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INTRODUCTION
109
the third century A. D. We are again told that the Nāga Government was a federation consisting of three monarchical Nāga families one of which was called Tākavamśa. This family with another named the Yadu vamsa bad migrated from the Țakka deśa. The Nāga emperors are said to have defeated the foreign invaders like Kushans and Abhiras. They were the pioneers of Hinduism and fostered republics through a considerable portion of North India and even extended their sway into the Central Provinces.109
As we have seen earlier Çākka was an Apbhramsa - and Rājasekbara says that the Takkas and people of Maru used Ap idioms. To correspond to this statement we have now seen that the Nāga family had a Takkavamba, which means that the family came from Takka desa. It will now be clear that they must have used Ap as their mother tongue and brought the same to the lands they occupied where it must have been patronised by them.
The word Nāgara in the sense of Ap dialect might perhaps be cunnected with the word Nāya and is a vernacular form denoting a derivative from that word. It has nothing to do with the word Nagara ( city ), though in modern times Nāgara has been a popular term to denote the sense of civilized, cultured, literary etc. by connecting it with the former. The word Nāgara owing primarily its origin to Nāga dynasty, as we assume it now in relation to Ap, and being a vernacular form originally was later on given a Skt colouring with the
102. For an elaborate description of the Nāga empire and its achievements see India under the Nāga Dynasty by K. P. JAYASWAL, JBORS, 1933, pp. 1-61.
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