Dhillon Got

What “Got” means for the Sikh Jat

In Jat Sikh families the got is the patrilineal clan name. A got is exogamous: a person does not marry into their own got, and many families also avoid the mother's and the grandmothers' got.

Name and Origin

Rose's Glossary gives several tribal accounts. Like the Gordya, the Dhillon claim Saroha Rajput origin and say they came from Sirsa. A second story makes them descendants of a Surajbansi (Solar) Rajput named Lu, who lived at Khulmor in the Malwa and held some office at the Delhi court. An Amritsar pedigree traces them to Lu (Loh Sain), a son of Raja Karn of the Mahabharata, and says the family left Hastinapur for Wangar near Bhatinda, where the descendants lived for ten generations. In the Dusanj entry Rose records a tradition that makes Dhillon one of five sons of Saroia, each the eponym of a got. He also notes a folk etymology that derives the name from dhilla, lazy, or from a word for gentle. These are clan traditions. Historians (Grewal, as summarised on Wikipedia's Jat Sikh article) describe the Jats generally as moving up the rivers from Rajasthan and Sindh.

Historical Journey

Rose, compiling from the Punjab census reports of 1883 and 1892, calls the Dhillon one of the largest and most widely distributed Jat tribes of the Punjab. Its headquarters appear to be Gujranwala and Amritsar. It is found along the Sutlej from Ferozepur upward and under the hills east of those districts; he doubts that the large numbers given for Delhi refer to the same tribe. He says the tribe is divided into three great sections, the Baj, Saj and Sauda. The best-documented Dhillon line is the Bhangi misl: Rose says it was founded by a Dhillon sirdar, and Wikipedia, citing Dhavan, When Sparrows Became Hawks (2011), and Kuldip Singh Sidhu, says the misl was founded by Dhillon Jats under Sardar Chhajja Singh in the early 18th century. Hari Singh (leader 1746 to 1765), Jhanda Singh (1765 to 1774) and Ganda Singh (1774 to 1775) are named as its leaders. The misl split from the Singhpuria misl in 1748 and was annexed to the Sikh Empire in 1810.

Migration and Diaspora

Rose suggests that the tribe, on its Saroha tradition of coming from Sirsa, moved up the Sutlej and then spread west under the hills. The Amritsar pedigree places an earlier stay at Wangar near Bhatinda. Dhillon is also a village in Ludhiana district, where Rose records the tribe's jathera.

How the Got Is Kept

Rose records jathera worship in two places. In Sialkot the Dhillon jathera is Daud Shah, who is revered at weddings. At Dhillon village in Ludhiana the tribal jathera is called Babaji, to whom gur is offered at weddings and who is worshipped at Diwali, with Brahmans taking the offerings. Karn is said to have a temple at Amb on the Ganges, where he is worshipped on Chet chaudas. He also records that in Amritsar the Dhillon did not marry into the Bal got, after a Bal village refused help to a Dhillon in a quarrel. These are early twentieth century records, and practice differs by family and village.

Presence Across Regions

Notable Personalities

Stories and Legends