Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s2.18.3

c48.s2.18.3

Assuming their connection with these parts, especially the last named, a basis will be found for their invariable assertion in the Gangetic region that the cradle of the Ahīr is Mathura. Few legends are more wide spread in India than that of the dalliance of the most popular of Purānic deities, Kṛṣṇa, with the Gōpī, or milkmaids, of the Vraj district; and the Jāduvansī line, headed by Kṛṣṇa himself, found its second home, after its expulsion from Mathura, at Dvārka and in the north of Mārvāḍ, the very tracts inhabited by the Ahīr before they entered Hindustān. Traditional descent from the Mathura Jāduvansī is not, however, confined to the Ahīr of the north, but is claimed by the Gaura and other cowherds of Orissa, and even by some far to the south of the Ārya pale. Except in the Panjāb, the Ahīr enjoys but a poor reputation as a husbandman, though everywhere he is admitted to be company for the higher peasantry. This, however, may be, as in the case of the Gūjar in those parts, a question of policy, with a side-glance towards the village cattle, which are too apt to stray into the Ahīr's herd without their rightful owners' knowledge or consent. The Gaulī of the west Central Provinces and north Dekkan, is the descendant of the tribes which, as just mentioned, once ruled the Sātpura from Khandesh and the Sahyadri, to near Saugor, and were only expelled by the Goṇḍ in the 16th century.