The Village Eksar from where the origination of Eksaria started is situated in Ballia. The First clan of Eksaria Bhumihar Brahmins was Jaganath Dixit, who migrated probably from Indraprasth or from Hastinapur in the year 1551 A.D. and became mantra guru of Nepal Maharaj.
SOME MORE COLLECTIONS (Based on wikipedia) are as follows:-
Varna status[edit]
The Bhumihars are classified in the Brahmin varna of the
Indian caste system and traditionally are landowners.
[6][7] Their land has been acquired at different times through grants by kings or during the rule of Brahmin kings.
[6][8][9][10] In ancient times, the Brahmin Empires like
Sunga Empire and
Kanva dynasty are believed to be the historical ancestors of present day Bhumihar Brahmins.
[6][8][9][10][11]
"Kanyakubj Vanshavali" mentions five branches of
Kanyakubja Brahmins as Saryupareen, Sanadhya, Bhumihar, Jujhautiya and Prakrit Kanaujia:
Saryupareen Sanadhyascha Bhumiharo Jijhoutayah
Prakritashcha Iti Panchabhedastasya Prakartitah
First modern
Indologist of Indian origin, and a key figure in the
Bengal Renaissance,
Rajendralal Mitra writes about the five branches of Kanyakubja Brahmins as Saryupareen, Sanadhya, Bhumihar, Jujhoutia and Prakrit Kanaujia or Kanyakubj proper.
[13] In Kanyakubj Vanshavalis (360 on record), it is mentioned that
Kashyap gotra
Bhumihar Brahminsare ancestors of Kashyap gotra
Kanyakubja Brahmins, making Kashyap gotriya
Sanadhya Brahmins also as descendents of Kashyap gotriya
Bhumihar Brahmins.
[14] Threfore, it is merely a difference in profession between Kanyakubja proper and Bhumihar Brahmins where they kept converting from Ajachak (Bhumihar) to Jachak(Kanyakubja) and from Jachak(Kanyakubja) to Ajachak(Bhumihar) depending on the times which shows the
jivikartha karma of Brahmins.
[15]
Origin and history[edit]
Mythology[edit]
Etymology[edit]
The literal meaning of Bhumihar is Bhumi – "Land", kara or hara – "maker" in
Sanskrit.
[25] In the language of the Indian feudal system, Bhum is the name given to a kind of tenure similar to the
Inams and
Jagirs of Mohammedan times.
[25] By a Bhum, according to the Rajputana gazetteer, a hereditary, non-resumable and inalienable property in the soil was inseparably bound up with the revenue-free title.
[25] The meaning of the designation Bhumihar being as stated above, the Bhumihar Brahmins are evidently those Brahmins who held grants of land for secular services.
[25] Bhum was given as compensation for bloodshed in order to quell a feud for distinguished services in the field, for protection of services in the field, for protection of a border, or for the watch and ward of a village.
[25]
History[edit]
Left: The Maharaja's Fort (
Ramnagar Fort), front view, 1869. Right: Entrance gate to the fort, 1905.
By the 16th century, Bhumihars known as "karm kandi pandit" controlled vast stretches of territory, particularly in
North Bihar.
[26] In
South Bihar, their most prominent representative was the
Tekari family, whose large estate in
Gaya dates back to the early 18th century.
[26] With the decline of
Mughal Empire, in the area of south of
Avadh, in the fertile rive-rain rice growing areas of
Benares,
Gorakhpur,
Deoria,
Ghazipur,
Ballia and
Bihar and on the fringes of
Bengal, it was the 'military' or Bhumihar Brahmins who strengthened their sway.
[27] The distinctive 'caste' identity of Bhumihar Brahman emerged largely through military service, and then confirmed by the forms of continuous 'social spending' which defined a man and his kin as superior and lordly.
[28] In 19th century, many of the Bhumihar Brahmins were
zamindars. Of the 67000
Hindus in the
Bengal Army in 1842, 28000 were identified as Rajputs and 25000 as Brahmins, a category that included Bhumihar Brahmins.
