Bhāt is a "generic term" used to refer to anoral repository orbard in India. The majority ofBhats hail fromRajasthan and worked asgenealogists for their patrons, however, they are viewed asmythographers. In India, the inception ofRajputization was followed by the emanation of two groups of bards with a group of them serving the society's influential communities and the other serving the communities with lower ranking in the social hierarchy.
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Beginning from the 13th century and till the establishment ofBritish rule in India, the bards serving the elites were at a higher position in the social hierarchy while the bards serving the non-elites were on a lower position with their social status parallelly experiencing directly proportional changes with the changes in the social standing of their patrons and the "quality of their service attachments". From the 16th century, the role ofBhats became very important in cementing the political legitimacy of the rulers. During the British colonial era in India, theBhats were removed from their "positions of authority".
Jeffrey G. Snodgrass states that "'Bhat' is a generic term for 'bard', applied to a range of mythographers including those employed by village nobles".[1] Anastasia Piliavsky views the wordsBhat and bard as synonymous.[2] According to Dharam Singh, the wordBhat belongs to theSanskrit lexis and its literal meaning is "bard orpanegyrist". He claims that it is a misbelief that "Bhat is anepithet for a learnedBrahman".[3]
The terms "भाट" (Bhāt) and "भट्ट" (Bhatt) are often confused because they sound similar and are written closely in Hindi. This confusion can lead to misunderstandings about their meanings and cultural significance, especially as people sometimes use different spellings interchangeably.
According to Anastasia Piliavsky, the beginning of Rajputization gave rise to two groups of bards — "elite" and "lowly". She suggests that the elite bards who worked for the dominating social groups, including theRajputs, were composed of the genealogistBhats and eulogistCharans. She further suggests that the lowly bards, who worked for numerous lower castes, were composed of theBhats who worked as genealogists and entertainers for their patrons.[5]
Piliavsky notes that the bards were in "high demand" among the people who were from diverse social backgrounds (e.g., leatherworkers, hill dwellers, big landowners) and wanted to achieve "upward social mobility" in order to attain the "Rajput status" as they were depend on the bards for theirpedigrees' "production and maintenance". According to her, to have the Rajput status, only having freehold over land and being safeguarded by a feudal lord were not enough. She claims that to attain the Rajput status, a person also required "a pedigree, complete with sacred (purānic, or "epic") lineage, divine origins, and apatron deity".[2] The social groups which had used the bardic services included theBhils,Gurjars,Jats,Rabaris, and Rajputs.[6][7] Piliavsky observes that the "bardic work in itself was not in disrepute" and states,
...royal and low-caste bards did identical work: they wrote, performed, and recordedpanegyrics and genealogies (bansāvalis andpidāvalis). [..] Patron and bard, each afforded the other a claim to a clear "origin" — one genealogical, the other patronage-based, but both existentially crucial.[7]
Snodgrass suggests that theBhats who have traditionally worked for the Rajput princes as genealogical experts and privileged bards are an eponymous but different community from theBhats who works as puppeteers and are also clienteles of the Bambhis.[8]: 740 Snodgrass views the "high-status genealogists" of Rajputs and the "poets", "praise-singers" and "story-tellers" bards as "a very different group of people".[9]: 268 According to Piliavsky, theBhats who worked for the Rajputs "were the elite" and theBhats who worked for the Bhils and Gurjars "were the riffraff".[7]
Some scholars like Anastasia Piliavsky,Dirk H. A. Kolff, andHarald Tambs-Lyche claims that the bards played a key role in securing political legitimacy of the ruling elites. They suggest,
From theearly medieval period, and increasingly with the elaboration of the Rajput "great tradition" from the sixteenth century onward, genealogy emerged as the cornerstone of good social standing and political legitimacy in Western and Central India (Kolff 1990: 72, 110). [..] From the sixteenth century onward, "every royal clan depended on a line of bards for its recognition" (Tambs-Lyche 1997: 61), and by the mid-seventeenth, when the Rajput model became entrenched as the benchmark of social status and political legitimacy, "genealogical orthodoxy" was firmly established as an essential aspect of respectable standing (Kolff 1990: 73).[2]
Snodgrass notes that the genealogies of Rajputs were intentionally linked to the ancientKshatriyas who are spoken of in the ancientSanskrit writings, and several times, their genealogies were imaginarily connected even to the sun and moon which aided in instating the "Rajput and thus Hindu glory". The Rajput status was augmented by the claims of Kshatriya ancestry of the Rajput community's members, and according to Snodgrass, that might have assisted in the legitimization of their dominion in the society. He is of the view that the claims of descent from the ancient Kshatriyas by the Rajputs helped them in advancing theirfeudatory states' interests in the British Raj.[10]
In Rajasthan's feudatory states, theBhats,Charans and "Jain monks of the monastic lineage" played an important part in the royal affairs which included enthronement and legitimation. Hira Singh notes that these three groups andBrahmins competed with each other in proffering "alternative narratives of major historical events relating to the kings and kingdoms". According to Hira Singh, the enthronement and legitimation in the feudatory states of Rajasthan were directed by the "political, economic, and administrative contingencies" and were not "rooted in religion".Ramya Sreenivasan claims that theBhats,Charans and Jain monks imitated the Rajputs' lifestyle and used to view themselves in the same class as the Rajputs, not Brahmins.[11]
