User:DharamaPala/sandbox

{{infobox ethnic group|
 * group = Kamboj
 * poptime =
 * popplace = India • Pakistan
 * langs = Punjabi • Hindi • Urdu
 * rels = Hinduism • Islam • Sikhism
 * related = Punjabi • Kashatriya

The Kamboj ({{lang-pa|ਕੰਬੋਜ}} Kamboj, {{lang-hi|कंबोज}} Kamboj), also Kamboh ({{lang-ur|{{nq|کمبوہ}}}} ALA-LC: {{transliteration|ur|ALA-LC|Kamboh}}), is one of the chief agricultural castes of the Punjab region. The Kamboj people have traditionally been regarded to be a Kshatriyasreni living by agriculture, trade and by wielding weapons. The British acknowledged them as a martial race and the Kamboj people supplied a good number of recruits to the native army. By religion, the Hindu, the Sikh Kamboj are mostly found in the east, that is the Punjab and Haryana states in India, while most of the Muslim Kamboj are found in the west in the province of Punjab in Pakistan. The division among the Hindu Kamboj that traditionally engaged in the business of making and selling confectionary take the sacred thread whereas the agriculturist do not. The Muslim Kamboh were powerful and influential during the later Delhi Sultanate and Mughal periods and in terms of social stratification were counted among the Shaikhs and noblest of all among the Indian Muslims.

Origin
The Kamboj people descend from the Kambojas who were an Indo-Iranian people of Central Asia having Indo-Aryan cultural affinities. A section of Kambojas located cis of Hindukush emerged as an important part of the Indo Aryan vedic people in the later vedic age, and find a prominent place among the Kshatriya tribes of the great epic Mahabharata. Kambojas are mentioned as the Kshatriya people inhabitating the Kamboja Mahajanapada, which was one of the sixteen great nations (Solasa Mahajanapadas) existing in the Indian subcontinent at the time of the Budhha.