Thread by @KshatraValabhya

"Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu" in exactly this sequence and use of words was coined around 1900 by the castemen originally and traditionally known as Chandrseni Prabhus. The term "kayastha" was decided to be placed between C & P for 2 reasons as follows:-

1. A formal recognition of the assimilation of Valabhi Kayasth branch of the Yaduvanshi Maitraka dynasty of Gujarat and Konkan (to which the minister of Shilahars, Soddhala Sura belonged) done after migration of Prabhus in Shilahar and Seuna Jadhava era.

and

2. An acknowledgement of the fact that Chandraseniya Prabhus themselves held the post called 'kayastha' in Kashmir-Punjab region along with other administrative posts such as Divira and Tantrey.

The assimilation of Yaduvanshi Valabhi Kayasths with Prabhus was smooth due to both

communities considering themselves and each other as Rajanya/Kshatriya by de jure ethnicity, with contemporary Brahmanical and Buddhist clergy's acknowledgement as well.

Valabhi Kayasths were Yaduvanshis indeed as Udayasundarikatha and Aryamanjusri Mulakalpa establish, and the

Chandraseni Prabhus (in inscriptions only the term Prabhu is used) had Suryavanshi as well as Chandravanshi clans. It's quite likely that the community later on known as Pattane Prabhus also took part in the assimilation of Kshatriya Vallabhi Kayasths and Kshatriya Prabhus.

The reason these two (or three, if Pathare Prabhus are counted as well) castes amalgamated as 1 is because both were Kshatriyas as told earlier and were 'Kulkarni/Patwari' by hereditary occupation apart from being feudal lords under Rajput and Maratha sovereigns in Western India.

The Kshatriya Pattana Prabhu might not have assimilated the Kshatriya Valabhi Kayasths which is why they became an endogamous subdivision of Prabhus allegedly separate from the other subdivision being Chandraseniya Prabhus aka kayasth Prabhus.

As both were Kshatriyas and even held titles such as Pandit etc as found in inscriptions, its quite likely that both Valabhi Kayasths and Prabhus had ancestral traditions of Upanayan in their families and Sardar Balaji Avji Prabhu during Raja Shivaji's era didn't "start" a new

invented tradition but was simply carrying forward his family's rituals for his son Khando Ballalji Prabhu when he wanted the upanayan to be performed but Moropant Pingale openly opposed it, directly challenging Kshatriya Prabhus' traditions. So Balaji Avji had to request

Pandit Gagabhatt to quiten Moropant in a scholarly manner to avoid unnecessary resistance by anti-Kshatriya dvivarnavadi ideologues. Now what Gagabhatt did was he didn't directly oppose the Dvivarnavadis. Rather he twisted simple Chandraseniya Prabhu ancestral lore (a lore which

also had assimilated Yaduvanshi Valabhi Kayasth lore btw)- cherry picked out king Chandrasen of Ujjain from ancestry of Balaji Avji and Baji Prabhu Deshpande, spun around a rebooted version of Parshuram-story of Abhiras-Pulindas-Dravidas et al from Mahabharata where these tribes

we're formerly Kshatriyas whose varna-dharma changed to Shudrahood even though remaining pure Kshatriya by bloodline from both paternal and maternal sides, connected this new rebooted story of one of the ancestors of Prabhus called king Chandrasen and then made up the story that

Parshuram spared Chandrasens progeny by asking Dalabhya to train them as the divine Kayastha of Yamraj, Chitragupta. So basically Gagabhatt, or we can say his uncle Kamalakar Bhatt, just made up a story of the Suryavanshi and Chandravanshi Prabhus to all be Chandravanshi alone

originally but who got "adopted" into a Kayastha identity by making Chitragupta their Guru, and according to latter interpolations, even their father-in-law- directly in contradiction to the earlier Chandrasena related Puranic mythos where his son's father-in-law was a

