Political History Of Ancient India

SR No.: 032292
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hemchandra Raychaudhari
Publisher: University of Calcutta
Publication Year: 1950
Total Pages: 714
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 574

TRIBAL TERRITORIES
545
with the Pandava Arjuna is apparent.1 Yaud heya appears as the name of a son of Yudhishthira in the Mahabharata. The Harivamsa, a later authority, connects the Yaudheyas with Usinara. A clue to the locality of this tribe is given by the Bijayagadh inscription. The hill-fort of Bijayagadh lies about two miles to the southwest of Byānā in the Bharatpur state of Rajaputāna. But the Yaudheya territory must have extended beyond the limits of this area and embraced the tract still known as Jobiyabar along both banks of the Sutlej on the border of the Bahawalpur state. 5
The Madrakas had their capital at Sakala or Sialkot in the Panjab. The Abhiras occupied the tract in the lower Indus valley and western Rajaputāna, near Vinasana in the district called Abiria by the Periplus? and the geography of Ptolemy. We have already seen that an Abhira possibly became Mahakshatrapa of Western India and probably supplanted the Satayāhanas in a part of Maharashtra before the middle of the third century A.D. A section of the tribe apparently settled in Central India and gave its name to the Ahirwar country between Jhansi and Bhilsa. The territories of the Prarjunas, Sanakānīkas, Kākas and Kharaparikas lay probably in Malwa and the Central Provinces. The Prarjunakas are mentioned in the Arthasastra attributed
1 Their coins are found in the Mathura region (Smith, Catalogue, 160). The Abhidhana-chintamani, p 434, identifies a river called Arjuni with the Bahudā (Ramganga ?).
2 Adi., 95, 76.
3 Pargiter, Markandeya Purana, p. 380.
4 Fleet, CII, p 251, Yaudheya votive tablets have been found in the Ludhiana District (JRAS, 1897, 887). Coins have been found in the area extending from Saharanpur to Multan (Allan, CCAI, cli).
5 Smith, JRAS, 1897, p. 30. Cf. Cunningham, AGI, 1924, 281.
6 Sudrabhiran prati dveshad yatra nashta Sarasvati, Mbh.. IX, 37. 1.
7 Cf. Ind, Ant., III, 226 f..
8 JRAS, 1897, 891. Cf. Ain-i-Akbari II, 165; Malcolm, C.I. I. 20..
O. P. 90-69.