae Jartas in the level country of Amanda near Taxila [36] Ptolemy [37] also refers to Zaratoi of Indo-Scythian in in Lower Indus, which to N L De [38] lies near Jalandhar. These sources establish the existence of the Jarta in Panjab and Sindh, but they do not speak adversely of them. Rather, the Bahikas are admired "for decorous behaviour and good ways of life [39]". Strabo [40] and Mgagasthenes [41] found them "simple and frugal,orderly in behaviour, observing self restraint in theft and not given to drinking except at sacrifices'. Diodorus [42] found them governed by laws in the highest degree salutary and their political system as one to admire; beauty was held among them in the highest estimation in preference to dowry etc." and "the inhabitants of these cities (Sangala or Sakala)" are generally held "in higher estimation than the rest of their countrymen". [43]
Theory of origin of Jats from Jarta rejected
Hukum Singh Pawar (Pauria) sums up the discussion on the theory: it may, in capsule, be remarked that the version of the Mahabharata, regarding the Jarttikas and their gloomy picture, cannot be considered reliable because of its more-than one redactions, revisions and interpolations at different times by different scholars with vested interests. The contention of scholars, who question the very existence of the Jarttikas and Sakala at the time of the Epic war, cannot be dismissed lightly and deserves further investigations. The evidence from other sources pertaining to the contemporary period, during which the Great Epic is believed to have been largely interpolated, not only does not support the calumny but, on the other hand, it forcefully contradicts the picture purporting to assassinate the character of the Vahika warrior tribes, the progenitors of the Jats. Modern scholars, who have burnt mid-night oil in making an intensive as well as extensive study of the Great Epic and of the position and status of women in the Heroic Age of Indian history, are not found wanting in rejecting the nefarious depiction of the Vahika women as absurd and preposterous. The purpose of the theory, instead of tracing the origin of the Jats, was threefold i.e. primarily to represent the Jats as outlanders (Vahikas or Bahikas) in the sense that they hailed from other adjoining countries whereas they are, being the purest Aryan, the autochthons in India; secondly to denounce them perpetually in popular estimation, by identifying them with the obnoxiously painted Jarttika or Jartas, as fallen and degenerated as depicted in the great epic; thirdly to denounce the ancestors of the present Jats for adopting Buddhism and for not submitting to the yoke of brahmanism which after its revival sought to impose on them in ancient period. A clever play upon words with similar sounds has been made to conceal the truth, which cannot be easily understood by common man. [44]
Even if we accept the identification of the modern Jats with the ancient Jarttikas or Jartas, we, as noticed above, find the life and character of the two people poles apart. In all probability the Jartas were followers of Zoroastara (Zaratushtra = Zarat + ushtra, Traraaporevala, 1951: 73f and Rahurkar, 1964: 130) who, as informed by Max Muller [45] , before their schism with the followers of Vedic religion, "were a colony from northern India and who were Ahura Worshippers". The coins of Kanishka [46] present besides others the Zoroastrian gods also. We have every reason to gather from it that some of the Zoroasstrians must also be in the Panjab and Sindh during his reign. Like the Sakas and Kushanas they must have been naturally denigrated by the champions of the Brahmanical faith. Just as the later Kushan-Saka-Jats were assimilated with the aboriginal Jats, so might have Jartas been absorbed into them. But we must remember that the Jarta admixture is something different from Jarta origin of the Jats. Hence, the theory is rejected as much a futile effort as the scaling of the height of the Everest by a blind with a raw cotton thread."[47]
References
1. ↑ Hukum Singh Pawar (Pauria): The Jats - Their Origin, Antiquity and Migration (1993), Publisher - Manthan Publications Rohtak, ISBN-8185235-22-8, p. 61
2. ↑ Bhim Singh Dahiya : Jats, the Ancient Rulers, A clan study in the Pre Islamic period, 1982, Sterling Publishers New Delhi, p.22
3. ↑ Ganaratna Mahodahi, karika 201
4. ↑ Bhim Singh Dahiya : Jats, the Ancient Rulers, A clan study in the Pre Islamic period, 1982, Sterling Publishers New Delhi, p.22-23
5. ↑ The Rig Veda in Sanskrit
6. ↑ Mahabharata Karna Parva (VIII.30.14)
7. ↑ K R Qanungo:History of the Jats, Ed Dr Vir Singh, 2003, p.6
8. ↑ K R Qanungo:History of the Jats, Ed Dr Vir Singh, 2003, p.7
9. ↑ K R Qanungo:History of the Jats, Ed Dr Vir Singh, 2003, p.6
10. ↑ Archeological Survey Report of India, Vol. 11, 1863-64, p. 3
11. ↑ Anc. Geog. of Ind., 1924, Calcutla, p. 696
12. ↑ His. of Med. Hindu Ind., Vol. I, 1979, N. Delhi, pp. 86 ff
13. ↑ Hukum Singh Pawar (Pauria): The Jats - Their Origin, Antiquity and Migration (1993), Publisher - Manthan Publications Rohtak, ISBN-8185235-22-8, p. 40
14. ↑ Correspondence with author-Hukum Singh Pawar
15. ↑ Ind. in the Time of Patanjali, 1957, Bombay, p. 77. But he d ~s not hold the Jarttikas as Jats
16. ↑ Jats (The Ancient Rulers), 1983, Delhi, pp. 22f
17. ↑ History of Jats, 1967, Delhi, p. 15. I
18. ↑ Strange, G. Le.; Eastern Caliphate, 1966, London, pp. 244 331. Westphal- Hellbusch
19. ↑ Ency. of Islam, Vol. 11. p. 488. I
20. ↑ Hukum Singh Pawar (Pauria): The Jats - Their Origin, Antiquity and Migration (1993), Publisher - Manthan Publications Rohtak, ISBN-8185235-22-8, p. 40
21. ↑ Pol. & Soc. Movements in Anc. Pb. 1964, Delhi, pp. 114,2.)1.