[29] The Brahmin presence in the
Bengal Army was reduced in the late 19th century because of their perceived primary role as mutineers in the
Mutiny of 1857,
[29] led by
Mangal Pandey.
Some Bhumihars had settled in
Chandipur,
Murshidabad,
Bardhaman during late 19th and early 20th centuries where they are at the top of the social hierarchy.
[30] Pandit
Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya in his book
Hindu Castes and Sects published in 1896, went on to write about the origin of Bhumihar Brahmins of
Bihar and
Banaras[23] as: "The clue to the exact status of the Bhumihar Brahmans is afforded by their very name. The word literally means a landholder. In the language of the Indian feudal systems,
Bhoom is the name given to a kind of tenure similar to the
Inams and
Jagirs of
Mohammedan times. By a
Bhoom, according to the Rajputana Gazeteer, an hereditary, non-resumableand inalienable property in soil was inseparably bound up with a revenue-free title.
Bhoom was given as a compensation for bloodshedin order to quell a feud, for distinguished services in the field, for protection of a border or for the watch and ward of the village. The meaning of the designation Bhumihar being as stated above, the Bhumihar Brahmans are evidently these Brahmans who held grants of land for secular service. Whoever held a secular fief was Bhumihar. Where a Brahman held such a tenure, he was called a Bhumihar Brahman....Bhumihar Brahmans are sometimes called simply Bhumihars..."
They perform all their religious ceremonies in the same manner as other Brahmins, but as they also practice secular occupations like the Laukik Brahmans of
Southern India, they are not entitled to accept religious gifts or to minister to anyone as priest. The usual surnames/titles of the Bhumihar Brahmins are same as those of other Brahmins of Northern India. Being a fighter by caste few of them have Rajputana surnames/titles.
[11][25] The general editor of the book
"People of India (Bihar and Jharkhand)", published by
Anthropological Survey of India (ASI), and noted academician-bureaucrat, the late
Kumar Suresh Singh, said that the surname
Singh, which used to denote connection with power and authority, was used in Bihar by Brahmin zamindars, like the surname "Khan" in Muslims.
[31]
Before independence, it was the custom of the Bhumihar Brahmins to stage an elaborate
Kālī puja, during which annual payments were made to servants and gifts of cloth were distributed to dependents, both
Hindu and Muslim.
[30]
M. A. Sherring in his book
Hindu Tribes and Castes as Reproduced in Benaras[32] published in 1872, mentions, "Great important distinctions subsist between the various tribes of Brahmins. Some are given to
learning, some to agriculture, some to politics and some to trades. The
Maharashtra Brahmin is very different being from the
Bengali, while the Kanaujia (
Kanyakubja Brahmins) differs from both. Only those Brahmins who perform all six duties are reckoned perfectly
orthodox. Some perform three of them, namely, the first, third and fifth and omit the other three. Hence Brahmins are divided into two kinds, the
Shat-karmas and the
tri-karmas or those who perform only three. The Bhumihar Brahmins for instance are tri-karmas, and merely pay heed to three duties.
Bhumihars were referred to as "Military Brahmin" by Francis Buchanan and as "
Magadh Brahmin" by William Adam in 1883.
[33] William Crooke in his book,
Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh,
[34] has mentioned Bhuinhar as an important tribe of landowners and agriculturists in eastern districts and that they are also known as Babhan,
Zamindar Brahman, Grihastha Brahman, or Pachchima or 'western' Brahmans.
Swami Sahajanand Saraswati, a Bhumihar himself, wrote extensively on Brahmin society and on the origin of Bhumihars. He stated that the Bhumihars are among the superior Brahmins.
[35] Some Bhumihar Brahmins are also known for their secular and
unorthodox practices, where some of them are also descendants of
Husseini Brahminss.
[36] On the social scale, although the Bhumihars are known to be Brahmins, on account of the fact that they were cultivators they were not given the ritual status of Brahmins.
[37] Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who came from a
Niyogi Brahmin community who are just like the Bhumihar Brahmins and are called Laukik or Ajachak Brahmins attests in his
Hindu View of Lifeto the fact of "The Rishis of yore were agriculturists and sometimes warriors too".
