Sapru
Sapru (Kashmiri: सप्रू (Devanagari), سپرو (Nastaleeq)) is a clan of Kashmiri Pandits. The majority of the caste is now living in diaspora outside the Kashmir Valley. Most Saprus are Hindus while some are Muslims. Muslim Saprus use the title Sheikh. One of the most famous Muslim Sapru is Muhammad Iqbal, the Indian Muslim philosopher and poet.
Origin
Kashmiri Pandits have always had a link with the Central Asian and Persian Zoroastrians as the religions followed by them were very similar. The people who settled in the village of Saprain in Kashmir (and thus came to be known as Sapru) were primarily Persian Zoroastrian clan (from present day Iran). They adopted the Shaivite(Vedic) Religion of the Kashmiri Brahmins(as it was very similar to their Zoroastrian faith) and intermarried with the Kashmiri Pandits. Present day Saprus are Kashmiri Pandits (they follow a variation of Shaivism known as Kashmiri Shaivism). Sapru also came to be a title what makes their origin clear is their gotra from an Aryan Rishi. In the case of Sapru the Gotra is Dipat Saman Aupamanyava. Kashmiri Pandits are a mixture of various Zoroastrian(Central Asian/Persian) and Saraswat Brahmin communities and are the aboriginal Kashmiris. Kashmir is named after a Kashmiri Pandit Brahmin and the word Kashmir itself is a Sanskrit word meaning Abode of Kashyap Reshi.
Saprus
- Tej Bahadur Sapru, lawyer, political and social leader[1][2]
- Muhammad Iqbal[3]
- Jagdish Narain Sapru (1933– 2007), Indian Businessman, grandson of Tej Bahadur Sapru
- Sahaj Ram Sapru, an official in Kashmir during the administration of the Afghan Governor Azim Khan (1809–1819), grandfather of Muhammad Iqbal.
- D.K. Sapru (Daya Krishen Sapru) commonly referred as Sapru, noted character actor of Hindi film, in 1960s–1970s.[4]
- Preeti Sapru, Bollywood actress
References
- ↑ Mohan Kumar. Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru: a political biography. Vipul Prakashan. Retrieved 2007-03-25. "Even now there are many distinguished scholars of Persian among the Kashmiri Brahmins in India. Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and Raja Narendranath to mention two of them."
- ↑ Lion M. G. Agrawal. Freedom fighters of India (in four volumes). ISHA Books. Retrieved 2007-03-25. "Tej Bahadur Sapru was born on December 8th, 1875 in Aligarh, in what is now the state of Uttar Pradesh. He was born in a Kashmiri Hindu family. He was educated at the Agra College, Sapru worked in the Allahabad High Court as a lawyer where Purushottam Das Tandon worked as his junior."
- ↑ Jai Narain Sharma. Encyclopædia of eminent thinkers, Volume 17. Concept Publishing Company. Retrieved 2007-03-25. "Mohammad Iqbal, the poet philosopher, was born on November 9, 1877 at Sialkot, and died at the peak of his glory and fame in the early hours of April 21, 1938 at Lahore. Sialkot is a border town on Pakistan side of the Punjab; only a few miles beyond the city on the Indian side begins the land man of Jammu and Kashmir. His grandfather, a Sapru Hindu, embraced Islam. He was the first cousin of Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru."
- ↑ D.K. Sapru at the Internet Movie Database