|
The Indian Analyst
|
North Indian Inscriptions |
POLITICAL HISTORY Baijanath or Kārtikēyapura as the capital of the Katyūri Rājās in the Almora District, as we shall see later on. It will thus be seen that the pratyanta kingdoms bordered the Gupta dominions on the east and the north and that they were called pratyanta because they were on the frontiers of Āryāvarta. But on the west and north-west of these dominions were many tiny states which in this period seem to have been governed by various tribes of whom as many as nine have been named. The list is headed by the Mālavas, who were originally the same as the Malloi of the Greek writers and were living in the time of Alexander near the confluence of the Akesinos (Chenab) and the Hydraotis (Ravi) in the erstwhile Panjab. They appear afterwards to have migrated southwards and were in occupation of a province called Nāgarchāl in the south-eastern portion of the Jaipur State, where their coins are found in numbers. As these range approximately from B.C. 150 to 250 A.D., they seem to have been settled in that province during that period.1 In the Gupta epoch, however, they appear to have migrated still further southward. This is indicated by the findspots of the inscriptions of this period which are dated according to Mālava-kāla. At this time they seem to have occupied Mewar and Kotah in Rajasthan and parts of Madhya Pradesh adjoining them, in fact, the whole of the region indicated by long. 75-76° and lat. 24-25°.2 Originally they no doubt were a gaṇa or tribal oligarchy, as is clearly indicated by their coins, but in the later period they seem to have assumed a monarchical constitution, because there are some inscriptions where their Mālava-kāla is spoken of as being the era Mālavēśānām ‘of the Mālava lords’.3 The Ārjunāyanas are known from Varāhamihira’s Bṛihatsaṁhitā4 and also from their coins, of which, however,only a few specimens have been found. The joint cabinets of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Indian Museum contain only two which may be assigned to circa 100 B.C.5 They are closely related, in one way or another, to the money of the Northern Kshatrapas, Yaudhēyas and other ancient powers. “And the Ārjunāyana country,” says Smith, “may reasonably be regarded as corresponding to the region, . . . roughly speaking, the Bharatpur and Alwar States, west of Agra and Mathura, the principal seat of the Northern Satraps.”6 “Cunningham classed the Ārjunāyana coins with those of Mathurā, because they are procurable in that city.”7 But the exact provenance of their coins has not been recorded. In these circumstances, as they have been placed by our inscription between the Mālavas and the Yaudhēyas, they may be taken as occupying the region consisting of the erstwhile Bundi and Karauli States and the eastern half of Jaipur.8 The Yaudhēyas seem to have been in existence from the time of Pāṇini, who speaks of
them as an āyudha-jīvin Saṁgha.9 This expression is the same as śastr-ōpajīvin used by Kauṭalya.
And both denote a tribal corporation “subsisting on arms”. Originally they seem to have
been a tribal band of mercenaries and constituted one kind of a king’s army. In the time of
Pāṇini they were an ēka-rāja Kshatriya tribe which means that so far as their tribal
constitution was concerned they were governed by one ruler, but exercised no political 1 Car. Lec., 1921, pp. 12-13. Read, in this connection, an excellent article by A. C. Banerji on The Mālavas in
ABORI., Vol. XIII, pp. 218-19.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|