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History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c20: Chapter XVI: The Kainkila Yavanas of Āndhra

History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c20

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English

Chapter XVI: The Kainkila Yavanas of Āndhra

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When Hiuen Tsang visited Āndhra he found the people different in speech from those of Mid-India. The people appeared to him to be of a violent nature and they were adherents of different religions. The people of Āndhra are undoubtedly of Aryan origin and yet the language of the country from before the days of Hiuen Tsang was Dravidian. Who was the king reigning in his days? To what race and to what religion did he belong? These questions are difficult of solution; but we have come to the conclusion that at this time and during the period of which we are writing there was a line of Yavana kings ruling in Āndhra, Yavanas whose distinctive name was Kāinkila Yavanas. They were not ardent professors of Buddhism though Yavanas generally were and it is probably hence that Hiuen Tsang has not described the king in Āndhra. We proceed in this chapter to describe these Yavana kings and to detail the evidence on which this description is based.

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Sir William Hunter probably rightly guesses that the Yavanas of Orissa being dispossessed in the fifth century A. D. by the Kesari line of kings went into Āndhara and seized that kingdom about 575 A. D. "The next kingdom to Orissa down the Madras coast was Āndhra whose capital was Warangal. The chronicles of the Madras coast relate that the then existing dynasty in Āndhra was overthrown and was succeeded by nine kings of the Yavana race who ruled for 458 years i. e. till 904 A. D. The period of their supremacy was in the main Buddhistic and as in Orissa their downfall took place amidst a great religious revival ending in the re-establishment of Brahminism and of the very form in Orissa viz. Saivism" ( p. 220 ).

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Sir W. Hunter has given a most interesting account, with great accuracy which for his time is certainly remarkable, of the connection of Yavanas or Ionian Greeks with India from the most ancient times (about 900 B.C.) when they were beyond the Indus down to about 900 A. D. when their last kingdom was found on the western coast of the Madras presidency. He observes (p. 220), “These southern Yavanas (of Āndhra) reached their height about 782 A. D. In that year they make their appearance in the Tuluva records on the western shores of the peninsula. Dr. Buchanan from records shown by a Brahmin states that a line of Yavana princes drove out the reigning house in Tuluva in 782 A. D. and ruled for 54 years. They claimed Āndhra descent, came from the eastern coast and were of the Jain religion into which Buddhism had by that time disintegrated.”

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This Yavana kingdom of Āndhra had thus a prosperous rule from about 575 A. D. to 900 A. D. and they reached their height of power about 782 A. D. The existence of a Yavana kingdom about this time is also attested by the inscription of Dharmapāla already noticed (Khalimpur grant) भोजैर्मत्स्यैः समद्रैः कुरुयदुयवनावन्तिगान्ध्रकीरैः। भूपैर्व्यालोलमौलिप्रणतिपरिणतैः साधु सङ्गृह्यमाणः।। shows that a Yavana kingdom was among the feudatories of the empire of Kanauj in the eighth century. The mention of Yavana in this inscription is apparently puzzling to many but the riddle is solved if we grant and remember that there was a powerful Yavana kingdom to the south of Nagpur and in the Āndhra country.

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The evidence of the Purāṇas also proves the existence of a Yavana kingdom here. The Puranic account is no doubt a most garbled account of an unhistorical witness but it has much value as confirmatory evidence. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa which distinctly mentions the Kailakila or Kainkila Yavanas requires to be specially noticed. It has the following passage in Aṃśa 4 chap. 24 “आन्ध्रभृत्याः सप्ताभिरप्रभृतयो दश गर्दभिनश्चभुजो भविष्यन्ति ततः षोडश भूपतयो

