Brahmins contested Kayasthas’ claimed twice-born status and scribal rights

Evidence

60 Kayasthas are a caste of scribes whose varna status has been the subject of a raging debate. While they trace their origin to Chitragupta, the scribe of god Yama, and claim a status equal to Brahmins, or to Kshatriyas, many Brahmin texts position them as Shudras. The poet (and Kayastha) Harivansh Rai Bachchan (1998, 7) writes that Brahmins “have sought to degrade the Kayasthas in many a Sanskrit verse such as the following: That the foetal Kayastha eats not his mother’s flesh/speaks not of tenderness, but of toothlessness.” The Peshwa Brahmins of the Deccan had resented the Kayasthas’ right to learning and becoming scribes and record-keepers in the seventeenth century. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1084

Categorization

• XREF: This echoes the Shivaji coronation case (1083) — both show Brahmins as arbiters of who counts as Kshatriya, a gatekeeping gate across centuries.