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Tribes in Ancient India c12: Chapter VIII. The Mālavas

Tribes in Ancient India c12

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Chapter VIII. The Mālavas

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The Mālava tribe played an important rôle in the history of Ancient India. First settled in the Punjab, they gradually spread themselves over considerable portions of N. India and established their settlements in Rajputana, Central India, in different localities of the modern United Provinces, in the country known in ancient days as Lāṭa-deśa (comprising Broach, Cutch, Vadnagar and Ahmedabad), and finally in modern Malwa. They successfully maintained their tribal organisation from the time of Pāṇini till at least as late as the time of Samudragupta (fourth century A.D.).

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The earliest definite mention of the Mālavas is made in the writings of Alexander’s historians who refer to them as Malloi, Malli or Mallai, associated with the Oxydrakai, Sudracae, Hydrakai or Sydracae. These two tribes have long been identified with the Mālavas and Kṣudrakas of Sanskrit literature.¹ Pāṇini does not actually mention them by name, but his sūtra V, 3, 117, speaks of certain tribes as ‘āyudhajīvī saṃghas’, or tribes living by the profession of arms, and the Kāśika says that amongst these Saṃghas were the Mālavas and Kṣudrakas. The Mālava tribe is actually mentioned in the Mahābhāṣya of Patañjali (IV, 1, 68).²

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¹ Ind. Ant., Vol. I, p. 23.

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² According to the Jain Bhagavatī Sūtra, Mālava is included in the list of the sixteen Mahājanapadas along with Malaya. The Mālava country of the Bhagavatī is probably identical with Avanti of the Aṅguttara Nikāya (P.H.A.I., p. 82, 4th Edn.). According to Weber, Āpiśali (according to Jayaswal, Kātyāyana) speaks of the formation of the compound—‘Kṣudraka-Mālavāḥ’. Smith points out that the Mahābhārata couples the tribes in question as forming part of the Kaurava host in the Kurukṣetra war. Curtius tells us that the Sudracae and the Malli had an army consisting of 90,000 foot-soldiers, 10,000 cavalry, and 900 war-chariots (ibid., pp. 156-7).

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In the time of Alexander (and probably also earlier), the Mālavas were settled in the Punjab, but it is difficult to locate exactly the territory they occupied. Smith thinks that they (the Malloi) occupied the country below the confluence of the Hydaspes (Jhelum) and Akesines (Chenab), that is, the country comprising the Jhang district and a portion of the Montgomery district.³ According to McCrindle, they occupied a greater extent of territory, comprising the modern doab of the Akesines and Hydraotes (= Chenab and Rāvi)

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³ J.R.A.S., 1903, p. 631.

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and extending to the confluence of the Indus and Akesines—identical with the modern Multan district and portions of Montgomery.¹ Ray Chaudhuri locates them in the valley of the lower Hydraotes (Rāvī) on both banks of the river.²

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¹ Invasion of India, App. Note, p. 357.

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² P.H.A.I., 4th Ed., p. 202.