[38]
Acharya Tarineesh Jha, himself a
Maithil Brahmin scholar has attested how from ancient times to modern all great Brahmin scholars like Maithili Manishi Mahamahopadhyay Chitradhar Mishra, Mahamahopadhyay Balkrishna Mishra;
Saryupareen Brahmin scholars Mahamahopadhyay Dwivedi, Mahamahopadhyay Shivkumar Shastri,
Hazari Prasad Dwivedi;
Kanyakubja Brahmins scholars
Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi, Pandit Laxminarayan Dixit Shastri, Pandit Venkatesh Narayan Tiwari and others have mentioned about Bhumihar Brahmins as their fellow Brahmin brothers.
[39]
They are also called
Ajachak Brahmans, i.e., Brahmans who do not take alms (
jachak) in contrast to the ordinary Brahmans who are
Jachaks or almstakers
[40] but there are still some who traditionally take alms as in
Gaya and
Hazaribagh.
[41] Like fellow Brahmans, they did not use to hold the plough, but employed labourers for the purpose.
[40]
Social organisation[edit]
The census returns give no less than four hundred and fifty-eight sections: but here the territorial sections and the Brahminical gotras are mixed up together.
[34] The most important local sections are the
Gautama, and Kolaha in
Banaras; the
Gautama in
Mirzapur;
Bhriguvanshi, Donwar,
Gautama, Kinwar, Kistwar, Sakarwar, Sonwar, in
Ghazipur; Bhagata, Kinwar, Benwar, of
Ballia; the Baghochhiya, Baksaria,
Gautama,
Kaushik and Sakarwar (Sankritya) of
Gorakhpur; the Barasi, Birhariya of
Basti; and the Barwar,
Bharadwaj,
Parashar of Siwan, Denwar, Gargbans,
Gautama, Purvar, Sakarwar, and
Shandilya of
Azamgarh.
[34] On the Jijhoutia clan of Bhumihar Brahmins,
William Crooke writes, "A branch of the Kanaujia Brahmins (
Kanyakubja Brahmins) who take their name from the country of Jajakshuku, which is mentioned in the
Madanpur inscription."
[34]
Domestic ceremonies and religious beliefs[edit]
The Bhumihar Brahmins follow in every respect the standard Brahminical rules.
[34] They are usually
Shaivas and
Shaktas.
[34] There are also Vaishnavas, following the Tatvavada school of Madhavacharya.
[42] Bhumihar Brahmins, like all other Brahmins are endogamous, but marital relations are known to exist since ancient times between Bhumihar Brahmins and
Maithil Brahmins in
Tirhut and
Mithila and between Bhumihar Brahmins and
Kanyakubja Brahmins in
Bundelkhand region of
Madhya Pradesh where Kanchanwar and Jihoutia clan of Bhumihar Brahmins live.
[41] Bhumihar Brahmin men of Purnea took to
Maithil Brahmin wives in
Purnea and married their daughters to Bhumihar Brahmin/Babhan men.
[43][44]
Common titles and last names[edit]
Common titles of Bhumihar Brahmins are
Pandey,
Shukla,
Mishra,
Ojha,
Yajee,
Karjee,
Dwivedi,
Sharma,
Tiwari,
Tripathi,
Upadhyay but
Awasthi,
Dixit,
Malviya and
Jha are known to exist.
[41] However, due to their profession of kings and landholders a lot of Bhumihar Brahmins use
Rai,
Singh, and Shahi in
Uttar Pradesh and
Kunwar,
Thakur,
Chaudhary, and
Singh in
Bihar, and Pradhan in Jharkhand.
[41] Some Singh converted and
anglicised their surnames to
Sinha[41][45]
Political and social movements[edit]
The community has produced stalwarts like
Sir Ganesh Dutt, lone minister representing pre-independence interim government from the then united Bihar and Orissa province, and
Ram Dayalu Singh, the first Speaker of Bihar legislative assembly.
