The Kadava Patidar (also variously spelled Kadwa, Kadva) are a sub-caste of the

Patidars Patidar (Gujarati: ) is an Indian landlord and agrarian caste found mostly in Gujarat but also in at least 22 other states of India. The community comprises at multiple subcastes, most prominently the Levas and Kadvas. They form one of the d ...

in Gujarat. They are mainly found in North Gujarat and Ahmedabad. They were dependent on cash-crop agriculture and occupied a lower status than the wealthy Leva Patidars. The name "Kadava" comes from "Kadi", a former district that existed during the

Baroda State Baroda State was a state in present-day Gujarat, ruled by the Gaekwad dynasty of the Maratha Confederacy from its formation in 1721 until its accession to the newly formed Dominion of India in 1949. With the city of Baroda (Vadodara) as its c ...

. However a popular belief among the community is that Kadava descend from

Kusha Kusha was a Suryavansha The Solar dynasty ( IAST: Suryavaṃśa or Ravivaṃśa in Sanskrit) or the Ikshvaku dynasty was founded by the legendary king Ikshvaku.Geography of Rigvedic India, M.L. Bhargava, Lucknow 1964, pp. 15-18, 46-49, 92-98 ...

, son of the deity

Rama Rama (; ), Ram, Raman or Ramar, also known as Ramachandra (; , ), is a major deity in Hinduism. He is the seventh and one of the most popular '' avatars'' of Vishnu. In Rama-centric traditions of Hinduism, he is considered the Supreme Bein ...

in the Hindu epic ''

Ramayana The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th ...

''. According to Shah in 1982, the Kadva Patidars have received extremely little attention from scholars in comparison to Leva Patidars, which was part of a wider trend among scholars that ignored

north Gujarat North Gujarat (), the Northern part of Indian state of Gujarat includes the districts of Gandhinagar, Banaskantha, Sabarkantha, Aravalli, Mehsana, and Patan. North Gujarat is dominant in the dairy industry. Currently, the water table of th ...

References

Indian castes Social groups of Gujarat {{india-ethno-stub