Originally posted by: islandboy401
Ram and all his brothers had two sons each.........so that's eight sons..........so.....a suryavanshi can be a descendant of any of those 8.......lol.........it gets really complex........[/quote]
Not only from these eight. Suryavanshis are the descendants of Surya. The children of Ram, Bharat, Laxman, Shatrughan are not the only descendants of Surya; there are more. Rama came many generations after Surya. If we consider the generation tree with root at Surya, then one branch of this tree connects Dashrath to Surya. There may be other branches as well.
You are saying that agnivanshi khatriyas are called as rajputs. Vidushi is saying that kshatriya and rajput mean the same thing.
Actually, it is correct that agnivanshi khatriyas are called as rajputs by some groups. It is also correct that the words kshatriya and rajput mean the same thing. You may wonder how it is possible when we know that there are suryavanshi and chandravanshi kshatriyas as well. The answer lies in the phrase "by some groups" that I have put in bold.
Consider the word rajput. It is modified form of rajaputra, which means "son of a king". In those days, sons of kings were also (in most of cases) warriors. And we know that kshatriya means warrior class. Therefore, rajput means kshatriya. There are some groups who believe that all kshatriyas at present are from agni. For them, kshatriya means agnivanshis. In other words, for them, rajput means agnivanshis.
Why do they believe that all kshatriyas are agnivanshis? This is because of the story, which says that Parshuram killed kshatriyas. There is a story, which says that sage Vashishth did a fire sacrifice. As a result, a youth came out of the fire. All kshatriyas i.e. rajputs after that descended from that youth.
The belief that all rajputs at present are from agni has become so prevalent that many think it to be true. In fact, there are many people who believe that rajput means agnivanshi even thought they are not aware why exactly rajput means agnivanshi. At the start, only those who believed that all kshatriyas are agnivanshis called rajputs as agnivanshi.
The belief that all rajputs are agnivanshis spreaded but the belief that all kshatriyas are agnivanshis did not spread that much even though people who spreaded these beliefs considered kshatriya = rajput. This is why, at present, there are people who believe that there are non-agnivanshi kshatriyas and the same people also believe that there are only agnivanshi rajputs.
Now, let us go back to the story of Parshuram killing all kshatriyas. As per scriptures, it is a wrong concept. Parshuram did not kill all kshatriyas. When Parshuram rid Earth of kshatriyas 21 times, then he spared Ikshvaku vanshis because his mother was very closely related to Ikshvaku clan. Therefore, it is wrong belief that Parshuram killed all kshatriyas and the belief that all rajputs are agnivanshis is based on this wrong belief.
Ikshvaku himself was a suryavanshi. Ikshvaku's father was Vaivasvat Manu and Vaivasvat Manu's father was Vivasvan(i.e. Surya or Sun god).
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