[30] The passages are somewhat contradictory. Tod (Western India, 413) says: Jethvás marry with Káthis, Ahirs, and Mers. In the Káthiáwár Gazetteer (page 110) Colonel Barton seems to admit the Jethvás’ claim to be of distinct origin from the Mers. In another passage he says (page 138): The Mers claim to be Jethvás: this the Jethvás deny. So also Colonel Watson in one passage (page 621) seems to favour a distinct origin while in another (page 279) he says: It seems probable the Jethvás are merely the ruling family Rájkula of the Mers and that they are all of one tribe. Two points seem clear. The Jethvás are admitted to rank among Káthiáváḍa Rájputs and they formerly married with the Mers. The further question whether the Jethvás were originally of a distinct and higher tribe remains undetermined. [↑]
[31] Bombay Administration Report for 1873. Colonel Tod made the same suggestion: Western India, 256. Compare Pottinger’s (Travels in Baluchistán, 81) identification of the Jeths of Kacch-Gandevi north of Khelat with Játs or Jits. [↑]
[32] Tod’s Western India, 413. [↑]
[33] Compare Bühler in Epigraphia Indica, I. 294. Like the Chálukyas and other tribes the Jethvás trace the name Jethva to a name-giving chief. Of the Jethvás Tod says (Annals of Rajasthán, I. 114): The Jethvás have all the appearance of Skythian descent. As they make no pretension to belong to any of the old Indian races they may be a branch of Skythians. In his Western India (page 412), though confused by his identification of Śánkha-dwára with Sakotra instead of with Bet-Dwárka (compare Káth. Gaz. 619), Tod still holds to a northern origin of the Jethvás. [↑]
[34] Nos. 6 and 82 of Colonel Watson’s List, Káthiáwár Gazetteer, 621. The Pandit’s evidence in the text ascribes to the somewhat doubtful Jáikadeva a date of a.d. 738 (Vikram 794); to Jáchikadeva a date of about a.d. 904 (Gupta 585); and to the Ghúmli ruins a probable eleventh century. Tod (Western India, 417) traces the Jethvás further back putting the founding of Ghúmli or Bhúmli at about a.d. 692 (Ś. 749) the date of a settlement between the Tuars of Delhi and the Jethvás (Ditto, 411). Col. Watson (Káth. Gaz. 278) gives either a.d. 650 or a.d. 900. [↑]
[35] The form Yetha is used by the Chinese pilgrim Sung-yun a.d. 519. Beal’s Buddhist Records, I. xc. [↑]
[36] Journal Asiatique (1883), II. 319. [↑]
[37] Journal Asiatique (1883), II. 314. [↑]
[38] Compare for the chief’s name Jetha, Colonel Watson Káth. Gaz. 622 in the Jyeshṭha Nakshatra. [↑]
[39] Priaulx’s Embassies, 220; Migne’s Patrologiæ Cursus Vol. 88 page 98. [↑]