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Kayasth Add comments Who are they?
The Kayasth people are a well-known community of traditional scribes or writers and village accountants. Their name is also spelled Kayastha or Kayashtha. The Kayasth are usually addressed by a number of synonyms like Lala, Lalli, Lal, Kaith, Kact or Kayath.
Totaling a population of around 10 million in number and having 237 segments, they are spread across forty districts of the country in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Delhi, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Punjab and Chandigarh
The Kayasth community in North India and the Deccan have sought to establish a pan-Indian identity for themselves by linking up with the Chitragupta Kayasth of North India, the Prabhu Kayasth of Maharashtra and the Bengal Kayasth of West Bengal, despite being different communities and located in distinctly different cultural environments (K.L. Leonard, 1978).
Origin
Literally, the Kayasth is described as one who is an inhabitant of Kaayadesh, the region between the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers of north India. In Sanskrit the word Kayasth means, “one who resides in the body” (Rose, 1919). A different meaning has been suggested by Crooke, from the Sanskrit Kaya- santitch which means staying at home (Crooke, 1896).
As far as the mythological origins of their community are concerned the Kayasth believe that they originated from Chitragupta. They hold the view that Chitragupta was himself created by Brahma from his body. Brahma is believed to be the Creator in the Hindu trinity. The newly-produced Chitragupta was entrusted to Yama, the Hindu god of death to record the good and evil actions of all humans and produce the net results when they arrived after death. From Chitragupta’s two wives, Eravati and Nandini, were descended the twelve main endogamous subdivisions of the Kayasth people, namely, Mathur, Bhatnagar, Saxena and Srivastava from the first wife, and Gaur,
The Kayasth people are a well-known community of traditional scribes or writers and village accountants. Their name is also spelled Kayastha or Kayashtha. The Kayasth are usually addressed by a number of synonyms like Lala, Lalli, Lal, Kaith, Kact or Kayath.
Totaling a population of around 10 million in number and having 237 segments, they are spread across forty districts of the country in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Delhi, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Punjab and Chandigarh
The Kayasth community in North India and the Deccan have sought to establish a pan-Indian identity for themselves by linking up with the Chitragupta Kayasth of North India, the Prabhu Kayasth of Maharashtra and the Bengal Kayasth of West Bengal, despite being different communities and located in distinctly different cultural environments (K.L. Leonard, 1978).
Origin
Literally, the Kayasth is described as one who is an inhabitant of Kaayadesh, the region between the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers of north India. In Sanskrit the word Kayasth means, “one who resides in the body” (Rose, 1919). A different meaning has been suggested by Crooke, from the Sanskrit Kaya- santitch which means staying at home (Crooke, 1896).
As far as the mythological origins of their community are concerned the Kayasth believe that they originated from Chitragupta. They hold the view that Chitragupta was himself created by Brahma from his body. Brahma is believed to be the Creator in the Hindu trinity. The newly-produced Chitragupta was entrusted to Yama, the Hindu god of death to record the good and evil actions of all humans and produce the net results when they arrived after death. From Chitragupta’s two wives, Eravati and Nandini, were descended the twelve main endogamous subdivisions of the Kayasth people, namely, Mathur, Bhatnagar, Saxena and Srivastava from the first wife, and Gaur,