Tarkhan (Punjab)
- This article is about Tarkhan, a Northern Indian tribe. For other uses, see Tarkan (disambiguation)
 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Punjab | |
| Languages | |
| Punjabi, Hindi, English[citation needed] | |
| Religion | |
| Sikhism, Hinduism, Islam[citation needed] | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| other Indo-Aryans |
The Tarkhan (Punjabi: ਤਰਖਾਣ) are considered a Punjabi tribe. They are carpenters by occupation.[1] H.A. Rose[1] supposed that they are descended from the Saka tribes, and originally settled in Taxila. Scholars such as Khalsa have analysed the work of ethnographers such as Ibbetson, Cunningham, and Elliot, and have concluded that agrarian and artisan communities in Punjab such as Tarkhans may be of Scythian origin.[2] Further analysis has suggested that Tarkhans may be descended from Scythic tribes who settled in north-western India in successive waves between 500 B.C. too 500 AD.[3][4]
History
The Tarkhan People are a Northern Indian ethnic tribe that inhabit the entire region of Punjab. Generally, a clan name is unique to the Tarkhan community. The occupation of Tarkhans was traditionally known to be carpentry, however due to similarities in size, religious values and the way their turbans were tied, the occupation of a Tarkhan was then split into three, which was: Tarkhan work, building work and Lohar work.
Varna status
Hindu Tarkhans are regarded to be of the Vaishya Varna (as they are artisans) and worship the Vedic deity, Vishwakarma. This is namely due to following the traditional Vaishya occupation of carpentry.[5]Hindu religious texts assigned Vaishyas to traditional roles in agriculture and cattle-rearing but over time they came to be landowners, traders and money-lenders.[6] The Vaishyas, along with members of the Brahmin and Kshatriya varnas, claim "twice born" (dvija) status in Hindu theology.[7] Indian traders were widely credited for the spread of Indian culture to regions as far as southeast Asia.[8]
Muslim Tarkhans
It was used among the various Iranian (Sogdians, Khotanese, and Hephthalites) Turkic and Mongol peoples of Central Asia and other steppe people, and was a high rank in the army of Tamerlane. Tarkhans commanded military contingents (roughly of regimental size under the Khazar khan) and were, roughly speaking, generals. They could also be assigned as military governors of conquered regions. In the Mongol Empire, the Darkhan were exempted from taxation, socage and requisitioning. Genghis Khan made those who helped his rise Darkhans in 1206. The families of the Darkhan played crucial roles later when the succession crisis occurred in Yuan Dynasty and Ilkhanate. Abaqa Khan (1234–82) made an Indian Darkhan after he had led his mother and her team all the way from Central Asia to Persia safely. A wealthy merchant of Persia was made of Darkhan by Ghazan (1271–1304) for his service during the early defeat of the Ilkhan. In Russia, the Khans of the Golden Horde assigned important tasks to the Darkhan. A jarliq of Temur Qutlugh (ca. 1370–1399) which authorized rights of the Tarkhan found in Crimea.[9]
Sikh Tarkhans
Sikh Tarkhans are more commonly known as Ramgarhias because of their reverence for the famous Misl leader, Maharaja Jassa Singh Ramgarhia(1723-1803), who was a Tarkhan.[10] Many Sikhs today mistake the term ‘Ramgharia’ for a caste rather than a sect. The Ramgharias are predominantly ‘Tarkhans’ (carpenters) by caste. A Tarkhan named Hardas, and his son Bhagwan Singh served Akali Nihang Guru Gobind Singh in the late 1600s/early 1700s. Later they would serve Banda Bahadur during his battles with the Moghals.At present Tarkhan Sikhs who are descended from the Ramgarhia Misl, especially in UK, keep their Gurdwaras separate and try to, contrary to Tat Khalsa Singh Sabhia thinking, maintain their distinctiveness in Sikhism. Many of their practices are in line with Sanatan Sikh ideology.[11]
Ramgarhia Sikh/Misl
Ramgarhia, led by Nand Singh Sanghania, so called as they extended fort of Ram Rauni at Amritsar which was later called Ramgarh. Riarki Area around Batala Approximately 5,000 horsemen. Their territory was parts of Amritsar, Qadian, Batala and Sri Hargobindpur, in the Bari doab and Miani, Sarih, and Urmur Tanda in the Jalandhar Doab. Jassa Singh Ramgarhia was a great Sikh warrior of times of Nawab Kapur Singh and Jassa Singh Ahluwalia. He led Khalsa army in many battles. In command of Dal Khalsa he was just behind Jassa Singh Ahluwalia after the retirement of Nawab Kapur Singh.[12]
Origin of the Ramgarhia Misl
Rome was not built in a day. So the organisation of the Sikh power in the sacred land of the five rivers was not the work of one man (the Lion of the Punjab) only, nor was it attained in one day. It was the result of the constant and combined efforts of the twelve Misls. The leaders of these Misls had to undergo and face many hardships, not only to establish the Sikh power in the Punjab but also to defend their faith and their very existence upon the face of the earth. The seed was sown and watered by the blood of the martyrs. Their nerveswould tingle and their brains would throb when they read the stories of these heroes. No religion can be proud of so many martyrs. But it was Ranjit Singh only who was destined to reap the main harvest which had taken nearly a century to ripen and had cost the blood of the dearest sons of the Guru. By some means or other he reduced all the chiefs to subjection who were on this side of the Satluj. The Cis - Satluj chiefs obtained the protection of the British and thus escaped destruction. The reader will find in the following pages how sudden and extraordinary were the circumstances that changed the fate of the Ramgarhia family. Had it time to appeal to the British Government, this family also would have been ruling over its possessions like its contemporaries of Patiala, Nabha, Jind and Kapurthala. Reader! It is really very pathetic to compare the present condition of the family with its past grandeur. Time has changed, new men have come to the front, some no doubt pushed forward merely by fortune and others drawn to the front by the extended hands of appreciation. Let us thank the Almighty that we are under the benign rule of a government which has the best regard for, appreciation of, noble blood and high birth, of which the recent establishment of the Imperial Cadet Corps by our worthy Viceroy Lord Curzon, bears ample testimony.[13]
Of the leaders of the Ramgarhia Misl during the earliest period of its existence Sardar Jassa Singh was the most distinguished, although he can hardly be called its founder. Through many eventful years the Misl had existed as an organised body under Sardar Khushal Singh.
