Mer (community)
community from the Saurashtra region of Gujarat state in India
Mer, Maher or Mehar (Gujarati: ISO 15919: Mēr, Mahēr, Mēhar) is a caste from the Saurashtra region of Gujarat in India. They are largely based in the Porbandar district, comprising the Ghēḍ and Barḍā areas, and they speak a dialect of the Gujarati language. The Mers of the Ghēḍ and Barḍā form two groups of the jāti and together they are the main cultivators in Porbandar.
Origin
Mers of other lineages consider the Kēshwaḷā as the earliest lineage citing the proverb: Ādya Mēr Kēshwaḷā, jēni suraj purē chē śakh - "the sun stands testimony to the fact that Kēshwaḷās are the original Mers." An origin myth of the Kēshwaḷās descending from the neck hair of Rama was recorded by colonial authors. However, possibly the oldest reference to Kēshwaḷās indicates that the founder of this lineage may have lived over a thousand years ago, although, this relies on the genealogies of Barots which are not considered completely accurate as they are projected back in time to pseudo-history.
Mers were once associated with the Maitraka dynasty. Sinha suggests that the word Maitraka is an adaption from Mihir, which is in turn an adaption from Mer and does not rule out the possibility that the ruling families of the Maitrakas originated from the Mers. Inscriptions at the Vadava well of Cambay mentions Mers as having originated from the Solar dynasty.
Other historians believe that Mers have Hun origin.
History
A Mer dynasty existed in Eastern Saurashtra, as noted by an inscription discovered in Timana.
The public source identifies “Mer (community)” as community from the Saurashtra region of Gujarat state in India. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around community, Saurashtra and region.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mer (community)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.