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{{short description|Sub-caste of the Kayastha caste in Bengal, India}}
{{about|the sub-caste in Bengal||Kulin (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox ethnic group
|group=Kulin Kayastha
|image=Calcuttakayasth.jpg
|caption= A Kayastha of Calcutta, from a 19th century book
|languages=[[Bengali language|Bengali]]}}
'''Kulin Kayasthas''' are a sub-caste of the [[Kayastha]] caste in [[Bengal]], India. They are also known as the Kulina Kayasthas.

The Kayasthas are regarded in Bengal, along with the [[Bengali Brahmins|Brahmins]] and [[Baidya]]s, as being the "highest Hindu castes". The [[Bengali Kayastha]]s are subdivided into numerous clans in that region, of which the ''Kulin'' is a high-ranking example.<ref name=Inden1976p1>{{cite book|first=Ronald B. |last=Inden|title=Marriage and Rank in Bengali Culture: A History of Caste and Clan in Middle Period Bengal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P8b9A7J_v-UC&pg=PA133|accessdate=2011-10-31|year=1976|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-02569-1|page=1}}</ref>

==Origin==
The social and religious patterns of Bengal had historically been distinctively different from those in the orthodox Hindu heartland of North India and this impacted on how the [[Caste system in India|caste system]] developed there. Bengal, being located east of the traditional [[Aryavarta]] region between the [[Ganges]] and [[Yamuna]] rivers, remained insulated from the full impact of [[Brahminical Hinduism|Brahminical orthodoxy]] for many centuries, and the impact of Buddhism remained strong there. During the reign of the [[Gupta Empire]] beginning in the 4th century AD, when systematic and large-scale expansion by [[Indo-Aryans|Aryan]] Kayasthas and Brahmins first took place, Kayasthas were brought over by the Guptas to help manage the affairs of state. But the influence of Buddhism continued under the Buddhist rulers of the [[Pala Empire|Pala dynasty]] from the eighth through the eleventh century CE.<ref name=Hopkins1989pp35-36>{{cite book |title=Krishna consciousness in the West |editor1-first=David G. |editor1-last=Bromley |editor2-first=Larry D. |editor2-last=Shinn |first=Thomas J. |last=Hopkins |chapter=The Social and Religious Background for Transmission of Gaudiya Vaisnavism to the West |publisher=Bucknell University Press |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-8387-5144-2 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F-EuD3M2QYoC&pg=PA35 |pages=35–36 |accessdate=2011-10-31}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=U. A. B. Razia Akter |last=Banu|title=Islam in Bangladesh|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XyzqATEDPSgC|accessdate=15 August 2011|year=1992|publisher=Brill Academic Publishers|isbn=978-90-04-09497-0|pages=5–6}}</ref>

It is traditionally believed that at this point, after the decline of the Pala dynasty, a Hindu king, [[Adi Sura]] brought in five Brahmins and their five attendants from [[Kanauj]], his purpose being to provide education for the Brahmins already in the area whom he thought to be ignorant, and revive traditional orthodox Brahminical Hinduism. Multiple accounts of this legend exist, and historians generally consider this to be nothing more than myth or folklore lacking historical authenticity.<ref name=NKSenguptap25>{{cite book |last=Sengupta|first=Nitish K. |title=History of the Bengali-Speaking People |publisher=UBS Publishers' Distributors |year=2001 |isbn=81-7476-355-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6eYsAAAAMAAJ |page=25}}</ref> Likewise, the original [[Varna (Hinduism)|varna]] status of the five attendants, accompanying the Brahmins, according to the legend, is also a subject matter of debate. Majority of sources mention them as [[Shudra]] servants,<ref name=Hopkins1989pp35-36/> many others refer to them as Kayastha attendants,<ref name=SwarupaGuptapp50-51>{{cite book |last=Gupta|first=Swarupa |title=Notions of Nationhood in Bengal: Perspectives on Samaj, C. 1867-1905 |editor=Michael Krausz |publisher=Brill |year=2009 |isbn=978-90-04-17614-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=9004176144 |pages=50–51}}</ref> and very few as Aryan [[Kshatriya]] consorts.<ref name=PChatterjeepp73>{{cite book |last=Chatterjee|first=Pranab |title=A Story of Ambivalent Modernization in Bangladesh and West Bengal : The Rise and fall of Bengali Elitism in South Asia |publisher=Peter Lang Publishing Inc. |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-4331-0820-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1433108208 |page=73}}</ref> The tradition continues by saying that these incomers settled and each became the founder of a clan.<ref name=Hopkins1989pp35-36/> In the case of the five attendants, each clan was of the Kayastha caste, and these founders are sometimes referred to as the five legendary Kayasthas. According to Swarupa Gupta, "this legend was fitted into a quasi-historical, sociological narrative of Bengal and deployed to explain the realities of caste and sub-caste origins and connections during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century".<ref name=SwarupaGuptapp50-51/>