Tarkhan clans
According to Sir Denzil Ibbetson[2], the major Twelve Tarkhan clans (Based on 1881 census) of the Punjab and the Northwest Frontier Province in the order as they occur from east to west are:
- Jhangra - found in Delhi and Hissar
- Dhaman/Dhiman - found in Karnal, Ambala, Jalandahar, Sialkot, Patiala, Nabha, Faridhkot and Firozpur.
- Khatti - found in Karnal, Ambala, Jalandahar, Sialkot, Patiala, Nabha, Faridhkot and Firozpur.
- Siawan - Jallandhar and Sialkot
- Gade - Amritsar
- Matharu - Ludhiana, Amritsar and Lahore.
- Netal - Hoshiarpur
- Janjua - Rawalpindi
- Tharu - Gurdaspur and Sialkot
- Khokar - Lahore, Rawalpindi and Multan
- Bhatti - Lahore, Rawalpindi and Multan
- Begi Khel - Hazara
- Ibbetson notes further that:
- "The carpenters of Sirsa are divided into two great sections: the Dhaman/Dhiman and Khatti proper, and the two will not intermarry. These are two great tribes of the Lohars (q.v.). The Dhamans again include a tribe of Hindu Tarkhans called Suthar, who are almost entirely agricultural, seldom working in wood, and who look down upon the artisan sections of their caste. They say they came from Jodhpur, and that their tribe still holds villages and revenue free grants in Bikaner."
Tarkhans and Lohars
Historically,the Sikh tarkhan's occupation was carpentry as well as being blacksmiths.Many administrators of the British Raj period who also wrote books - such as H. A. Rose[14] and Denzil Ibbetson[15] - referred to the blacksmith communities as Lohars, although in fact that term refers to a specific group of people sikligar and is not the synonym that they supposed.[16]
See also
References
- ^ W. H. McLeod, Exploring sikhism: aspects of Sikh identity, culture and thought, Oxford University Press, 2000 ISBN 978-0-19-564902-4, p. 214.
- ^ http://rajputana.htmlplanet.com/scy_raj/scy_raj1.html
- ^ www.worldmultimedia.biz/Culture/yuechih%20sakas%20kushans.pdf
- ^ W. H. McLeod, Exploring sikhism: aspects of Sikh identity, culture and thought, Oxford University Press, 2000 ISBN 978-0-19-564902-4, p. 214.
- ^ http://www.unp.me/f16/the-tarkhan-history-48969/#ixzz2p8yULu50
- ^ Boesche, Roger. The First Great Political Realist. p. 24.
- ^ Madan, Gurmukh Ram (1979). Western Sociologists on Indian Society: Marx, Spencer, Weber, Durkheim, Pareto. Taylor & Francis. p. 112. ISBN 9780710087829.
- ^ Embree, Ainslie Thomas; Gluck, Carol. Asia in western and world history. p. 361.
- ^ http://reff.net.ua/26327-YArlyki_hanov_Zolotoiy_Ordy_kak_istochnik_prava_i_kak_istochnik_po_istorii_prava.html
- ^ http://www.unp.me/f16/the-tarkhan-history-48969/#ixzz2p90EzW9M
- ^ http://www.sarbloh.info/htmls/article_samparda_ramgharia.html
- ^ http://informaitonofpunjab.weebly.com/punjab.html
- ^ http://www.sikh-heritage.co.uk/postgurus/ramgarhia2/ram%20Jassa%20Singh.htm
- ^ ^ see H.A. Rose. A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province 1919
- ^ Ibbetson, Denzil (1916). "Workers in wood,iron,stone and Clay". Panjab Castes (reprint ed.). Lahore: Low Price Publications, 1916. pp. 309–314. ISBN 8185557551, 9788185557557. Retrieved 2 December 2012.
{{cite book}}: Check|isbn=value: invalid character (help) - ^ Judge, Paramjit S.; Bal, Gurpreet (1996). Strategies of social change in India. M.D. Publications. p. 54. ISBN 978-81-7533-006-1. Retrieved 2012-03-21.
- ^ see H.A. Rose. A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province 1919
- ^ Sir Denzil Ibbetson. Panjab Castes - page 312f