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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
POLITICAL HISTORY not a ruler. The record therefore tells us nothing about the political power exercised anywhere by the Ābhīras. The second epigraph known about this tribe is a Nasik cave inscription which refers itself to the ninth regnal year of Īśvarasēna, son of Śivadatta, who are both called Ābhīra.1 This alone shows that the Ābhīras held sway over the Nasik District at some time in the third century A.D. to which period the record belongs. But there is nothing to show that their sway lasted for a century more over this province so that any successor of theirs might reasonably be thought to be a contemporary of Samudragupta.2 Besides, in the time of this Gupta sovereign the Ābhīras must have wielded power, not in Dakshiṇāpatha but rather in Āryāvarta. So none of these inscriptions helps us as to the exact location of the Ābhīra tribe in Samudragupta’s time. In these circumstances we are thrown upon other resources to find out where precisely they were ruling in North India. In this connection we have to note that in the Musala-Parvan3 of the Mahābhārata Arjuna is represented to have been waylaid by Ābhīras in the Pañchanadadēśa or the Panjab, as he was going from Dvārakā to Mathurā with the widowed females and treasures of the Yādavas after burning the dead bodies of Kṛishṇa and Balarāma. These Ābhīras are therein called Dasyus and Mlēchchhas. But we are not told where exactly in the Panjab they were settled about the beginning of the Christian era when the Musala-Parvan was probably composed. Attention may here be drawn to a verse in the Śalya-Parvan4 which tells us that the Sarasvatī disappeared on account of her hatred for Śūdras and Ābhīras and was known as Vinaśanā for that reason. As the Sarasvatī is represented to have disappeared in consequence of her intense dislike for the Ābhīras, the latter cannot but be taken as the Ābhīras considered Dasyus and Mlēchchhas by the Śalya-Pravan. We have therefore to suppose that the Ābhīras, early in the Christian era, were settled somewhere in the Karnal District of the Panjab. Or they may be located, with V. A. Smith, in the province of Ahirwāḍā between the Pārbatī and the Betwā in Central India.5 But we do not know when precisely this province was occupied by the Ābhīras and was called Ahirwāḍā after them. On the other hand, the concurrent testimony of the Śalya-and the Musala-Parvans is enough to show that the Ābhīras were living on the banks of the Sarasvatī in the early centuries of the Christian era.
As regards Prārjuna, Raychaudhuri6 is the first to point out that they are the same as
Pājjūṇaka of Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra.7 Although here they are mentioned along with Gāndhāras, they have to be located much far southwards. In fact, Smith places them in the Narsinghpur District, Madhya Pradesh. But, as they are here associated with the Sanakānīkas and as
we know that these last have for certain to be placed not far from Bhīlsa, it is safer to put the
Prārjunas somewhere near Narasingarh in Madhya Pradesh. A chief of the Sanakānīka tribe or
clan has been mentioned as a feudatory of Chandragupta II in an Udayagiri cave inscription
(No. 7 below) near Besnagar, ancient Vidiśā. The inscription describes three generations of
his family, who have all been styled Mahārājas. The Sanakānīkas, therefore, appear to have
held the province of Vidiśā. The first of them was known as Chhagalaga, which, according to
A. M. T. Jackson, “has a Turkī look.”8 According to the same scholar “Kāka may be Kākū- 1 Ep. Ind., Vol. VIII, p. 88.
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