A Kulavruttanta or a Kul-vrttant ( mr, कुलवृत्तांत; IAST: Kula-vr̥ttānta; ), is a genealogical

almanac An almanac (also spelled ''almanack'' and ''almanach'') is an annual publication listing a set of current information about one or multiple subjects. It includes information like weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, tide tables, and othe ...

and

biographical dictionary A biographical dictionary is a type of encyclopedic dictionary limited to biographical information. Many attempt to cover the major personalities of a country (with limitations, such as living persons only, in ''Who's Who'', or deceased people onl ...

, a format of genealogical record keeping predominantly found in the Indian state of Maharashtra.

History

Kulavruttantas are categorically published by family name, or surname, and are usually in

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

. They usually document various aspects of that particular family's history, heraldry, the etymology of their name, ancestral land holdings, migration maps, and religious traditions. The genealogical charts are usually sectioned based on each ''gharana'', or branch, of the family; these are then followed by biographies of individuals within those gharanas; and followed finally by indices of births, deaths and marriages within the family. Kulavruttantas have been historically attributed to the genealogical history of

Chitpavan The Chitpavan Brahmin or Konkanastha Brahmin is a Hindu Maharashtrian Brahmin community inhabiting Konkan, the coastal region of the state of Maharashtra. Initially working as messengers and spies in the late seventeenth century, the communit ...

brahmin Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests ( purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers ( ...

s. The Bhat family, during their rule of the

Maratha confederacy The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern Indian confederation that came to dominate much of the Indian subcontinent in the 18th century. Maratha rule formally began in 1674 with the coronation of Shi ...

, are usually credited for commissioning surveys and censuses of Chitpavan brahmin households, recorded on paper or cloth

scroll A scroll (from the Old French ''escroe'' or ''escroue''), also known as a roll, is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing. Structure A scroll is usually partitioned into pages, which are sometimes separate sheets of papyrus ...

s. These scrolls are generally used as the references of the historical and genealogical data for the compilation of these almanacs. Beginning with the publication of the Kulavruttanta of the

Apte Apte it is an Indian surname mostly found in Maharashtrian Chitpavan Brahmins. * Arvind Apte (born 1934), Indian cricketer *Babasaheb Apte (1903–1971), an early RSS pracharak *Balavant Apte, Bal Apte or Balasaheb Apte (1939–2012), BJP politicia ...

family in 1915, throughout most of the 20th century, several other Chitpavan families have gone on to commission or publish their own versions. Historian and biographer

Sadashiv Ranade Sadashiv Bhaskar Ranade ( mr, सदाशिव भास्कर रानडे; IAST: Sadāśiva Bhāskara Rānaḍe; born 1912) was an Indian biographer, historian and genealogist. He is most notable for having documented the family histori ...

has notably authored several of these. In the 21st century, Kulavruttants have also been adopted by several other communities as a means of documenting their genealogical data, most notably the

Maratha The Marathi people (Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as a ...

community.

References

External links

* at

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kulavruttanta Family history Genealogy publications Literature on heraldry Series of books Books about social history History books about India History books about ethnic groups Books about families