JASTROW, MORRIS (1861-1921), American orientalist, was born in Warsaw, Poland, on Aug. 13, 1861, but at five was taken to Philadelphia, where his father, a rabbi, had been called. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania and at French and German universities. In 1885 he returned to Pennsylvania as instructor, but soon became professor of Semitic languages and literature and also librarian. He died on June 22, 1921, at Jenkin town, Pa. His early work dealt with archaeological and historical subjects, including Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria (191 1) ; and The Civilization of Baby lonia and Assyria (1915). The World War caused him to apply his knowledge of the Orient to contemporary problems as in Zionism and the Future of Palestine (1919), and The Eastern Question and its Solution (1920).
JAT, the largest cultivating caste in north-west India, num bering 8,377,819 in 1931, and especially strong in the Punjab, and adjacent districts of the United Provinces, etc. The origin of the name (also Jalt), is unknown. In the Baloch country its equiva lent is Jagdal. The early Mohammedans wrote of the Jats country as lying between Kirman and Mansura. Then they are associated with the Meds of Sind, where they appear in force. Both Timur and Babur speak of them as unruly tribes who hampered their invasion. The Rajput traditions recognize them as one of the 36 royal races. Speculation has identified in them the Getae of Herodotus, a thesis almost plausible in comparison with those which assign to them Scythian or Indo-Scythic origin. Of Indo
Aryan type the Jats form a great congeries of tribes which have a persistent tradition that they came from Garh Gajni, possibly Ghazni, but more probably some place on the Indus. The Jats, moreover, are all but unanimous on two points: one that they are fairly recent settlers in their present seats, the other that they were once Rajputs who by adopting widow re-marriage, or plough ing, lost status. Only three clans are supposed to have been Jats ab initio. Several data point to the south-east Punjab near Delhi as their homeland and not far from it in Bhartpur and Dholpur were founded the only Hindu Jat States historically known. They sprang up when the Moghul empire decayed. The later Jat States in the Punjab were of Sikh origin.
In the south-east Punjab and east of the Jumna the Jats are mainly Hindus ; in the south-west Muslim ; in the central Punjab, Sikhs. But the fertile belts are seldom Jat or even Hindu. They are held by Mohammedan RajpUt tribes intermingled with Jats converted to Islam as if the earlier Muslim inroads had driven the Hindu tribes into the dry uplands or the infertile country bor dering on RajpUtana. Intensely democratic by instinct the Jats have yet evolved hypergamy among themselves. Thus some f am ilies will not practise widow re-marriage. But this does not restore them to Rajput status. It makes them refuse brides to less punctilious clans and reduce the number of girl babies. Under the Sikh monarchies democracy was modified, but the Jat was never very submissive to his chiefs or to Brahmans. He has re mained essentially the yeoman peasant, industrious, reticent, a little dour, but an excellent soldier, sedate and resolute. He is a good wrestler and horseman.