Kapoor Got

What “Got” means for the Khatri

Khatri surname clans are grouped into ranked ghar (houses) that set who marries whom. Rose (1919) calls the clans sections. Families writing in English often call the clan name a gotra, though it is not a Vedic gotra.

Name and Origin

Rose's Glossary (1919) records two accounts of why the Kapur, Khanna and Mehra stand together. In one, the Khatri sections who resisted a decree of Ala-ud-din Khilji on widow remarriage sent a deputation to Delhi, and the three clans Khanna, Kapur and Mehra, whose ancestors led the resistance at their mother's urging, became the Dhaighar, with the Seth-Kakar affiliated. In the other, Mehr Chand, Kahn Chand and Kapur Chand were three Khatris who went to Delhi in attendance on one of Akbar's Rajput wives, were cut off from the rest of the caste, and married only into each other's families. Rose finds the first explanation hardly tenable, since these clans are not Dhaighar alone, and gives both as legend. He also says that the Khanna and Kapur are both of the Kaushal gotra, yet intermarry.

Historical Journey

The Khatri are a trading and writing community of Punjab, and historians do not agree on their varna. Wikipedia, citing M. N. Srinivas, notes that the Khatri census returns claimed no varna in 1911, Kshatriya status in 1921 and Vaishya in 1931. It adds that Satish Chandra described them as traders rather than clearly Kshatriya or Vaishya, and that Khatris held Mughal accounting and revenue posts. The Sikh Gurus were Khatri, from the Bedi, Trehan, Bhalla and Sodhi clans. Within the community, Rose finds the Kapur listed in the Bari (Baraghar) group of twelve sections, which has the sub-groups Dhaighar, Charghar, Chheghar and Baraghar, beside the larger Bunjahi (fifty-two sections) and the Sarin. Rose says status in these groups is governed by hypergamy: the narrower the circle into which a family can give daughters, the higher its standing. He adds that Kapur families were mostly of Dhaighar status, but some who gave daughters to the Sahgal section fell to Baraghar, and others to Bunjahi, so a family's standing could change although the section's name stayed. He also says the Kaura got is really Kapurs and the Cham got really Tannan Kapurs, both of Bunjahi status.

How the Got Is Kept

In the ghar scheme, as Wikipedia summarises it from Baij Nath Puri (The Khatris, 1988) and Sudhir Kakar, the Dhai Ghar are Kapoor, Khanna and Mehra or Malhotra, and the Char Ghar adds Seth (Kakar). The Barah Ghar adds Chopra, Dhawan, Mahindru, Mehrotra, Sehgal, Talwar, Tandon, Vohra and Wadhawan, and the Bunjahi are the fifty-two. Kakar explains the name as two and a half houses, the number three being thought unlucky. Rose records for the first head-shaving (maunan) that the Kapur, Malhotra and Seth Khatris could hold it anywhere, provided no river or well there held water from Dipalpur, the place to which the Khanna took their sons. He reports that in the early twentieth century the marriage expenses of the Dhaighar were very slight, those of the Barahghar heavy, the Bunjahi very heavy and the Sarin ruinous. These are early twentieth century records, and practice differs by family and region.

Presence Across Regions

Stories and Legends