22. ↑ Hukum Singh Pawar (Pauria): The Jats - Their Origin, Antiquity and Migration (1993), Publisher - Manthan Publications Rohtak, ISBN-8185235-22-8, p. 41
23. ↑ Ibid. pp. 219, 243, 251.
24. ↑ History of Herodotus, Vol. III, pp. 185,209. ii.
25. ↑ Hukum Singh Pawar (Pauria): The Jats - Their Origin, Antiquity and Migration (1993), Publisher - Manthan Publications Rohtak, ISBN-8185235-22-8, p. 41
26. ↑ Buddha Prakash, op. cit., pp. 135f
27. ↑ Hukum Singh Pawar (Pauria): The Jats - Their Origin, Antiquity and Migration (1993), Publisher - Manthan Publications Rohtak, ISBN-8185235-22-8, p. 41
28. ↑ Ashtadhyayi, IV, 2,117-118; V. 3, 114
29. ↑ Buddha Prakash, op.cit., pp. 136
30. ↑ Mahabharata, VIII, 44
31. ↑ Infra
32. ↑ Hukum Singh Pawar (Pauria): The Jats - Their Origin, Antiquity and Migration (1993), Publisher - Manthan Publications Rohtak, ISBN-8185235-22-8, p. 41
33. ↑ McCrindle, J.W., Ancient India (New Ed.) New Delhi,p.345
34. ↑ Hukum Singh Pawar (Pauria): The Jats - Their Origin, Antiquity and Migration (1993), Publisher - Manthan Publications Rohtak, ISBN-8185235-22-8, p. 54
35. ↑ Majumdar R C, Classical Accounts of India,p.345
36. ↑ Pliny, VI.23,ASR, Vol.II,1863,p.6
37. ↑ Ancient India As described by Ptolemy, ed. McCrindle rep. by Surendra Nath Majumdar, Calcutta 1927
38. ↑ Majumdar,op.cit.,p.373
39. ↑ Satya Shrava, Saka in India, New Delhi,1981,p.5
40. ↑ Strabo, Bk. XV.1.53,54-59, Q, by Majumdar RC, Clasical Accounts of India, pp. 269-75
41. ↑ Ibid. History and Culture of Indian people, vol.II (The Age of Imperial Unity), p.69
42. ↑ Majumdar, op.cit., p.170-171. Jayaswal,op.cit., p.56
43. ↑ Hukum Singh Pawar (Pauria): The Jats - Their Origin, Antiquity and Migration (1993), Publisher - Manthan Publications Rohtak, ISBN-8185235-22-8, p. 54
44. ↑ Hukum Singh Pawar (Pauria): The Jats - Their Origin, Antiquity and Migration (1993), Publisher - Manthan Publications Rohtak, ISBN-8185235-22-8, pp. 60-61
45. ↑ Science of Language, Vol.II, p.279 (5th ed.)
46. ↑ Upadhyay, Bhagwan Saran, Feeders of Indian Culture,PPH, New Delhi, 1973, p.172
47. ↑ Hukum Singh Pawar (Pauria): The Jats - Their Origin, Antiquity and Migration (1993), Publisher - Manthan Publications Rohtak, ISBN-8185235-22-8, p. 61
*********************************************************
Note - This article is available on Jatland Wiki at -
http://www.jatland.com/home/Jarta
....but i guess indo-scthiyan concept is supported by most of the foreign historians as well as by locals..most of the Punjabi jatts consider their lineage from the same...are jat and jatt different?