Khatri is a Jat gotra

Gotra

In the Hindu society, the term Gotra broadly refers to people who are descendants in an unbroken male line from a common male ancestor. Panini defines gotra for grammatical purposes as apatyam pautraprabhrti gotram , which means "the word gotra denotes the progeny beginning with the son's son"...

 found in North India

North India

North India, known natively as Uttar Bhārat or Shumālī Hindustān , is a loosely defined region in the northern part of India. The exact meaning of the term varies by usage...

, mainly in the state of Haryana

Haryana

Haryana is a state in India. Historically, it has been a part of the Kuru region in North India. The name Haryana is found mentioned in the 12th century AD by the apabhramsha writer Vibudh Shridhar . It is bordered by Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to the north, and by Rajasthan to the west and south...

. A small number of Muslim Khatri Jats are now found in Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

.

History and origin

According to their tribal traditions, the Khatri were Kshatriya

Kshatriya

*For the Bollywood film of the same name see Kshatriya Kshatriya or Kashtriya, meaning warrior, is one of the four varnas in Hinduism...

s who took to agriculture, and thus became Jat.

This clan has been described by Megasthenes

Megasthenes

Megasthenes was a Greek ethnographer in the Hellenistic period, author of the work Indica.He was born in Asia Minor and became an ambassador of Seleucus I of Syria possibly to Chandragupta Maurya in Pataliputra, India. However the exact date of his embassy is uncertain...

 as the Cetriboni (Khatri), The hill-tribes between the Indus and the Iomanes

Yamuna

The Yamuna is the largest tributary river of the Ganges in northern India...

, along with the Cesi (Khasa); the Megallae (Mukul), the Chrysei (Karesia), the Parasangae (Paraswal), and the Asange (Sangwa) Jat clans. (see - Jat clans as described by Megasthenes).