The Chaturvedis

Many people in India have the surname Chaturvedi. They are also called Chaubes ( just as Dwivedis are also called Dubes ). Many Chaturvedis are my friends.

 There are three interesting things about Chaturvedis :

 (1) They were originally concentrated in the area comprising of the present districts of Mathura, Agra, Firozabad, etc ( the Brajmandal ) in the state of Uttar Pradesh, though of course they later spread elsewhere, e.g. to Malwa where they are called Malviyas ( e.g. Pt.Madan Mohan Malviya ), and some even went abroad.. However even now there are a lot of Chaubes in the Mathura region and nearabout, and they are bhaktas of Lord Krishna.

(2) They call themselves Brahmins, but traditionally a Chaturvedi boy could only marry a Chaturvedi girl, and not other Brahmans like Mishras, Shuklas, Dwivedis, Trivedis, Bajpais, Pandes, etc

(3) They are usually fair, handsome and intelligent.

What is the historical origin of Chaturvedis ? This could be an interesting subject of research.

 I would like to present here my own views.

As I pointed out in my article ' What is India ?' ( see on my blog justicekatju.blogspot.in and the website kgfindia.com ), India is broadly a country of immigrants, like North America.. As I have explained there, people migrated into India for thousands of tears, mainly from the North West ( and to a lesser extent, from the North East), because people migrate from uncomfortable areas to comfortable ones, and India was a very comfortable region, with level land, fertile soil, plenty of water for irrigation, etc

So for thousands of years people kept migrating into India, and hardly anyone left India ( except on two occasions,as indentured plantation labour to Fiji, Mauritius, Guina, etc in the 19th century during British rule  and the diaspora of highly skilled professionals over the last 30-40 years to North America, etc ). Why should anyone migrate from India, which is comfortable, to a place like Afghanistan, which is cold, mountaneous, covered with snow for several months in a year, and so uncomfortable ?

 Of course, these migrations and invasions into India were probably not as a steady stream, but sporadically, in waves.

So my guess is that the ancestors of the present Chaturvedis came from the North West of India ( since they have Caucasian, not Mongoloid, features ) in some wave of invasion or migration, thousands of years ago, and settled down in the Mathura-Agra region.

 Now India had tremendous assimilitative capacity. Everybody who came here from outside got assimilitated here. So when the ancestors of Chaturvedis came and settled in India, the local Brahmins told them that they too will be regarded as Brahmins, but they must inter marry only among themselves. Other Brahmins would not marry them. So that is how Chaturvedis traditionally married only among themselves.

 I would often tease my Chaturvedi friends, by jokingly telling them that they were not Brahmins at all. This would make them very upset, and they would insist that they are Brahmins. Some would ask me what they were ?

 Sometimes, to please them, I would tell them that they are Greeks, descendants of the Greek soldiers who came in the army of Alexander the Great in 326 B.C., and settled down in India at the time of Alexander's General Seleucus Nicator, who inherited the Eastern part of Alexander's Empire on his death.

That is why, i would tell them, you are so fair, handsome and intelligent like the ancient Greeks

 But at other times, to pull their legs, I would tell them that they are descendants of barbarian Huns