They are Kshatriyas now, it has been said, these Rajputs from Central Asia. For from of old the classic, if academic, division of the Indian peoples has been supposed to be in four great caste or class abstractions, of which the second or warrior class is known as Kshatriya. And in fact it was into this caste that the invaders were by artful priests assumed to be adopted. The first hordes, from Bactria and the Oxus, had become followers of Buddha, a casteless faith in which the Brahman priesthood lost its privileges. But the later comers, the Gujjars and Huns, with their adoration of fire and sun and moon, were quickly persuaded to the Hindu system and the acceptance of the Brahman priesthood. So they slew as they conquered and extirpated the adherents of the reformed creed. And for reward they obtained the rank of Kshatriya and genealogies of the true Aryan breed. Those who were soldiers and founded states or formed the fighting men-at-arms of the clan maintained the rank, and are the Rajputs of to-day. The rest, as they settled down to trade or craftsmanship or as each by the succeeding horde was engulfed, and, where it was not absorbed, oppressed, brought to the multitudinous castes of upper India that Rajput element which is still strongly marked by Scythian tribal names and even by customs or appearance. It was a clan system, something like the Highland clans. Just as Macdonalds or Camerons absorbed into themselves earlier Picts or later broken septs, so did even the proud Sesodias of Udepur, one must suppose, take into their tribe in the first rush of conquest many converted Sákas or Kusháns, broken tribes, it may be, who were useful recruits, or perhaps at times some powerful leaders. As the Highlander going to Glasgow or the Lowlands, lost his nobility and became artisan or weaver or tradesman, marrying with the common people and shedding his pride and distinctions, so of the Central Asian fighting tribes there were many who descended to the common level of the working population. [Illustration: LADY FROM MEWÁR]