By rigid precedence the Brahmans occupy the first rank; they are numerous and influential, and with them may be classed the peculiar and important caste of Bhats, the keepers of secular tradition and of the genealogies.
On the question of the date a comparison of genealogies of Maori chiefs shows that, up to the beginning of the 10th century, about eighteen generations or probably not much more than five centuries had passed since the first Maori arrivals.
The other great work of Hamdani is the Iklil (Crown) concerning the genealogies of the Himyarites and the wars of their kings in ten volumes.
Baladhuri's excellent Ansab al-Ashraf (Genealogies of the Nobles) is a history of the Arabs on a genealogical plan.
The same linguistic criteria recur, and the interest in lists and genealogies, in priests and Levites, and in the temple service point unmistakably to the presence of the same hand (the so-called "chronicler") in ChroniclesEzra-Nehemiah.