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While sailing along the Hydaspes, Alexander heard that the Malloi and the Oxydrakai had combined together and prepared themselves ‘to give him hostile reception’. But it is difficult to ascertain from the mass of contradictory information of the Greek authorities whether the two tribes were able to give the conqueror a united opposition. While Curtius tells us that their combined army was led by a Kṣudraka hero, Diodorous says that the Syrakusoi (Kṣudrakas) and Malloi could not agree as to the choice of a leader, and consequently did not take the field together. According to Arrian as well, the Malloi had agreed to combine with the Oxydrakai against Alexander, but the conqueror had advanced so suddenly that their design was thwarted, and the two tribes could hardly have had the opportunity to unite against the common enemy.³ The Malloi were certainly taken by surprise by Alexander’s army, and suffered a defeat which was, however, not final. More than once the brave tribe offered determined opposition from their fortified cities which fell one by one to the sword of Alexander and his general Perdikas. The men deserted their cities, and preferred to make the desert and jungle their home rather than submit to the conquering hordes. Alexander then sent two of his generals, Peithon and Demetrius, against the largest city of the Malloi. But the Malloi had already abandoned that city, and crossed the Hydraotes, where they stood to offer further opposition. Eventually, however, when they saw that they were in danger of being surrounded by the Greek cavalry, they repaired to their capital city nearby, and made a last effort to resist the foreign invader. But they could not achieve any success. Their city-walls were razed to the ground and the citadel captured; but in the course of the heavy fighting Alexander himself was seriously wounded. He took revenge on the enemy by ordering all the inhabitants of the city, including women and children, to be put to the sword. This city has wrongly been assigned by Diodorous and Curtius to the Oxydrakai;⁴ but both Arrian and Plutarch definitely state that the city belonged to the Malloi and not to the Oxydrakai. Even after this defeat and massacre, the Malloi do not seem to have been completely annihilated;

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³ McCrindle, Invasion of India, p. 236, f.n. 1; p. 150.

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⁴ Ibid., App. Note Q., p. 351.

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for Arrian tells us that the leading men from the Malloi and Oxydrakai came to Alexander to discuss the terms of a treaty which was eventually concluded.

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Indeed, the Mālavas seem to have occupied their territory in the Punjab for some time afterwards. We have already referred to the reference to the tribe in the Mahābhāsya; and it is not improbable that the Mahābhārata locates the tribe in the same place when it couples them with the Trigarttas,¹ as well as with the Śivis and Ambaṣṭhas.² But before long they seem to have migrated southwards and settled somewhere in Rajputana, where the tribes seem to have held their ground at the time of Samudragupta. A large number of coins found at Nagar, about 45 miles north of Koṭa, have on them the legend ‘Mālavānām Jayaḥ’ (‘victory of the Mālavas’) in characters ranging in General Cunningham’s opinion from perhaps B.C. 250 to 250 A.D. ‘These coins’, he says, ‘show that the Mālavas existed as a recognised and important clan, long before the time when their tribal constitution which led to the establishment of their era, took place.’³ Some of these coins, which are very small, have on them a legend that has been read- as Magaya, Magojaya, Majupa, Mayojapa, Mapaya and so forth. ‘Some scholars have taken these legends as denoting so many names, but the probability is that these letters constitute not names so much as abbreviations. In fact it was suggested to me long ago by Prof. D. R. Bhandarkar that the three letters Ma ga ja which occur, e.g. on coins 82-4 of Smith’s Catalogue of Coins in the Indian Museum, Vol. I, and which had been taken to be the name of a king, look like an abbreviation of the legend: ‘Mālava-gaṇasya jayaḥ’, which occurs for instance on coins Nos. 58-61... What looks like the letter pa in Mapaya may be la; and Mapaya might thus stand for Mālaya, equal to Mālava. Mr. Douglas⁴ has pointed out that the tribal name is sometimes written Mālaya instead of Mālava. Similarly Ma pa ja may be explained as equivalent to Mālajayaḥ, equal to Mālava-jayaḥ. Again, Ma go ya sa may be equivalent to ‘Mālavagaṇasya yaśaḥ’.⁵ That the Mālavas had migrated to the Jaipur region of Rajputana from the Punjab is supported by the fact that the legend on some of the Mālava coins found in Rajputana has to be read from right to left as in Kharosthī, which was the prevalent script in the Punjab and the north-west from very early times.

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¹ Droṇaparvan, Chap. 10, p. 17.

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² Sabhāparvan, Chap. 32, p. 7.

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³ C.A.S.R., Vol. VI, 1871-3, pp. 72ff.

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⁴ R. O. Douglas in his paper ‘On some Mālava Coins’, J.P.A.S.B., Vol. XIX, N.S., pp. 42ff.

