Friday, April 20, 2007

Bhumihar Brahmin Surnames and other stuff


This is in response to Puja's Query about Bhumihar surnames.


Shwetank Jain has a quesry about Bhumihars being corrupt and land-snatchers. this may be refer to the Dalit vs landowner fights in Bihar. I'll deal with this in a blog later.

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Bhumihar Brahmins formerly used Brahmin Surnames as they were Brahmins but they also adopted titles of Rajputs, Muslims and many others communities suggesting the source of the land grants which they came to hold.


Some scholars suggest that Bhumihar is itself a title of those Brahmins who came to hold land and political power through different periods of history in the Gangetic plain.


Some of the surnames used by these Brahmins are given below:-


Thakur: A lot of Villages in Kanti, Muzaffarpur natives have Thakur as surname.

Chaudhary: Chaudhary is also visible in Kanti, Muzaffarpur , Katihar, Purnea . Some Bengali Brahmins and Maithil Brahmins also use this title. LoksabhaMP Nikhil Chaudhary and Industrialist Sri Durga Chaudhary are from Purnia.

Sharma: A large section of Bhumihar Brahmins as any other Brahmin have Sharma as surname. Majority of Shatma are located in and around Arwal Jehanabad, Bihar. Famous nationalists and peasant leaders Pandit Karyanand Sharma and Pandit Jadunandan Sharma, Leftist Historian R S Sharma.



Ojha: A few villages in Chhapara and Muzaffarpur have Bhumihars with Ojhaas sirname. Sri D P Ojha , ex-DGP, Govt. of Bihar.

Mishra: Madhubani and Chhapara have surname as Mishra. Muzaffarpur based SKMCH Medical college First principal Dr B P Mishra is from Chhapra .

Singh: This is a Surname of landlords and big Bhumihar Brahmin Zamindars. Moke-village-Bihar Konch-block.

Sinha: Many Singh People converted their name to Sinha,.Manoj Sinha, ex-MP, Gazipur.

Pandey: It is s available in Sahabad and Chhapara. Raghunath Pandey was native of Chhapara.

Shahi: They are found in Muzaffarpur and some part of Deoria and Gopalganj (Saran). Hathwa Naresh has Shahi as Surname, L P Shahi (Congress leader).

Shukla: They are also found in Vaishali

Dutt: Its taken from MAHIWAL or Mohyal; Sir Ganesh Dutt Singh
Yajee: Bhumihars are from Bakhtiyarpur.
Karjee: Gangwa, Muzaffarpur is known for KARJEE bhumihars and Pt Yamuna Karjee was from Samastipur.

Dwivedi: Sitamadhi and West Champaran Land Lords Bhumihars have Dwivedi as surname.

Upadhyay: a few villages in Rohtas/ Kaimur have Bhumihars with Upadhyay as Surname.

Rai: Almost all Bhumihars from Eastern UP have this as surname.

Khawn: KHAN / KHAWN is also a surname of Bhumihars and even Maithil Brahmins have this as Surname.


[more info? In response to your comments]

29 comments:

Puja Upadhyay said...

thank you so much sir, i can count on you for almost everything.
we used to call you"www", you always have information...on any topic on this earth. so whenever in doubt contact frank sir(except for your assignments ;), for which we had to dig information from other sources)

Geeti Sharma said...

Really informative and a nice read. Thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

Genial brief and this mail helped me alot in my college assignement. Say thank you you for your information.

kanupriyasingh said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
kanupriyasingh said...

Thanks,

That was helpful. Do you have any idea about Bhardwaj and Saxena? Are they bhumihar too???

maneesh said...

hi sir,

what kind of brahmin are the people belonging to giri caste? please tell me sir

Anonymous said...

The author is totally correct.
However these days u cannot judge someone's caste by his surname as many surnames belong to different caste and moreover surnames can be easily changed.

Anonymous said...

The surnames written for the bhumihar brahmas are correct.
I am a bhumihar Brahmin and my surname is Sinha.
Actually My surname is pronounced as sinh, so we could either write Sinha or Singh, but we chose Sinha as we found it more appropriate. But now everyone pronounces it as sin-ha, so Sinha has become a surname for bhumihar brahmins

Anonymous said...

please inform if kumar surname comes under bhumihar brahmin

Indian Blogger said...

Well
bhumihar with ojha title
lives in the village KHABRA, Muzaffarpur, bihar.
The natives of this village are Ojha.
this village has only bhumihars in upper caste.

Anonymous said...

Yes Bhardwaj is a gotra of bhumihar's

kunwar rajiv said...

What kunwar surname refers as and what is meaning of kunwar surname.can you just tell me about my surname kunwar.

Unknown said...

Bhumihars also have 'Dubey' title. I belong to Muzaffarpur (Dholi) in Bihar and belong to the Bhumihar caste

Unknown said...

As my surname is kunwar m a Bhumihar was plz tell me what surname my wife will use ... as kunwar is not feasible

Unknown said...

I am a bhumihar of shukla surname from nepal . Plz give detail about surname of Nepalese bhumihar,in alot of post Nepalese bhumihars are not included.

Rude.......sasha said...

Thank for the information.

Unknown said...

In jharkhand (bokaro.dhanbad.ramgrah) bhumihar have alsoमहथा title.i m from bokaro.SP chai bada sri indrajit mahatha IPS also from bokaro distt

Unknown said...

bhumihar caste some of peoples used this surname.

Unknown said...

You haven't listed bharadwaj title of bhumihars as parashuram nandani,village in patori is a single bhumihar village where bhumihars are of Bharadwaj gotra and keep their titles as Thakur.Please describe about bharadwaj bhumihar title to world of bhumihar. Describe about fake muslims and original bhumihars with khan title.

Unknown said...

Log hame Rai sahab bolte hai
Jai Bhumihar

Deep Singh said...

Kunwar or Kanwar is a clan of Bhumihars native of Ghazipur district of Uttar Pradesh . Kanwar is also a Rajput lineage found in the same region , they may be related .

Deep Singh said...

Rai is an honourary title that was given to Landlords . It has the same roots as Rao , it is frequently used by Bhumihars especially the ones from Uttar Pradesh .

Anonymous said...

Good

Anonymous said...

Sir some details about Raj surname please

Anonymous said...

Is rai brahmin ?the person is from UP

Anonymous said...

Yes, Since my own maternal family has this title Rai and when their parents die they use Rai Mahatha as their title and yeah just to clarify we are also bhumihars.

Anonymous said...

Yes man I also have Mahatha as surname and I too live in Chas,Bokaro. But Mahatha was originally not my title it was given to my ancestors by the locals as a sign of huge respect as originally we are Sharma but we don't use this title Sharma oftenly as nowdays many non-Brahmins have started using the same title but anyways I will use both as my title but I really don't know if all Mahatha's have the same history as us
.

Anonymous said...

I am bhumihar and my title is upadhyay
I am from bhojpur zila

Anonymous said...

Please explain who use kunwar surname in Bihar. My surname is kunwar