The Rastogi are a Hindu caste found in North India. They are concentrated in the districts of Varanasi

Varanasi

-Etymology:The name Varanasi has its origin possibly from the names of the two rivers Varuna and Assi, for the old city lies in the north shores of the Ganga bounded by its two tributaries, the Varuna and the Asi, with the Ganges being to its south...

, Farrukhabad

Farrukhabad

Farrukhābād , is one of the important cities of Central Doab Region in the State of Uttar Pradesh in northern India. The city was founded in 1717 by Mohammed Bangash who named it after the Mughal emperor Farrukhsiyar. Farrukhabad is situated on the bank of sacred river Ganges.-Demographics: India...

, Kanpur, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Moradabad

Moradabad

Moradabad is a city and a municipal corporation in Moradabad district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It was established in 1600 by prince Murad, the son of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan; as a result the city came to be known as Moradabad. It is the administrative headquarters of...

, Bareilly

Bareilly

Bareilly is a prominent city in Bareilly district in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Standing on the Ramganga river, it is the capital of the Bareilly division and the geographical region Rohilkhand...

 and Lukhnow in Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...

 and also in many parts of Delhi

Delhi

Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...

, Kolkata

Kolkata

Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...

, Rajasthan

Rajasthan

Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...

, Haryana

Haryana

Haryana is a state in India. Historically, it has been a part of the Kuru region in North India. The name Haryana is found mentioned in the 12th century AD by the apabhramsha writer Vibudh Shridhar . It is bordered by Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to the north, and by Rajasthan to the west and south...

.

The caste's varna status is disputed between the Kshatriya

Kshatriya

*For the Bollywood film of the same name see Kshatriya Kshatriya or Kashtriya, meaning warrior, is one of the four varnas in Hinduism...

 and Vaishya

Vaishya

Vaishya is one of the four varnas of the Hindu social order. According to Vedic tradition, this caste primarily comprises merchants, farmers, cattle-herders and artisans.-Duties of Vaishyas:...

 varnas.

Legendary origin

Their name is derived from Rohtas (rohit meaning sun, aas meaning vansha). Rastogis however, claim themselves to be descendants of the mythical king Harishchandra

Harishchandra

Harishchandra, in Hindu religious texts is the 36th king of the Solar Dynasty, Surya Maharishi Gothram . His legend is very popular and often told as a benchmark for an ideal life. He was renowned for his piety and justice. His name is Sanskrit for "having golden splendour".Harishchandra had two...

, who had a son named Rohit from whom the name Rastogi is derived, and the caste is also sometimes known as Rohatagis. Still, another view is that they are a subgroup of the Vaishya

Vaishya

Vaishya is one of the four varnas of the Hindu social order. According to Vedic tradition, this caste primarily comprises merchants, farmers, cattle-herders and artisans.-Duties of Vaishyas:...

 varna, a view probably based on Nesfield's (1885) theory of the occupational basis of the caste system, as Rastogis are mostly money lenders and business men.

History

Some eleven centuries ago they established their rule in the three places, one to the south of Kashi on the banks of river Som, a second in the Punjab to the west of Indraprastha, and a third at Kannauj. Of these, the first extended their kingdom further to the southeast and retained the name of their ancestral prince Rohit in the name of their capital Rohtasgarh. The second who migrated to the Punjab named their kingdom Rohtak also after the prince Rohit, while the people who migrated to Kannauj and ruled up to the fifth century AD later became known as Rothari Rajputs.

Subdivisions

The caste is described as having "about half a dozen" gotra

Gotra

In the Hindu society, the term Gotra broadly refers to people who are descendants in an unbroken male line from a common male ancestor. Panini defines gotra for grammatical purposes as apatyam pautraprabhrti gotram , which means "the word gotra denotes the progeny beginning with the son's son"...

s, and 84 exogamous al (clans).