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⁵ A. C. Banerjee, ‘The Mālavas’, A.B.O.R.I., Vol. XIII, Pts. III-IV, 1931-2, pp. 218ff.

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The Mālava occupation of the Nāgar area near Jaipur in Rajputana is also upheld by the Nasik Cave Inscription of Uṣavadāta, the Śaka, son-in-law of the Kṣatrapa Nahapāna. The power of Nahapāna and his allies seems to have been threatened by the Malayas (= Mālavas) who had already besieged the Uttamabhadras, allies of the Śaka king. Nahapāna sent Uṣavadāta, and the Malayas fled at the very sound of his approach, and were taken prisoner by the Uttamabhadras. Uṣavadāta afterwards went to Puṣkara, six miles west of Ajmere.¹ The Scythic invasions and conquests could not, however, destroy the tribal organisation of the tribe, for in the Allahabad Pillar inscription of Samudragupta they are included in the list of tribal states of the western and south-western fringe of Āryāvarta. Among them the most important were the Mālavas, Arjunāyanas, Yaudheyas, and Ābhīras, all of whom were settled in Rajputana at this time. The Bijayagaḍh Inscription (J.R.A.S., 1897, p. 30) definitely locates the Yaudheyas at this time in the Bharatpur State of Rajputana. The Ābhīras also occupied some region in Western Rajputana, the place called Abiria in the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea.

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¹ Ep. Ind., Vol. VIII, p. 44.

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According to the Purāṇas, the Mālavas are associated with the Saurāṣṭras, Avantis, Ābhīras, Śūras, and Arbudas,² and are described as dwelling along the Pāriyātra mountains. Thus it seems that they occupied other territories besides the Punjab or Rajputana. After Samudragupta's time when, as we have seen, the tribe was settled in Rajputana, the Mālavas seem to have migrated to the Mandasor region in the north-west part of Central India, where most of the records connected with the successors of Samudragupta have been found. This region is certainly to be identified with the ancient Mahājanapada of Avanti (mentioned in the Aṅguttara Nikāya), as well as Avanti of the Junāgaḍh Rock inscription of Rudradāman, and Malaya (= Mālava) of the Jain Bhagavatī Sūtra referred to above whose capital was Ujjayinī. This tract of country along with the region round Bhilsa comprises what is now known as Malwa (Mālava). It is well-known that the years of the Vikrama Era in the Gupta epoch were known as Kṛta; and the Mālavas were associated with them (cf. Mandasor Inscr. of Naravarman, C.I.I., Vol. III); and wherever the Kṛta years are specified in the inscriptions of the Gupta period, the name of the Mālavas almost invariably occurs. We find the princes of Mandasor using the Era (commencing 58 B.C.) traditionally handed down by the ‘Mālava-gaṇa’. And it is not only in the Mandasor region that inscriptions have been found associating the Mālavas with the Kṛta Era; they have also been found among other places at Kāṃsuvām in the Kotah State and Nāgarī in Udaipur State.

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² Bhag., XII, I, 36; Viṣṇu, Bk. II, Chap. III; Brahma, Chap. XIX, śloka 17. The Rāmāyaṇa (Kiṣk. Kāṇḍa, Canto XLII) locates the tribe in the east; but the Bengal recension does not know of them.

