Oral sources place the emergence of the Jadejas as being in the late 9th century when kingdoms were established in parts of Kutch and Saurashtra by Lakho Ghuraro and Lakho Phulani who in turn were descendents of Jam Jada, the progenitor of the clan.[11][12] However, available written sources place the emergence of the Jadejas in the 14th century.[13] After the Arab conquest of Sindh, various migrant communities from Sindh (Pakistan), as well as Arab merchants settled in Kutch (India).[11][10] Historian Anisha Saxena suggests that the Jadejas were Hindu branches of the Samma dynasty of Sindh whose leaders, like other Sammas, had adopted the title of Jam, and had settled in Kutch.[11] This view is also advanced by Rushbrooke, who also suggests that Sammas were Hindu and might have migrated to resist conversion to Islam.[12] An alternative view is that the Sammas were a pastoral community from which the Jadejas originated. Sociologist Lyla Mehta argues, that the Jadeja were the Hindu descendants of a Muslimtribe that had migrated from Sindh to Kutch. Once the Jadejas gained political power, they started "modelling themselves" after the Rajputs of Rajasthan and even married Rajput women in the process and adopted the Rajput customs.[14][10] They claim to be descended from the legendary Jamshed of Iran.[15][16]
From 1638 to 1663, the city of Palanpur was ruled by a Muslim, Mujahid Khan II, who was married to a Jadeja lady called Manbai. Their rulership was reportedly popular with the people because of the mixed marriage.[18][19]
A Jadeja dynasty ruled the princely state of Kutch from 1540 and 1948 (when India became a republic). Princely state had been formed by king Khengarji I, who gathered under him twelve Jadeja noble landowning families, who were also related to him, as well as two noble families of the Waghelatribe called as Bhayat (Bhai means brother, essentially treated as brothers). Khengarji and his successors retained the allegiance of these Bhayat (chieftains). They claimed legendary descent from Krishna.[11] However, historians state that such claims of illustrious descent though common among Rajput clans have no historical basis.[20][21][22]
Princely States ruled by Jadeja prior to Indepdendence of India
The Jadejas had high social status and a rigid caste system. They forbade intermarriage with lower social groups – nearly every other clan relative to them – as well as intermarriage within the clan, making it difficult to arrange suitable marriages for female offspring, with costly dowries required even if a match was found. The clan developed a tradition of female infanticide as a result.[28] When the British outlawed female infanticide, Jadeja chiefs began letting their daughters live and married them to other Rajput chiefs of equal status.[13] The practice continues to some degree today, although where modern facilities are available it may take the form of female foeticide.[29]
Lyla Mehta, a sociologist who made studies in Kutch in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, noticed a trend in Jadejas that was unusual for other communities. In gender-based labour such as fetching water, while other communities sent women and girls to fetch the water, the Jadeja men fetched the water from the well and exercised clout at the wells and intimidated many women and girls there. This exception of men fetching the water for the household was due to the custom of ojjal, which barred Jadeja women from being in public.[30]
German scholar Helene Basu claims that the Jadeja Rajputs of Gujarat were labelled as 'half Muslim' and the cooks who worked in their homes were slaves from the Siddi community.[31][32]
Religion
The principal deity of the Jadejas was Ashapura Mata (Hope-Giving Mother).[33]
Duleepsinhji, Nephew of K. S. Ranjitsinhji, noted cricketer, later served as High Commissioner of India in several countries.[39] after whom Duleep Trophy is named.[40]
Rajendrasinh Jadeja – Indian cricketer, coach and former BCCI official referee. He played first-class cricket for Saurashtra, West Zone and Mumbai playing 50 first-class matches.
^Shah, A. M.; Shroff, R. G. (1958). "The Vahīvancā Bāroṭs of Gujarat: A Caste of Genealogists and Mythographers". The Journal of American Folklore. 71 (281): 258. doi:10.2307/538561. JSTOR538561.
^McLeod, J. (2019). Fleet, K.; Krämer, G.; Matringe, D.; Nawas, J.; Stewart, D.J (eds.). "Kachchh". Encyclopaedia of Islam Three Online. Brill. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_com_35748. For much of its history, Kachchh was ruled by the dynasties that dominated Sind and Gujarat. Beginning in the seventh/thirteenth century, several principalities were established in the region by the Jādejās, a Rājpūt clan descended from the Sammā dynasty of Sind.
^Basu, H. (2018). Jacobsen, K. A. (ed.). "Gujarat". Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism Online. Brill. doi:10.1163/2212-5019_beh_com_1010040010. On the peninsulas, Jadeja Rajputs became the most powerful lineage. Their ancestry goes back to Samma Rajputs in Sindh who established small chieftains in the 14th century on the peninsula across the Rann. These provided the foundation for the establishment of the larger kingdom of Kacchch in the 15th century by the Jadeja lineage.
