India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c12.s6.76

c12.s6.76

The Āsvāyanas and the Āśvakāyanas were the bravest fighters of all, being strongly entrenched in their mountainous fortresses. Alexander himself directed the operations against them. The Āśvakayana capital at Massaga or Maśakāvatī is given in the *Bhāshya* as the name of a river (IV.2.71), that should be looked for in that portion of the Suvāstu in its lower reaches where Mazaga or Massanagar is situated on it at a distance of 24 miles from Bajaur in the Yusufzai country. In times of danger the Āsvakāyanas withdrew into the impregnable defences of their hilly fortress which the Greeks have named Aornos. It appears to be the same as Varaṇā of the *Ashṭādhyāyī* (see *ante*, p. 69, for its identification with modern Uṇrā on the Indus). The Greeks also mention another of their towns, viz. Arigaeon, which commanded the road between the Kunar and the Panjkira valleys, and is comparable with Ārjunāva of the *Kāśikā* (*ṛijunāvāṁ nivāso deśaḥ*, IV.2.69).