2. Sir D. Ibbetson’s description of the caste.
Sir D. Ibbetson held that the Jāts and Rājpūts must be, to some extent at least, of the same blood. Though the Jāts are represented in the Central Provinces only by a small body of immigrants it will be permissible to quote the following passages from his admirable and classical account of the caste:[5]
“It may be that the original Rājpūt and the original Jāt entered India at different periods in its history, though to my mind the term Rājpūt is an occupational rather than an ethnological expression. But if they do originally represent two separate waves of immigration, it is at least exceedingly probable, both from their almost identical physique and facial character and from the close communion which has always existed between them, that they belong to one and the same ethnic stock; while, whether this be so or not, it is almost certain that they have been for many centuries and still are so intermingled and so blended into one people that it is practically impossible to distinguish them as separate wholes. It is indeed more than probable that the process of fusion has not ended here, and that the people who thus in the main resulted from the blending of the Jāt and the Rājpūt, if these two were ever distinct, is by no means free from foreign elements....