^Sheikh, Samira (2009). "Pastoralism, Trade, and Settlement in Saurashtra and Kachchh". Forging a region: sultans, traders, and pilgrims in Gujarat, 1200-1500. Oxford University Press. pp. 101–128. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198060192.003.0004. ISBN9780198060192. An example of the process by which a pastoralist group originating in Sind became one of the prestigious Rajput clans of Saurashtra and Kachchh is that of the Sammas. Branches of this clan (who trace their descent to Kṛṣṇa) moved into Kachchh and Saurashtra, where they eventually became the important Rajput ruling houses of the Jāḍejās in Kachchh and the Cūḍāsamās in Junagadh.
^ abcFarhana Ibrahim (29 November 2020). Settlers, Saints and Sovereigns: An Ethnography of State Formation in Western India. Taylor & Francis. pp. 49–50. ISBN978-1-00-008397-2. After the Arab conquest of Sindh in the eighth century, pastoralists from Sindh and Arab merchants settled in Kachchh. Some of these pastoralists – the Sammas - were to eventually rise to be the ruling power under the name Jadeja in the mid-1500s. ...At the time, there were Samas in Kachchh as well as Sind. While the Sindhi Samas tended to be Muslim, the Samas in Kachchh were hindus and it is suggested that they might possibly have moved into Kachchh in order ro resist conversion to Islam. (ii):-They also established a kin-based system of administration based on the extraction of agrarian surplus. Adopting Rajput symbol of life was important in the rajputization of the Jadejas, especially to maintain an imperial aura in the face of their subjects
^ abcdSaxena, Anisha (2018). "Jakh, Jacks, or Yakṣa?: Multiple Identities and Histories of Jakh Gods in Kachchh". Asian Ethnology. 77 (1–2): 103. JSTOR26604835.
^ abRushbrook Williams, L. F. (1958). The Black Hills. Kutch in history and legend: A study in Indian local loyalties (in English and Gujarati). London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. p. 91.
^Koyal, Sivaji (1986). "Emergence of Kingship, Rajputization and a New Economic Arrangement in Mundaland". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 47 (I). Indian History Congress: 536–542. JSTOR44141600.
^André Wink (2002). Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7Th-11th Centuries. BRILL. p. 282. ISBN0-391-04173-8. In short, a process of development occurred which after several centuries culminated in the formation of new groups with the identity of 'Rajputs'(Rajputization). The predecessors of the Rajputs, from about the eighth century, rose to politico-military prominence as an open status group or estate of largely illiterate warriors who wished to consider themselves as the reincarnates of the ancient Indian Kshatriyas. The claim of Kshatriyas was, of course, historically completely unfounded. The Rajputs as well as other autochthonous Indian gentry groups who claimed Kshatriya status by way of putative Rajput descent, differed widely from the classical varna of Kshatriyas which, as depicted in literature, was made of aristocratic, urbanite and educated clans...
^Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya (1994). "Origin of the Rajputs: The Political, Economic and Social Processes in Early Medieval Rajasthan". The Making of Early Medieval India. Oxford University Press. p. 59. ISBN9780195634150.
^Gazetteers: Jamnagar District, Gujarat (India) – 1970 – Page 614 Before the integration of States, Dhrol was a Class II State founded by Jam Hardholji, the brother of Jam Raval, who hailed from the ruling Jadeja Darbar family of Kutch.
^ abLee-Warner, William (22 November 1912). "Kathiawar". Journal of the Royal Society of Arts. 61: 391–392. ProQuest1307274284 – via ProQuest.
^Rajkot. India: Superintendent of Census Operations, Gujarat. 1964. pp. 45–46.
^Lyla Mehta (2005). The Politics and Poetics of Water: The Naturalisation of Scarcity in Western India. Orient Blackswan. p. 166. ISBN978-81-250-2869-7. One notable exception is the Jadeja community. As their women are barred from the public realm due to the ojjal system, Jadeja men fetch water for their households.[...]Jadeja men exercise the greatest clout and power at the wells and intimidate many women, especially young Harijan girls.
^B. N. Goswamy; Anna Libera Dallapiccola (1983). A Place Apart: Painting in Kutch, 1720–1820. Oxford University Press. p. 7. ISBN978-0-19-561311-7. The connection with the Muslim branches of the Samma families was left behind, but never entirely forgotten . In fact it is a distinguishing feature of Kutch history under the Jadejas that there was remarkable peace between Hindus and Muslims, the Jadejas of Kutch being described by later writers as ' half Muslims ' themselves.
^De Neve, Geert; Donner, Henrike (2007). The Meaning of the Local: Politics of Place in Urban India. Taylor and Francis. p. 221.
^Gazette of India. 1953. p. 1475. Major General M. S. Pratapsinhji; 2. Major General M. S. Himatsinhji; 3. Maharaj Shri Duleepsinhji; and 4. Lieutenant General M. S. Rajendrasinhji; members of the family of the Ruler of Nawanagar for the purposes...
^The Journal of Indo-judaic Studies , Volumes 1-4. Society for Indo-Judaic Studies. 1998. p. 95. Four generations of the Jamnagar royal family have played test cricket: Ranji and Duleep for England and Indrajit and Ajay Jadeja for India