Suryavanshi king Muchakunda, and not Chitragupta or any other deity, in Mahatmyas related to Ujjain Mahakala Jyotirlinga. The Renuka Mahatmya of the Skanda Purana was also most likely written by Gagabhatt's uncle Kamalakarbhatt and interpolated into the anyway

dubious Sahyadri Khand attached to the regional renditions of the Skanda Purana. This Renuka Mahatmya was also primarily responsible for introducing an anti-Kshatriya tradition of connecting Ekviradevi to Parshuram's mother Goddess Renuka. Ekviradevi was earlier simply an

ancestral deity- wife of Raja Ekvirdev who was none other than the Puranic king Haiheya, , who was the great-grandfather of Sahasrabahu Kartavirya Arjuna. It is after this newly forged Mahatmya that Kolis and Agris started associating with the Haiheya Kshatriya Goddess Ekvira in

the Peshwa era, possibly supported by the Chitpavan Peshwas themselves to discredit the traditions of Chandraseni Prabhus in their rivalry. Now the alternate term for Prabhu in Prabhu traditions itself was Kshatriya, Chandraseni Kshatriya as even mentioned in the forged text

Renuka Mahatmya and Sringeri Shankaracharya's letters to Karvir peeth. What Gagabhatt did was he literally altered the term Chandraseniya Prabhu or Chandraseniya Kshatriya to "Chandraseniya Kayastha"- a completely new made-up term, perhaps as a

reference to the assimilation of Yaduvanshi Valabhi "Kayasth" branch of Maitraka dynasty into the Chandraseni Prabhus completed just a few centuries preceding him. And since Chandrasen as per the Puranas and Prabhu folklore was himself a Yaduvanshi king of Ujjain, Gagabhat coolly

forged the term Chandraseniya with Kayastha, and then picked put another ancestral figure named Mahadevnath and called him a Mahaprabhu- which is why Chandraseniya Kayasths were called Prabhu- literally ruining the already known tradition of Prabhu being a synonym for Kshatriyas

in the Mahikavati Bakhar, Manusmriti and similar traditions already! Now.. inspite of these antics of Gagabhatt, which he did perhaps to avoid angering both sides, Prabhus and Brahmins, the Chandraseniya Prabhus themselves had members who still associated themselves with the term

Kshatri-kayastha, most certainly a remnant from a previous identity of some of their ancestors using the identity Valabhikayasth, or even the Kashmiri posts Ganitakayasth and Ashvaghakayasth etc, as recorded even in colonial era Gazetteers. To bring all these

Chandraseniya Prabhus, including the assimilated Yadava Valabhi Kayasths, under one social organization the term "Chandraseniya kayastha Prabhu" was coined in Poona around the year 1900 CE with the Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu Social Club formed to organize the

Chandraseniya Prabhus. This is how the term 'CKP' came into being eventually in English initials and this became the new term of identity for the 25 or 26 Kshatriya clans of the Chandraseniya Prabhus.

What is important to note is one major goof up by Pandits Kamalakarbhatt and Gagabhatt while inventing a new nomenclature for Kshatriya Prabhus with comparison to the 12 Kayastha 'Lala' castes of Gangetic plains. Gagabhatt labels them as "Chitraguptavanshi"- correctly even though

the largest 'Chitraguptavanshi' caste was Shrivastava Kayastha and they understood themselves as descendants of Rishi Kashyapa in the Chandela era as per inscriptions centuries earlier than Kamalakarbhatt, but keeping that aside as an internal understanding between the

Lala subcastes, their identity has been notified with a "-vansha" apparently correctly, but doesn't use such a "-vansha" identity for Chandraseniya Prabhus... because the equivalent term against Chitraguptvanshi would be Chandravanshi or Suryavanshi for Chandraseniya Prabhus as

Surya and Chandra are their moolpurushas. So following Chitraguptavanshi Kayasthas, the Prabhus should have been called Chandravanshi Kayasthas, by Kamalakarbhatt. But he most likely simply failed to pay attention to such a simple thing.

@threadreaderapp unroll

As one source of my posts, here is a ethnological book "Hindu Castes and Sects" by Jogendranath Bhattacharya from 1896 which lists the caste as "Chandra Seni Prabhu" subcaste of 'Prabhu' caste of Bombay, distinct from "Kayastha" castes of Gangetic plains and Bengal.