1. Rājpūt origin.
Khatri.—A prominent mercantile caste of the Punjab, whose members to the number of about 5000 have settled in the Central Provinces and Berār, being distributed over most Districts. The Khatris claim to be derived from the Rājpūt caste, and say that their name is a corruption of Kshatriya. At the census of 1901 Sir Herbert Risley approved of their demand on the evidence laid before him by the leading representatives of the caste. This view is assented to by Mr. Crooke and Mr. Nesfield. In Gujarāt also the caste are known as Brahma-Kshatris, and their Rājpūt origin is considered probable, while their appearance bears out the claim to be derived either from the Aryans or some later immigrants from Central Asia: “They are a handsome fair-skinned class, some of them with blue or grey eyes, in make and appearance like Vānias (Banias), only larger and more vigorous.”[1] Mr. Crooke states that, “their women have a reputation for their beauty and fair complexion. The proverb runs, ‘A Khatri woman would be fair without fine clothes or ornaments,’ and, ‘Only an albino is fairer than a Khatri woman.’”[2] Their legend of origin is as follows: “When Parasurāma the Brāhman was slaying the Kshatriyas in revenge for the theft of the sacred cow Kāmdhenu and for the murder of his father, a pregnant Kshatriya woman took refuge in the hut of a Sāraswat Brāhman. When Parasurāma came up he asked the Brāhman who the woman was, and he said she was his daughter. Parasurāma then told him to eat with her in order to prove it, and the Brāhman ate out of the same leaf-plate as the woman. The child to whom she subsequently gave birth was the ancestor of the Khatris, and in memory of this Sāraswat Brāhmans will eat with Khatris to the present day.” The Sāraswat Brāhman priests of the Khatris do as a matter of fact take katcha food or that cooked with water from them, and smoke from their huqqas, and this is another strong argument in favour of their origin either from Brāhmans or Rājpūts.
The classical account of the Khatris is that given in Sir George Campbell’s Ethnology of India, and it may be reproduced here as in other descriptions of the caste: