Khas people

They have been connected to the Khasas mentioned in the ancient Hindu literature.[17] Historian Bal Krishna Sharma and Dor Bahadur Bista speculates that the Khas or kus people were of Indo-Aryan origin.[18][19] Historian Baburam Acharya speculates that Khas are a sub-clan of Aiḍa, an Arya clan originated at Idavritt (modern day Kashmir).[20][nb 2] Khas were living in the Idavaritt in the 3rd millennium BCE. and the original meaning of the term Khas was Raja or Kshatriya (Yoddha).[20] He further speculates that Kashmir has been named from its local residents Khas as Khasmir.[20] In the 2nd millennium B.C.E., one group of Khas migrated towards Iran while the other group migrated east of Sutlej river settling only in the hill regions up to Bheri River.[21] Historian Balkrishna Pokhrel contends that Khas were not the Vedic Aryans but Aryans of latter period like the Gurjara, Darada, Shaka, and Pallava.[22] He further asserts that post-Vedic Aryans were akin to Vedic Aryans in terms of Indo-Aryan languages and Indian culture.[22]

Khas are believed to have arrived in the western reaches of Nepal at the beginning of first-millennium B.C.[23] or middle of first-millennium A.D.[24] from the north-west. It is likely that they absorbed people from different ethnic groups during this immigration.[25] They have been connected to the medieval Khasa Malla kingdom.[17]

In the Kumaon and Garhwal regions of Uttarakhand in India, the Khas Brahmins and Khas Rajputs had a lower social status than the other Brahmins and Rajputs. However, in present-day western Nepal, they had the same status as the other Brahmins and Rajputs, possibly as a result of their political power in the Khasa Malla kingdom.[26]

Copper Inscription by King of Doti, Raika Mandhata Shahi at Saka Era 1612 (शाके १६१२) (or 1747 Bikram Samvat) in old Khas language using Devanagari script

Until the 19th century, the Gorkhali referred to their country as Khas Desh (Khas country).[27] As they annexed the various neighboring countries (such as Newar of the Newar people) to the Gorkha kingdom, the terms such as Khas and Newar ceased to be used as the names of countries. The 1854 legal code (Muluki Ain), promulgated by the Nepali Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana, himself a Khas,[28] no longer referred to Khas as a country, rather as a jāt (species or community) within the Gorkha kingdom.[29]

The Shah dynasty of the Gorkha Kingdom, as well as the succeeding Rana dynasty, spoke the Khas language (now called the Nepali language). However, they claimed to be Rajputs of western Indian origin, rather than the native Khas Kshatriyas.[30] Since outside Nepal, the Khas social status was seen as inferior to that of the Rajputs, the rulers started describing themselves as natives of the Hill country, rather than that of the Khas country. Most people, however, considered the terms Khas and Parbatiya (Pahari/Pahadi or Hill people) as synonymous.[27]

Jung Bahadur also re-labeled the Khas jāt as Chhetri in present-day Nepal.[30] Originally, the Brahmin immigrants from the plains considered the Khas as low-caste because of the latter's neglect of high-caste taboos (such as alcohol abstinence).[31] The upper-class Khas people commissioned the Bahun (Brahmin) priests to initiate them into the high-caste Chhetri order and adopted high-caste manners. Other Khas families who could not afford to (or did not care to) pay the Bahun priests also attempted to assume the Chhetri status but were not recognized as such by others. They are now called Matwali (alcohol-drinker Khas) Chhetris.[15]

Because of the adoption of the Chhetri identity, the term Khas is rapidly becoming obsolete.[13] According to Dor Bahadur Bista (1991), "the Khas have vanished from the ethnographic map of Nepal".[15]

• 
  Khas women, photographed in 1880
• 
  Mukhtiyar Bhimsen Thapa, the widely accepted first Prime Minister of Nepal
• 
  Khas language, Belongs to the Northern Indo-Aryan language group as shown as Nepali, in purple
• 
  Khas Kingdom

Khas Tribe of Nepal

Historian Balkrishna Pokhrel writes the communities or caste in Khas group were Brahman, Chhetri, Thakuri, Sannyasi, Gharti, Damai, Kami, Sarki, Gaine, Badi, etc.[22] The tribal designation Khas refers to in some contexts only to the upper-class Khas group, i.e. Bahun and Chhetri-Thakuri, but in other contexts may also include the low status (generally untouchable) occupational Khas groups such as Kāmi (blacksmiths), Damāi (tailors), and Sārki (shoemakers and leather workers).[32] Khas people are addressed with the term Khayan or Parbatiya[22] or Partyā, Parbaté meaning hill-dweller by Newars.[32] The hill Khas tribe are in large part associated with the Gorkhali warriors.[32]