History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v2.c28.s1.93

v2.c28.s1.93

The Rajputs or rather their ancestors the Vedic Kshatriyas settled in Rajputana in not very ancient days and we have mention of such settlements in the two ancient epics of India. It must be remembered that this part of the country is very inhospitable and could not have ordinarily invited settlements. The sands of the western and the hills of the eastern part of Rajputana were not fit places for the settlements of Aryans who were, as stated in Vol. I, generally tillers by occupation and were consequently fond of what is called a Jāngaladeśa that is a dry fertile plain country. It is, therefore, no wonder that this part of the country remained inhabited, from pre-historic times for long, by Ābhīras, Bhils and other aboriginal tribes of the Dravidian race only. The Aryan settlers of the lunar race or second horde of Aryan invaders who spread from Mathurā toward the south avoided this country and passing through it settled in the level and fertile lands of Ānarta and Saurāṣṭra. We know from the Mahābhārata that Śrī Kṛṣṇa himself, when troubled in the Madhya Deśa "or middle country the favourite land of the lunar race Aryans" by Jarāsandha, went to Saurāṣṭra and founded Dvārakā. He was led to this country probably by the consideration that the king of Ānarta (or North Gujarat) was the father-in-law of Balarāma. Dvārakā and Ānarta were thus the first settlements of the Aryans in modern Kathiawar and Gujarat. When these Aryans had to visit the "middle country" they had to traverse no doubt what is modern Rajputana but they did it with great trouble and reluctance. Balarāma for instance in the Mahābhārata is shown to have gone along the track of the Sarasvatī which river, it is said, disappeared in the sands of Rajastan for fear of the Śūdra Ābhīras. Arjuna similarly was troubled by the same people when he escorted to the old country the widows and families of the new Aryan settlers in Saurāṣṭra after Śrī Kṛṣṇa's death. The people here are called Dasyus and Mlechchhas which Dr. Bhandarkar wrongly interprets as banditti and foreigners. (Bhandarkar, ‘Foreign elements in Indian population Ind. Ant. XL.) Dasyu is the appellation given in the Vedas to the aboriginal people of India while Mlechchha is not necessarily a foreigner. For the Dravidas of the south are also called Mlechchhas in the Mahābhārata (Mlechchhas were those who pronounced Sanskrit inaccurately and they were as well the aboriginal Dravidians as foreigners of the Turanian or Scythic race.). The Ābhīras were not therefore foreigners but aboriginal people of the Dravidian race and they inhabited this sandy part of the country in the time of the Mahābhārata, that is, about 250 B. C.