According to the hindu mythology the Rajpits or rajputra were the desscendants of the kshatriyas or warriors of vedic India. The emergence of the rajput warrior clans was in the 6th and 7th centuries.
The term Rajputs acquired its present eaning only in the 16th centur, although it is also mostly used to deccribed the ealier lineages that emerged in northern India from 6th century onwards.
In the 11th century the term Rajputs emerged as a social class comprising people from a variety of ethnic and georaphical backgrounds.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, the membership of this class became largely herediatry although new claims to Rajput status continued to be made in the later centuries. Several Rajput-ruled kingdoms played a significant role in many regions of central and northern India until the 20th century.
Rajput's ancestry can be divided into two:the solar or suryavanshi those descended from rama and the lunar or chandravanshi who claimed descent from Krishna, the hero of epic Mahabharata.
Later a third clan was added, the Agnikula or fire born, said to have emerged from the flames of the sacrificialfire on Mt Abu.
The fall of the gupta Empire, which held dominance in northern India for nearly 300 years in the early 5th century.
