Kulin Brahmins

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Kulin Brahmins are those Brahmins in Bengal who can trace themselves to the five families of Kanauj (Kanyakubja), Uttar Pradesh who migrated to Bengal. The five families were of the five different gotras (Shandilya, Bharadwaj, Kashyap, Vatsya and Swavarna). They are widely believed to be at the apex of Bengal's caste hierarchy.^[who?]

The kulin families are further divided into two sections:

Barendra : Belonging to those families who settled at the north or north east region of Ganges or Padma river.

Rarhi : Belonging to those families who settled at the south or southwest region of Ganges or Padma river.

The five common surnames of Barendra kulin brahmin families are (ranked equally):

Lahiri (Shandilya)
Moitra (Kashyap)
Bhaduri (Kashyap)
Bagchi (Shandilya)
Sanyal (Vatsya)

The five common surnames of Rarhi kulin brahmin family are (ranked equally):

Banerjee (Shandilya)
Chatterjee (Kashyap)
Mukherjee (Bharadwaj)
Ganguly (Swavarna)
Ghoshal (Vatsya)

Apart from these many other surnames like Chakroborty, Bhattacharya, Ray/Roy, Choudhury, Majumdar etc. could also be Kulin if they are either Barendra or Rarhi Brahmins.

Kulin Pratha (Kulin System) was initiated by the Sena Kings in Bengal whereby the kings gave land and power to the brahmins to promote vedic principles in the society, leading to a strict and disciplined lifestyle. Simultaneously they also enforced strict rules on family and marriage rules on Brahmins, leading to the birth of Kulin Brahmins, an apex section/class/caste of the society. It was said that a person is kulin if and only if all the 14 generations on his father's and mother's side were kulin. This created a very problematic divide in the society. This was also opposed by many brahmins. Yet it became a norm, probably because the kulin brahmins got lured by the newly acquired power in the society.

Kulin Pratha was a very strict practice leading to lot of problems in the Bengali society. If a daughter of a Kulin family doesn't wed in a Kulin family then the parent family looses their kulin identity. These led to several problems like young girls getting married to old kulin married men out of deparation of finding a kulin groom. It was not uncommon for kulin grooms to have several wives, most of which stayed at their parents home, just to be wed (for the sake of the ritual) to a kulin and hence maintain their kulin status.

Nowadays many Brahmins have shunned their Kulin identity and have mixed equally with all the Brahmins in Bengal and other parts of India. It is hard to state the current stand of these families on Kulin Pratha. Probably it does surface during marriage etc. But probably the youth are least concerned.

Reference: "Hindu Castes and Sects", Jogendranath Bhattacharya, Thacker, Spink & Company, Calcutta, 1896.