The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c5.s4.t24.7

c5.s4.t24.7

The Johiyas are divided into three tribes, named Langavira or Lakvira, Mádhovira or Mádhera, and Adamvira or Admera. The Sambracæ would appear to have been divided into three clans, as being a free people without kings they chose three generals to lead them against the Greeks. Now Johiya is an abbreviation of Jodhiya, which is the Sanskrit Yaudheya, and there are coins of this clan of as early a date as the first century of the Christian era, which show that the Yaudheyas were even then divided into three tribes. These coins are of three classes, of which the first bears the simple inscription Jaya-Yaudheya-gaṇasya, that is (money) "of the victorious Yaudheya tribe. The second class has dwi at the end of the legend, and the third has tri, which I take to be contractions for dwitiyasya and tritiyasya, or second and third, as the money of the second and third tribes of the Yaudheyas. As the coins are found to the west of the Satlej, in Depâlpur, Satgarha, Ajudhan, Kahror, and Multân, and to the eastward in Bhatner, Abhor, Sirsa, Hânsi, Pânipat, and Sonpat, it is almost certain that they belong to the Johiyas, who now occupy the line of the Satlej, and who were still to be found in Sirsa as late as the time of Akbar. The Yaudheyas are mentioned in the Allahabad inscription of Samudra Gupta, and at a still earlier date by Pânini in the Junagarh inscription of Rudra Dâma.[*] Now the great grammarian was certainly anterior to Chandra Gupta Maurya, and his mention of the Yaudheyas proves that they must have been a recognized clan before the time of Alexander. The inscription of Rudra Dâma, in which he boasts of having "rooted out the Yaudheyas, shows that this powerful clan must have extended their arms very far to the south, otherwise they would not have come into collision with the princes of Surashtra. From these facts I am led to infer that the possessions of the Johiyas in the time of Alexander most probably extended from Bhatner and Pâkpatan to Sabzalkot, about halfway between Uchh and Bhakar.