The four [[Kulin Brahmin|Brahmin clans]] were each designated as ''Kulina'' ("superior") in order to differentiate them from the more established local Brahmins. Four of the Kayastha clans were similarly designated. The fifth was refused the status because they would not accept that they were servants or attendants and hence inferior, and instead proclaimed themselves to be superior even to the Brahmins. While this fifth clan remained in Bengal and became the [[Dutta (surname)|Datta]] (or Dutt), one of the four which were granted the Kulina nomenclature - the [[Guha (surname)|Guhas]] - later moved to the east of the region, leaving three clans to become the main Kulin Kayastha communities in "Bengal proper" - the [[Bose (surname)|Boses]], the [[Mitra (surname)|Mitras]] and the [[Ghosh]]es.<ref name=Hopkins1989pp35-36/>

==History==
During the Gupta Empire, the Kayasthas had not developed into a distinct caste, although the office of the Kayasthas (scribes) had been instituted before the beginning of the period, as evidenced from the contemporary [[smriti]]s. Tej Ram Sharma, an Indian historian, says that {{quote|Noticing brahmanic names with a large number of modern Bengali Kayastha cognomens in several early epigraphs discovered in Bengal, some scholars have suggested that there is a considerable brahmana element in the present day Kayastha community of Bengal. Originally the professions of Kayastha (scribe) and Vaidya (physician) were not restricted and could be followed by people of different varnas including the brahmanas. So there is every probability that a number of brahmana families were mixed up with members of other varnas in forming the present Kayastha and Vaidya communities of Bengal.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sharma|first=Tej Ram|title=Personal and Geographical Names in the Gupta Empire|year=1978|publisher=Concept Publishing Company|location=New Delhi |page=115 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WcnnB-Lx2MAC}}</ref>}}

A period of rule by various Muslim dynasties began in Bengal from the thirteenth century and lasted until 1765, when the British gained control. Many of the population converted to Islam and the lack of a Hindu king as a focal point caused the isolation of those Hindu communities which remained. The Kulin communities suffered particularly badly because their ritual role was to serve a Hindu king via appointments to high state and religious offices, which were denied to them by Muslim rule. Those Hindus, including some Kulins, who did assist, co-operate or mingle with the Muslim rulers were often shunned by the increasingly conservative Hindu community, which was intent on self-preservation and withdrew into its own cultural norms in order to achieve that. Thomas J. Hopkins has said that {{quote|In relations with Muslims, it was clear that high-caste Hindus played a zero-sum game in which the degree of involvement with non-Hindu rulers meant a corresponding loss in Hindu social ranking.<ref>{{cite book |title=Krishna consciousness in the West |editor1-first=David G. |editor1-last=Bromley |editor2-first=Larry D. |editor2-last=Shinn |first=Thomas J. |last=Hopkins |chapter=The Social and Religious Background for Transmission of Gaudiya Vaisnavism to the West |publisher=Bucknell University Press |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-8387-5144-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F-EuD3M2QYoC |pages=36, 38 |accessdate=2011-10-31}}</ref>}}

Similarly, the Kulin castes generally ignored the British who came into the area and eventually took it over. The British were non-Hindu and so they, like the Muslims before them, were unable to satisfy the Kulin need for roles befitting their ritual status. Other Hindu communities, however, did co-operate with the British and by the early years of the nineteenth century some had become substantial landowners and wealthy people as a consequence. These non-Kulin communities also were the first to take steps towards Westernisation, in part because they realised that alignment with Western ideas would provide a route by which they could advance their social status, and that was something which could never occur under the Hindu ritual system as they would always be ranked lower than the Kulins.<ref>{{cite book |title=Krishna consciousness in the West |editor1-first=David G. |editor1-last=Bromley |editor2-first=Larry D. |editor2-last=Shinn |first=Thomas J. |last=Hopkins |chapter=The Social and Religious Background for Transmission of Gaudiya Vaisnavism to the West |publisher=Bucknell University Press |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-8387-5144-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F-EuD3M2QYoC |pages=39–40 |accessdate=2011-10-31}}</ref>

A survey of Indian writers and observers suggests that many of those acquainted with the Kayasthas considered them as ''[[Dvija]]'' or twice-born.<ref name=Bellenoit2017>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9TElDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA178|page=178|title=The Formation of the Colonial State in India: Scribes, Paper and Taxes 1760-1860|author=Hayden J. Bellenoit|publisher =Taylor & Francis|year= 2017|isbn=978-1134494293|accessdate=19 April 2021}}</ref> However, the claims of Kayasthas of Bengal of having Dvija status is not supported by many other Indian observers. The Bengali Brahmins were most active in refuting these claims.<ref name=Bellenoit2017 />

== See also ==
* [[Maulika Kayastha]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

[[Category:Kayastha]]
[[Category:Bengali Hindu castes]]

Kulin Kayastha - Revision history

imported>Ekdalian at 18:02, 28 August 2021