Indian Antiquary Vol 40

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

Page 37

JANUARY, 1911.] FOREIGN ELEMENTS IN THE HINDU POPULATION.
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of their immigration to India are preserved in the names of the various provinces called after them. Thus in the first place, we have a tract of land called Gurjistan, apparently in the neighbourhood of the White Hûna capital Badeghiza. A modern trace seems to remain in Ujaristân, the initial G being dropped, beyond Arghandab west of Hazîrî. A third Gujaristân is near Ghazni. There are other provinces named after them, which are too numerous to mention. But the three instances I have here given are sufficient to show that the Gujars were originally outside India. Now, ethnologists of repute are of opinion that Khazars, though perhaps not of the same stock as the White Hans, were certainly most intimately connected with them. This explains why the advent of the Gujars was almost synchronous with that of the Hûņas in India. The earliest mention of Gurjara oceurs in the Aihole insoription, Bâna's Harshacharsta and Yuan-Chwang's itinerary20, which are practically of the same pericd, i. e., the first balf of the seventh century. But then the Gâjars had been so firmly settled in Rajputânâ that this last was called Gurjaradesa after them. And it would be interesting to know whether they were known by this name only even at the time when they entered India. In Chapter XIV of his Brihatsamhita, Varahamihira places a tribe called Kachchhâra in conjunotion with Hùņa in the northern division of India. It need scarcely be said that Kachchhâra comes so close to Khazar that it seems extremely tempting to hold that one is an Indian form of the other. An Ephthalite coin, found in the old Sapadalaksha, has been described by Mr. V. A. Smith, which on the obverse bas (Khi)jara and on the reverse Sri-Prakasaditya. Khijara here is doubtless & mistake for Khajara, another Indian form of Khazar; and the coin shows that Prakasaditya was a Khazar by race. Inscriptions in southern India have been found of certain chiefs, who are therein described as of the Jimutavábana lineage and of the Khachara races. Thus Kachehh&ra, Khachara, Khajara and Gurjara are all names denoting one tribe just as we have the names Châhamâna, Chohân, Chavhân, Chavan and Chhabama for the family to which the celebrated Prithviraja belonged. ** The Khazars were fair-skinned, black-haired, and of a remarkable beauty and stature; their women indeed were sought as wives equally at Byzantium and Baghdad98." This satisfactorily answera, I think, those who maintain that there is no admixtare of foreign or aboriginal blood in the Brühmange or Rajpûts simply because they are fair and clear-featured.
We now como to the Maitraka tribe. For long it was thought that Maitrakas were the enemies of Bhatárka, the founder of the Valabbi dynasty. But the correct interpretation of the passage wherein they are mentioned requires us to sappose that they were the tribe to which Bhatarka belonged 84. I have elsewhere said that Bhatarka is to be placed circa 500 A. D., i.e., exactly the time when the might of tho Ilůņas bad overshadowed northern India. I have little doubt that they entered into India with the Fuņas. I have also said that the Maitrakas were the same as Mibirns, the well-known tribe of Mers, Ag in Sanskrit both Mitra and Mihira mean the same thing, viz., the sun. This itself is enough to stamp the Valabhi dynasty as originally foreign barbarians. In consonance with this view is the fact that the name Bhatarka and perhaps the name of his son Dharasena are hardly indigenous or Hindu, but have all the look
Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. IX., Pt. I., . 478. # Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. XIV., 'Article on Khazar.' +9 Jour, Boinb. 48. Soc., Vol. XXI., p. 425.
# Ante Vol. XXII., pp. 172 and 179. Khacharas also are mentioned by Varahamibirs further on in this list. But here the word has to be translated with Dr. Fleet by "the roamers in the sky," as they are placed between Kesadharas and Svamukhas.
31 Jour. Roy. 18. Soc., for 1907, p. 93. 1 Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. I., Pt. II., pp. 439, 443, 450, 452, 476 and $23. 15 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. XIV., P. 59.
* In my paper on the 'Guhilots' (Jour. Beng. 41. Soc. for 1909, p. 183) I have givon credit to Prof. Hultzsch for having first proposed this interpretation, but I now find that, as a matter of fact, Dr. Fleet was the first to quggest it (ante Vol. VIII., P. 308), though he afterwards gave it up (Gupta Inuore., P. 167).