Snodgrass notes that the bards could upgrade or degrade the reputation and honor of a king by their talented poetry and storytelling. According to Snodgrass, theBhats cast kings like a sculptor sculpts a sculpture and "in the process, kings obtained their royal "caste" — that is, their name and social identity as well as their status, ranking, and position in society". During hisfield research in Rajasthan, Snodgrass was told by someBhats that "bards had the power to make, or unmake, kings".[12] Snodgrass claims,
...Bhats understand, and indeed cleverly manipulate, the idea that modern caste identity can be diversely constructed or invented against the foil of tradition as imagined by elites as diverse as foreign tourists and Indian bureaucrats staging folklore festivals. Indeed, Bhats suggest that this skill was the very basis of bardic power — to imagine the names, reputations, and very identities of their lords and thus to "cast" and "caste" them in some important respect.[12]
Snodgrass compares the role of theBhats and kings in the society with that of the directors and actors in movies.[12]
During his fieldwork in Rajasthan, Snodgrass observed that the royalBhats of Rajasthan typically view themselves as descendants of the Brahmins who "long ago composed Sanskrit verse in praise of kings" and also maintained genealogies of the royals.[9]
Snodgrass suggests that theBhats, who according to him are eponymous but different people from the elite bards, also hail from Rajasthan.[8]: 740 During his fieldwork, Snodgrass observed that theBhats, who are "a community of low-status entertainers", l thepir Mala Nur, a Muslim saint who is alsovenerated by them, as the progenitor of their community. He suggests that the majority of their populace originated from Rajasthan'sNagaur andSikar. They live in these 2 districts in thousands of numbers.[1] They are also found inJaipur andUdaipur.[8]: 740 Some of them have originated from the western desert areas of Rajasthan.[9]: 265 Snodgrass suggests that though these people call themselvesBhats, they "did not traditionally perform fornobility". He refers to them as the "low-casteBhats".[9]: 275–276
Piliavsky claims that majority of the bards "came from the ranks of thevagrants".[2]
The social status of theBhats had been dynamic, and it changed in direct proportion with the changes in social status of their patrons. As their patrons moved up in the social hierarchy, their own social status also improved.[5] Besides the ranking of their patrons in the social hierarchy, the social status of bards was influenced by the "quality of their service attachments". Piliavsky suggests that the bards, whose relationship with their patrons became "more exclusive and durable", attained a higher social status.[7]
Since the 13th century, theBhats who were in the service of royals held "some of the highest social positions" just beneath their patrons, while the ones at the service of communities with lower social standing "remained on the periphery of social life". TheBhats andCharans serving the royals were given "permanent tax-free land grants" and an honorable place in theroyal courts.[5] According to Piliavsky, the bards of lower castes landed up at the lower end of social hierarchy as they served "lowly masters" and their "service ties remained intermediate, inchoate".[7] During theBritish colonial era, the royalBhats were removed from the "positions of authority".[5]
Giving an example ofgoat sacrifice as an offering toBhaironji by the lowlyBhats after the birth of a male child, Snodgrass states that they engage inSanskritization of themselves by imitating "dominant Hindu ideals implicit to a kingly tradition of blood sacrifice".[1]
Snodgrass observed that the low-statusBhats receive monetarily help from the people from Bhambi caste who give food and gifts to them. The Bhambis are perceived as impure anduntouchables by a lot of Hindus because of their profession of making objects from leather which involves coming in touch with the decaying flesh of animals, something that is viewed as polluting by the caste Hindus, and because of their ties to the Bhambis, theBhats are also seen with the same perception.[1] He points out that in order to benefit from the "new economic and political opportunities", they are leaving the villages and are casting off their numerous long-term ties with the Bhambhis.[12]
The tourism in Rajasthan serves as the main source of their income.[13] In the recent times, they have started doing puppetry commingled with stories for the entertainment of tourists in 5-star hotels and during the folklore festivals.[14]: 602–603 In their performances, they "celebrate" struggles of "Hindu warrior" against the "Muslim invaders". Carol Henderson claims that the palace–hotel owners of Rajasthan want to cater exoticism and nostalgia to their guests and Snodgrass says that they serve this purpose of the hotel owners. According to Snodgrass, they were not royal bards but they pose as "the once glorious, though now fallen, bards of royalty" to "exploit the romantic fantasies of tourists and folklore organizers". Snodgrass notes that they have significantly improved their economic condition by capitalizing on the influx of tourists in Rajasthan.[13]
TheBhatra Sikhs (also known asBhat Sikhs) are a sub-group within theSikhs who originated from the bards of the time ofGuru Nanak.[15] According toWilliam Hewat McLeod, the Bhatra Sikhs have an "extremely small" population and they are from some villages of theGurdaspur andSialkot districts of thePunjab region.[16]
As for their origin, the academics hold that the term Bhatra is a diminutive of the Sanskrit word bhat which literally means bard or panegyrist. [..] According to another myth prevalent in India, Bhat is an epithet for a learned Brahman.
In the princely states of Rajasthan the Jain monks of the monastic lineage, in addition to the Charans and the Bhats, had a prominent role in royal affairs including coronation and legitimation. The Brahmans, Jain monks, Charans, and Bhats competed in providing alternative narratives of major historical events relating to the kings and kingdoms. What is interesting is that the Jain monks, Charans, and Bhats did not identify with the Brahmans. Rather, they identified with and emulated, by and large, the lifestyle of the Rajputs, the dominant caste.36 Legitimation and coronation were not sacred, rooted in religion, but dictated by political, economic, and administrative contingencies: they were profane.
