Hinduism while some follow Sikhism. Culture McLeod notes that marriages between Aroras and the Khatris are common. According to the University of Utah sociologist, Bam Dev Sharda, in the "status allocation in village India", the Aroras are considered a mercantile caste belonging to the Vaishya varna - like the Khatris, Agarwal, Bania and Ahluwalia, and they claim "twice-born" status. So does historian Kenneth Jones by citing Denzil Ibbetson's study. According to the University of Toronto anthropologist, Nicola Mooney, the Aroras are of Kshatriya varna, along with the Khatris. Similarly, Grant Evans describes Arora as a "sub-group of the Khatri jati of the Kshatriya Varna". According to one legend, the Aroras are of Kshatriya stock, but dissociated themselves from the other Kshatriyas and escaped prosecution by Parashurama, calling themselves aur (someone else). In the opinion of a "Ford-Maxwell Professor of South Asian Studies" at Syracuse University, the merchant-type castes such as the Rajasthani Baniyas, Agarwals, Guptas, Mittals, Goels are twice born castes. However in Punjab, there is a large number of merchant type jatis, "Arora" being their generic name, both Hindu and Sikh, and they are not twice-born. Yet they share about the same status in the wide regional ranking". He calls this "deferred caste denial" which he explains as the rule that "hierarchy persists in the Hindu mind even where caste is denied in any of the senses and by any of the strategies adumbrated". In the opinion of a Professor of Sociology at Lucknow University (India), "every Hindu is supposed to have a caste" and Aroras (including its sub-castes) are identified as a sub-division of the Khatris. It is noted that "whether Khattris belong to Kshatriya varna or Vaishya varna is a point of controversy". According to Ethne K. Marenco, the Jat Sikhs were placed at the top in the Sikh caste hierarchy, above the Khatri and Arora Sikhs. In contrast, per the Hindu traditions, "the Khatris and Aroras were accorded Kshatriya status", while "the status of the Jat Sikhs was equated with that of Shudras". Majority of the male members of the Arya Samaj in the late 19th century Punjab came from the Arora and Khatri merchant castes. In Punjab, the Kshatriya castes who were hierarchically higher than the Aroras and Khatris had been disempowered and thus the Brahmins who had lost their patrons had to turn to these non-Kshatriya castes. Christophe Jaffrelot explains the attraction of these