Chitpavan Brahmins trace their origin to a Parashurama purification myth.
Evidence
57 The origin of the Chitpavan Brahmins is traced to the myth of Parashurama, believed to be an ‘immortal’ Brahmin incarnation of Vishnu. Parashurama is said to have burned the bodies of fourteen people who were washed ashore on a funeral pyre, purifying them, and then restored them to life—thus the name chita (pyre) pavan (purified). These fourteen people are said to be of Jewish, Persian or, in some versions, Berber descent. Another version gives the etymology of their name as “pure of the mind” (Figueira 2002, 121–33). Their recorded history, however, begins in the eighteenth century, when Chattrapati Shahu, grandson of Shivaji, appointed Balaji Vishwanath Bhat, a Chitpavan Brahmin, as Peshwa (Johnson 2005, 58). — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1081
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Explains the mythic etymology of ‘Chitpavan’ and its contested origin stories.