Jainism

Author(s): N R Guseva
Publisher: Sindu Publications P L

Page 30

16
JAINISM
born in a Kshatriya family, that his mother's name was Devaki who was a sister of Kansa, Tuler of a state. Immediately after birth Krishna was secretly carried by his father to Gokul on the other bank of the river Jamuna, and was handed over to a family of shepherds, where he grew up unrecognised [this happened because of the prophesy that he would destroy Kansa when he (Krishna) grows and that is why Kansa had killed all the children of his sister].
Were both his parents of Kshatriya-Aryan kin? This question automatically arises, when facts of this legend are compared with the traditional representation of the colour of his skin and with the significance of his name.
Were Satwatas really Aryan people? Apparently one must give a negative answer to this question. There are many references in Vimal Ch. Law's book22 to the works of ancient literature about the Satwatas and the people close to them and this data can be reduced in brief to the following:
The name 'Satwata' covers the group of peoples, divided in three basic branches: andhaka-vrishni, mahabhoja and daivavridha. The Satvatas as a whole are considered as one of the branches of the Yadav people. Matsya-puran and Vayu-puran trace the Hayhaiya people to the Satvatas. Tracing this line, we see that the Bhoja tribes, judging from the data of Jain geographical treaties Jambudiva-pannati, settled in the region of the Vindhya mountains. In this work all of them are called 'Milakha', which V. Ch. Law translates as 'non-Aryan'. The treatise includes the language 'andhaka' in the group of languages called 'Milkhanam Bhasa'. Mr. Law considers that these tribes were aboriginals of the Vindhya mountains.23 'Aitareya-Brahmana' relegates Satwatas to the south Indian peoples, along with Nishads, who are considered as people who spoke in one of the languages of the Austric family, i.e. apparently the languages of munda. By placing Satvatas in the same category with Nishads, the Brahmana does not at all reckon them amongst Aryans.
Thus, judging from these works, peoples traced to Yadavas
22. V. Ch. Law, India as Described in Early Texts of Buddhism and Jainism.
23. Ibid., pp. 86-107.
24. R. Shafer, Ethnography of Ancient India, p. 8.