View source for Rajput: Nagvansi

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From '''The Tribes And Castes Of The Central Provinces Of India '''
 
By R. V. Russell
 
Of The Indian Civil Service
 
Superintendent Of Ethnography, Central Provinces
 
Assisted By  
Rai Bahadur Hira Lal,  
Extra Assistant Commissioner
 
Macmillan And Co., Limited, London, 1916.
 
''' NOTE 1: The 'Central Provinces' have since been renamed Madhya Pradesh. '''

NOTE 2: While reading please keep in mind that all articles in this series have been scanned from a book. During scanning some errors are bound to occur. Some letters get garbled. Footnotes get inserted into the main text of the article, interrupting the flow. Readers who spot errors  might like to correct them, and shift footnotes gone astray to their rightful  place.

=Rajput: Nagvansi=

This clan are considered to be the
descendants of the Tak or Takshac, which is one of the
thirty-six royal races, and was considered by Colonel Tod
to be of Scythian origin. The Takshac were also snakeworshippers.

" Naga and Takshac are synonymous appellations
in Sanskrit for the snake, and the Takshac is the
celebrated Nagvansa of the early heroic history of India.
The Mahabharat describes in its usual allegorical style the
war between the Pandus of Indraprestha and the Takshacs
of the north. Parikhlta, a prince on the Pandu side, was
assassinated by the Takshac, and his son and successor,
Janamejaya, avenged his death and made a bonfire of
20,000 snakes." " This allegory is supposed to have represented
the warfare of the Aryan races against the Sakas or
Scythians. 

The Tak or Takshac would be one of the clans
held to be derived from the earlier invading tribes from
Central Asia, and of the lunar race. The Tak are scarcely
known in authentic history, but the poet Chand mentions
the Tak from Aser or Aslrgarh as one of the princes who
assembled at the summons of Prithwi Raj of Delhi to fight
against the Muhammadans. 

In another place he is called
Chatto the Tak. Nothing more is known of the Tak clan
unless the cultivating Taga caste of northern India is
derived from them. But the Nagvansi clan of Rajputs,
who profess to be descended from them, is fairly numerous.
Most of the Nagvansis, however, are probably in reality
descended from landholders of the indigenous tribes who
have adopted the name of this clan, when they wished to
claim rank as Rajputs. The change is rendered more easy by
^ Mr. Crooke's Tribes and Castes, ^ Rajasthiin, i. p. 94 ; Elliot's Supart.
Kachhwaha. plemcntal Glossary, art. Gaur Taga.
 
the fact that many of these tribes have legends of their own,
showing the descent of their ruHng famihes from snakes,
the snake and tiger, owing to their deadly character, being
the two animals most commonly worshipped. 

Thus the
landholding section of the Kols or Mundas of Chota
Nagpur have a long legend ^ of their descent from a princess
who married a snake in human form, and hence call themselves
Nagvansi Rajputs ; and Dr. Buchanan states that the
Nagvansi clan of Gorakhpur is similarly derived from the
Chero tribe.^ In the Central Provinces the Nagvansi Rajputs
number about 400 persons, nearly all of whom are found in
the Chhattlsgarh Districts and Feudatory States, and are
probably descendants of Kol or Munda landholding families.