[1]
Some notable Bhumihar Brahmin personalities[edit]
Scholars, writers and government agency[edit]
- Mahamahopadhyaya Pandit Ram Avatar Sharma- was an Indian Sanskrit scholar and academic, apart from being an indologist and historianRajendra Prasad, the first President of India and a favourite student of Pandit Sharma
- Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan- who is called the Father of Hindi Travel literature,was one of the most widely-traveled scholars of India, spending forty-five years of his life on travels away from his home.He is referred to as the 'Greatest Scholar' (Mahapandit) for his scholarship.He got Sahitya Akademi Award in 1958 and later Padma Bhushan in 1963.
- Nalin Vilochan Sharma-was a professor of Hindi Literature in University of Patna.
- Swami Sahajanand Saraswati-Writer,Freedom Fighter
- Vagish Shastri- Sanskrit Grammarian
- Ram Karan Sharma- Sanskrit poet and scholar
- Kapil Muni Tiwary- is a former professor and head of the department of Linguistics and Literature at Patna University and currently a professor of English in Yemen.
- Siyaram Tiwari -Littrateur, He served Nalanda Open University, Patna as Chief Co-ordinator in the Faculty of Languages for three years.
- Shashindra Pal Tyagi - Air Chief Marshal and former IAF Chief
- Acharya Kishore Kunal -Hindu philosopher and Bihar Religious Trusts Board chairman, is a retired IPS Officer.
- Pandit Devendranath Sharma- was a writer and scholar of Hindi Literature. He was also a playwright, and the Vice Chancellor of the universities ofPatna and Bhagalpur.
- Vinod Rai is the former Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
- Ram Sharan Sharma-was an eminent historian of Ancient and early Medieval India.He taught at Patna University, Delhi University (1973–85) and the University of Toronto and was a senior fellow at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; University Grants CommissionNational Fellow (1958–81) and President of Indian History Congress in 1975. It was during the tenure of Professor R. S. Sharma as the Dean of Delhi University's History Department in the 1970s that major expansion of the department took place. The creation of most of the positions in the Department owes to Professor Sharma's efforts. He is the founding Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) and a historian of international repute.He is from Barauni, Begusarai, British India.
- Professor G. R. Sharma archaeologist and historian.
- Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar' Member of Parliament,Poet, Essayist, Literary critic, Journalist, Satirist, Rashtrakavi ("National poet")
- V.S.Naipaul-Novelist, travel writer, essayist.He got Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001, Booker Prize in 1971 numerous other literary prizes.
- Rambriksh Benipuri-Writer, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
- Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi Buddhist scholar
- Professor Ramjee Singh Philosopher, Gandhian activist
- Balmiki Prasad Singh writer, scholar, administrator, Governor of Sikkim
- R. K. Sinha scholar of English
- Vibhuti Narain Rai Indian Police Service officer and an eminent writer
- Acharya Kuber Nath Rai Scholar of Hindi and Sanskrit
- Viveki Rai famous writer in Hindi and Bhojpuri
- Abhayanand Present Director General of Police, Government of Bihar
- Sri Krishna Rai Hridyesh,Prominent literary figure of Hindi.
- Mridula Sinha - female writer in Hindi Literature
- Pankaj Rag - Poet, writer, Historian, Archaeologist, and Indian Administrative Service officer
- Dushyant Kumar - Great Hindi Writer
- J. K. Sinha former Director General of Police of Central Reserve Police Force
- Vijendra Narayan Singh Hindi writer and critic
- Dr. Madhusudan Mishra Sanskrit scholar and professor of Linguistics; http://www.indusscript.com/author.html
- Acharya Shiv Balak Rai Sanskrit scholar, Ramayana scholar, Hindi Literature
- Baleshwar Rai Indian Administrative Service official
- Dhananjay Singh Executive Director, National HRD Network
- Air Marshal(Retd) Bejoy Kumar Pandey, Former Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Training Command,Indian Air Force.A living legend , a scholar of his service and a staunch Indian.
- Avinash Rai From Nallasopara
Freedom fighters[edit]
Administrators[edit]
Monarchs and zamindars[edit]
Entertainment, sports and films[edit]
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