the Bahun (Brahmin) priests to initiate them into the high-caste Chhetri order and adopted high-caste manners. Other Khas families who could not afford to (or did not care to) pay the Bahun priests also attempted to assume the Chhetri status but were not recognized as such by others. They are now called Matwali (alcohol-drinker Khas) Chhetris. Because of the adoption of the Chhetri identity, the term Khas is rapidly becoming obsolete. According to Dor Bahadur Bista (1991), "the Khas have vanished from the ethnographic map of Nepal". Modern Nepal Modern-day Khas people are referred to as Hill Brahmin (Bahun), Hill Kshatriya (Thakuri/Chhetri) and Hill Dalit. Further, historian Pokharel adds the Gharti, Damai, Kami, Sarki, Hudka, Tamote, Gaine and Badi to the Khas communities. In modern times, Khas people are popularly referred by the term "Khas Arya". India-Pakistan In Kumaon and Garhwal regions of Uttarakhand in India, too, the term Khas has become obsolete. The Khas people of Kumaon termed as Kumaoni Jiagahar Rajput, after being elevated to the Rajput status by the Chand kings. The term Khas is almost obsolete, and people resent being addressed as Khas because of the negative stereotypes associated with this term. Furthermore, the Kanets of Kangra and Garhwal, Khasa of Jaunsar-Bawar and the bulk population of Garhwal and Kumaon (referred as "Khasia") are descended from the Khasas. Generally, the Khas people are referred as Rajputs or Kanets in the Himachal Pradesh. According to E.T. Atkinson, the Jaunsar-Bawar is the representative Khasiya tract and it Historian Sir Marc Aurel Stein identified the modern Khakha Rajputs of Azad Kashmir as the descendants of Khasas mentioned in the Rajatarangini. The Khasa tribe in Karnah region in northwestern Kashmir were represented by the modern Bomba (tribe). Communities Historian Balkrishna Pokhrel writes the communities or caste in Khas group were hill Bahun, Chhetri, Thakuri, Sannyasi, Gharti, Damai, Kami, Sarki, Hudka, Tamote, Gaine and Badi. The tribal designation Khas refers to in some contexts only to the alcohol drinker Khas group, i.e. Thakuri and Chhetri, but in other contexts may also include the low status (generally untouchable) occupational Khas groups such as Kāmi (blacksmiths), Damāi (tailors), and Sārki (shoemakers and leather workers). Khas people are addressed with the term Khayan or Parbatiya or Partyā, Parbaté meaning hill-dweller by Newars. The hill Khas tribe are in large part associated with the Gorkhali warriors. Historian-linguist E.T. Atkinson in his 1886 CE Kumaon gazetteer,