Kayastha
Sign in to saveKayastha (or Kayasth, ) denotes a cluster of disparate Indian communities broadly categorised by the regions of the Indian subcontinent in which they were traditionally locatedthe Chitraguptavanshi Kayasthas of northern India, the Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhus of Maharashtra, the Bengali Kayasthas of Bengal and Karanas of Odisha. All of them were traditionally considered "writing castes", who had historically served the ruling powers as administrators, ministers and record-keepers.
Key facts
- Caste.caste_name
- Kayastha
- Caste.region
- Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal
- Caste.country
- India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh
- Caste.religions
- Majority: Hinduism Minority: Islam
- Caste.image
- Calcuttakayasth.jpg
- Caste.caption
- "Calcutta Kayastha", a late 18th-century depiction by Frans Balthazar Solvyns
- Caste.image_size
- 160px
via Wikipedia infobox
~24 min read
Encyclopedic overview
28 sectionsContents
- Origins
- Etymology
- As a class of administrators
- In Buddhist association
- As an independent guild of professionals
- History
- From classical to early-medieval India
- In Brahmanical literature
- Late medieval India
- British India
- Modern India
- Sub-groups
- Chitraguptavanshi Kayasthas
- Bengali Kayasthas
- Chandraseniya Prabhu Kayasthas
- Karanas
- Varna status
- Socio-economic condition
- Kayasthas in Nepal
- Notable people
- [[List of presidents of India|President of India]]
- [[List of prime ministers of India|Prime Minister of India]]
- [[List of current Indian chief ministers|Chief Ministers]]
- Others
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
Kayastha (or Kayasth, ) denotes a cluster of disparate Indian communities broadly categorised by the regions of the Indian subcontinent in which they were traditionally locatedthe Chitraguptavanshi Kayasthas of northern India, the Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhus of Maharashtra, the Bengali Kayasthas of Bengal and Karanas of Odisha. All of them were traditionally considered "writing castes", who had historically served the ruling powers as administrators, ministers and record-keepers.
The earliest known reference to the term Kayastha dates back to the Kushan Empire, when it evolved into a common name for a writer or scribe. In the Sanskrit literature and inscriptions, it was used to denote the holders of a particular category of offices in the government service. In this context, the term possibly derived from ('principal, capital, treasury') and - ('to stay') and perhaps originally stood for an officer of the royal treasury, or revenue department.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Kayastha” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.