Revisiting The Chaadd’ddi

But what we have not been able to unravel yet is the etymology of the word chaadd’ddi; for obviously it is too farfetched to suppose that it is derived from the word kshatriya. However we do not seem to be entirely in the dark. In the Indo-Gangetic Plain and subsequently in their new home in the Deccan and then on the western coast, the kshatriya were pastoralists. We have discussed this earlier. [The Pastoralists of Deccan, 19 Mar 17] Pastoralists means grazers – of cattle, goats, buffaloes; I am not restricting myself to any one animal, as probably that changed as they moved from the Indo-Gangetic Plain (cattle) to the moist deciduous forests (buffaloes) and the drought prone shrub lands (goats) of the Deccan. I feel it is this grazing – chorounk or chāro divunk – that earned them the appellation of chārddi > chaadd’ddi. Kshatriya was the name given to them by the ārya (who called themselves brāmhaṇa). Kshatriya meant ‘protectors’; that is what the brāmhaṇa wanted them to be.