Indian Antiquary Vol 40

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 22

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JANUARY, 1911.
husband-chiefs' homes by the tribal name of their father. Thus the ruling dynasty of Jodhpur is Rathod, but the first queen of the present Mahârâjâ is styled Halfjt, i. e., the daughter of * Hada, a sub-division of the Chohans, to which belongs the Bandi family from which she has sprung.
Almost synchronous with the Sakas were the Abhiras, another foreign horde, which made incarsions into India both south and east, and gave their name to the provinces where they settled. We have thus a tract of land in the United Provinces called Ahráarî, which is a corruption of the Sanskrit ábhiravataka. There is another province not far from Jhansi, doubtless called Ahirwar after the Ahirs established there. The Åbltras carried their arm even so far south as the Dekkan. The Purdņas are unanimous in saying that after the Andhrabhțityas the Dekkan was held by the Abbfras, and quite in consonance with this, an inscription has been found at Nasik. which is dated in the reign of an Abhira king. Now that the Abhiras are foreigners is in lubitablo. Both in the Vishnupuraņa and the Musalaparvan of the Mahabharatas they are branded as datyus or banditti and mlechchhas or foreigners, in the story which says that Arjuna, after be bad cremated the dead bodies of Krishqa and Balarama in Dvaraka, was proceeding with the Yadava widowed females to Mathura through the Panjab, when he was waylaid by these Abhfras and deprived of his treasures and beautiful women. But like all other tribes, most of them soon gave up their predatory babits, though these were not altogether unknown even so late as the 9th century A. D. Thus an inscription found at Ghatiyala, 32 miles north-west of Jodhpur, and on a pillar erected by Kakkuka, a prince of the feudatory Prattbara dynasty, and dated V. E. 918, contains the following verse :
रोहिन्सकूपकपामः पूर्णमासीवनाश्रयः ।
भसेव्यः साधुलोकानां भाभीरजनदारुणः ।। Here we are told that the village of Rohinsakúpaka, i. e., Ghatigala, had becoma desolate, and anworthy of habitation for the good people in consequence of the Abhifras. The Ábhfras of tho present day, however, are free from these predatory instincts. The inscription at Nasik just alluded to, is the same as that wilich specifies the grant of the Sakanika Vishnudatta. The first three lines of it, with which alone we are here concerned, are :
सिद्धं रक्षः माढरीपत्रस्य शिवदत्ताभीरपुत्रस्य . आभीरस्येश्वरसेनस्थ संवत्सरे नवम ९गि
म्हपखे चौथे ४ दिवस त्रयोदश १३ This record is dated in the reign of the king Mahariputra fá varasena, son of Sivadatta, Both Isvarasena and Sivadatta are called Abhiras, and yet their names are distinctly Hinda. And what is more interesting is that Isvarasena is here called also by his metronymic, viz., Madhariputra, just as all the Kshatriyas of the time are in the cave inscriptions. At Ganda in Kathifwâd another Abhira inscription has been found. This is dated [Saka] 102 = 180 A. D.. and refers itself to the reign of the Mahakshatrapa Rudrasimha, son of Rudradaman. It speaks of a grant made by the sen dpati or commander-in-chief of the name of Rudrabhati, son of the senapati Båhaka. Herein Rudrabhuti is called an Abhira, but his name, it need scarcely be added, is unmistakably Hinda.
The Abbfras are, no doubt, the same as the Ahirs of the present day, who are spread as far east as Bengal and as far south as the Dekkan. Most of them are cowherds, but some have por sued other callings also, and are distinguished in some places from other person of these callings by the distinctive appellation of Ahir. Thus we have simple Bonars and Ahir Sondrs, simple Stars and Ahir Sutars and so forth, existing side by side in Khandesh. Åbhfra Brah
* Vishnupurdna, atba Vadhyaya 38; Mwalaparvar, adhyaya vii. 11 Bp. Ind., Vol 1X., p. 280.
Anto, Vol. X., p. 187.