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भवितारः। ततश्चाष्टौ यवनाश्चतुर्दश तुरुष्कारा मुण्डाश्च त्रयोदश एकादश मौना एते वै पृथिवीपतयः पृथिवीं दशवर्षशतानि नवत्याधिकानि भोक्ष्यन्ति। तेष्वत्स्वेषु कैलिकिल यवना भूपतया भविष्यन्त्यसूर्याभिषिक्ताः। तेषामपत्यं विन्ध्यशक्तिस्ततः पुरंजयस्तस्मा-द्रामचन्द्रस्तस्माद्धर्मवर्मा ततो वङ्गस्ततोभूवन्दनस्ततः सुनंदी तद्भाता नन्दियशाः शुकः प्रवीरः एते वर्षशतं षड्‌वर्षाणि भूपतयो भविष्यन्ति”। Now in this quotation the Yavanas are twice mentioned and at a long interval. We should, therefore, take the first 8 Yavana kings as the Greco-Bactrian kings of the Panjab who ruled before the Christian era. The Turushkaras are probably the Yue-chi. Who the Mundas were and who the Maunas it is not yet explained by any person but we shall try later on to discover it. The rule of all these covered 1090 years. When they were overthrown the Kailakila Yavanas ruled the earth. Their first king was Vindhyaśakti* and he was followed by 2 Puranjaya 3 Rāmachandra 4 Dharmavarman 5 Vanga 6 Nandana 7 Sunandin 8 Nandiyaśah and 9 Suka Pravīra. These ruled for 106 years.” These details given for the Kailakila Yavanas alone lead to two inferences viz. (1) that the writer or rather recaster of the Vishnu Purāṇa lived a little after these Yavanas somewhere about the 9th century A.D. and (2) that he must have been a native of Āndhra or at least of the country where these Yavanas ruled. As the Yavanas are mentioned as reigning in the Khalimpur grant of about 800 A. D. the time of these Yavana kings is tolerably settled. And their country too though not mentioned in that inscription must have been no other than Āndhra which might have formed part of the Kanauj empire along with Bhoja. Matsya, Madra, Kuru, Yadu, Avanti, Kīra and others. We, therefore, hold on the authority of the evidence mentioned by Hunter supported by the Vishnu Purāṇa that from before the days of Hiuen Tsang the Kailakila or Kāinkila Yavanas ruled in Āndhra upto 800 A. D. and even later down to about 900 A. D. Their mention in the Bhāgavata is also confirmatory in this connection and is interesting. किलिकिलायां नृपतयो भूतन्नन्दो-ऽथ वङ्गिरिः । शिशुनान्दिश्त्र तद्भ्राता यशोनन्दिः प्रवीरकः ॥ इत्येते वै वर्षशतं भविष्यन्त्यधिकानि षट् ॥ (द्वा. अ. १). Here the period 106 years is the same; the name Kailakila is the same though given as that of a place and five kings are named whose names are nearly the same as in the Vishnu. The Bhāgavata seems to follow the Vishnu Purāṇa at a distance and must date after the 9th century. The other Purāṇas too mention Yavanas, but none mentions the Kailakila Yavanas, Vindhyaśakti and others and these Purāṇas notably Vāyu and Matsya in their present form are generally rightly taken as the oldest Purāṇas and may be supposed to refer to the Yavana kings of the Panjab alone. Munda and Mauna barbarians are mentioned by these also and they also preceded the Guptas most certainly.

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∗ This Vindhyaśakti is different from the Vindhyaśakti of the Vākātaka dynasty mentioned in the Ajanta cave inscription, the successors of the latter being different also viz. Pravarasena, Rudrasena, Prithvisena and others his date being about 300 A.D.

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The Kainkila Yavanas are said by the Vishnu Purāṇa to be अमूर्धाभिषिक्त i. e. not crowned religiously. But possibly this word is मूर्द्धावसिक्त which shows their mixed origin. The commentator explains the word as meaning non-Kshatriyas but that was clear from the very name Yavana. The word is a puzzle but it may be taken to mean that they were Buddhists or Jains and did not care for religious coronations.

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But these Yavanas seem to have preserved their language though not their religion. It is indeed an interesting question whether the Yavana kings of the Panjab spoke Greek. The legends on their coins indeed are in Greek and this clearly shows that they must have spoken their own language. But they were in constant communication with Bactria, Syria and even Greece and their speaking their own language is not strange. But the Yavanas of Āndhra surrounded as they were by Sanskrit-born and Dravidian languages, their own subjects speaking also the same languages could not have preserved their Greek. Colebrooke quoting a writer of this period (8th century) classifies the non-Hindu languages of the time as four in number viz. Yavana, Pārasīka, Romaka and Barbara (Hunter's Orissa Vol. I p. 222). Hunter, however, believes that these Āndhra Greeks had lost all traces of their original language.*

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∗ The Greek language was undoubtedly once spoken in India as we have shown elsewhere that the Greek word 'Syrinx' or Suranga is used in the Mahābhārata itself and that Vidura speaks in Greek probably when he cautions Yudhishthira in a Mlechha language against residing in the inflammable house at Vāranāvata built for them. Latin too may have been understood in India in the first century A. D. when Rome had commercial connection with India especially the south and when the Roman coin the Dinar became current in India. Pārasīka as the language of the Persians who often conquered Sind upto the Indus, may also be well-known. But what is Barbara? The word is indeed a puzzle. The Greeks use the word 'Barbarians' for all Mlechhas and so also the Indo-Aryans speak of a Mlechha people by name Barbara. But Barbara occurs in history as the name of an African people and these could not have come into contact with the Indo-Aryans. Probably the African Ethiopians traded in centuries preceding Christ with India and the name continued to be applied to the Arabs who certainly traded with India for many centuries and who in the 8th century A. D. conquered Sind. The Prakrit writer of the 8th century therefore refers to the Arabic language when he mentions the Barbara as the fourth Mlechha language understood or current in India.

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