Gurjar
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| India • Pakistan • Afghanistan | |
| Languages | |
| Gujari • Punjabi • Urdu • Hindi | |
| Religion | |
| Hinduism • Islam • Sikhism |
Gurjar or Gujjar are a pastoral agricultural ethnic group with populations in India and Pakistan and a small number in northeastern Afghanistan. Alternative spellings include Gurjara, Gurjjar, Gojar and Gūjar. Although they are able to speak the language of the country where they live, Gurjars have their own language, known as Gujari. They variously follow Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism. The Gurjars are classified as Other Backward Class (OBC) in some states in India; however, Gurjars in Jammu and Kashmir and parts of Himachal Pradesh are categorised as a Scheduled Tribe. Hindu Gurjars were assimilated into various varnas in the medieval period.
Historians and anthropologists differ on issue of Gurjar origin. According to one view, Gurjars came from central Asia via Georgia from near the Caspian Sea; that Sea's alternate name of the Bahr-e-Khizar caused the tribe to be known as Khizar, Guzar, Gujur, Gurjara, or Gujjar. According to this view, Gurjars came in multiple waves of migration and they were initially accorded status as high-caste warriors in the Hindu fold in the North-Western regions (modern Rajasthan and Gujarat). Aydogdy Kurbanov states that some Gurjars, along with people from northwestern India, merged with the Hephthalites to become the Rajput clan.
According to scholars such as Baij Nath Puri, the Mount Abu (ancient Arbuda Mountain) region of present-day Rajasthan had been abode of the Gurjars during medieval period. The association of the Gurjars with the mountain is noticed in many inscriptions and epigraphs including Tilakamanjari of Dhanpala. These Gurjars migrated from the Arbuda mountain region and as early as in the 6th century A.D., they set up one or more principalities in Rajasthan and Gujarat] Whole or a larger part of Rajasthan and Gujarat had been long known as Gurjaratra (country ruled or protected by the Gurjars) or Gurjarabhumi (land of the Gurjars) for centuries prior to the Mughal period.
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