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In the period following that of Skandagupta and his successors (i.e. after about 550 A.D.), the Mālavas seem to have migrated further to the east so as to cover the region from Bhilsa (Eastern Malwa) to Prayāg. In the *Harṣacarita* of Bāṇa, Kumāragupta and Mādhavagupta, two sons of King Mahāsenagupta (of the line of Kṛṣṇagupta), who were appointed by Prabhākaravardhana to wait upon his sons, Rājyavardhana, and Harṣavardhana respectively, are referred to as ‘Mālavarājaputrau’. It follows that Mahāsenagupta was a king of Mālava. He was most probably succeeded by a king named Devagupta, who is referred to in the Madhuvan and Banskhera inscriptions of Harṣavardhana, and who must be identical with the ‘wicked Mālava King’ who cut off Grahavarman Maukhari in battle, but was himself defeated by Rājyavardhana.¹ It is difficult to identify the Mālava Kingdom of Mahāsenagupta and Devagupta, but it was most probably identical with Pūrva-Mālava which lay between Prayāga and Bhilsa. It could not be the Mo-la-po (= Mālava) of Hsüan Tsang, for Mo-la-po was then under the Maitrakas of Valabhi; nor could it be the Mālava country whose capital was Ujjayinī, for Ujjayinī was at that time ruled by a brahmin dynasty, and the Guptas were not brahmins. Moreover, according to Vātsyāyana, Ujjayinīdeśa was called Apara-Mālava or Western Mālava; where only Mālava, without any prefix, is referred to, it should be taken to mean Eastern (Pūrva) Mālava.²

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¹ P.H.A.I., 4th Ed., pp. 514 foll.

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² Ujjayinīdeśabhavastu evāpara-Mālavya-Mālavya iti Pūrva-Mālava bhava,—N. Ray, The Maukharis of Kanoj, Cal. Review, 1928, Feb., p. 210 f.n.

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Just about this time, the celebrated Chinese pilgrim Hsüan Tsang in the course of his Indian travels visited the kingdom of ‘Mo-la-po’; its capital was on the south-east of the river Moha (= Mahī). Mo-la-po was a country where learning was much prized.³ This Mo-la-po must now be identified with Mālavaka or Mālavaka-āhāra, referred to in a number of Valabhi grants as included in the kingdom of the Maitrakas of Valabhi. The Mālavaka-āhāra lay between Bhṛgukaccha or Broach, Cutch, Valabhi, and Vadnagar (Smith), and corresponds roughly to the modern districts of Kaira and Ahmedabad, together with parts of the Baroda State and some adjoining territories.⁴ That the Mo-la-po of Hsüan Tsang cannot be identified with Mālava (i.e. Western Mālava) whose capital was Ujjayinī is also proved by the fact that the pilgrim describes the former as being included within the territory of Valabhi. ‘The diminutive suffix *Ka* also indicates that it was then known as Lesser Mālava to distinguish it from Mālava proper’ (C.A.G.I., Mazumdar’s Notes, p. 728). The Mālavaka country is also referred to in the *Gurvāvalī Sūtra* of Dharmasāgaragaṇi, where Śrī Devendrasundarī is represented as having gone from Mālavaka to Gurjaratrā or Gujrat;¹ and it is also mentioned in the Tewar Stone Inscription of the region of Jayasiṃhadeva of the Cedi year 928.² The Mālavas and their country,—evidently meaning the region around Ujjayinī and Bhilsa, i.e. modern Malwa, are mentioned in a number of later epigraphic records, e.g. in the Sagartal inscription of the Gurjara Pratihāras, the Paithāna Plates of Rāṣṭrakūṭa Govinda III, and a host of others.

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³ Watters, On Yuan Chwang, II, p. 242.

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⁴ Ibid., II, p. 341.

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¹ Weber, *Die Sk. Pr. Handschriften der Berliner Bibliothek*, II, 290.

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² *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. II, pp. 18-9.

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We have seen that the Mālavas migrated eastwards as far as Prayāga, probably in the second half of the sixth century A.D. During the rule of the Pālas of Bengal and Bihar they seem to have migrated still further east; for in the copper-plates of the Pāla kings (excepting Dharmapāla), reference is made not only to the Kulikas, the Khasas and Hūṇas, but also to the Mālavas who seem to have migrated to Bengal as mercenary troops.

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The name of the tribe survives to this day not only in the modern province of Malwa (which is a transformation of the word Mālava), but also in those of two Brāhmaṇa castes called ‘Mālavis’ or ‘Mālavikas’. They are the Brāhmaṇas of Mālava proper and the adjoining country, but are not only found in their special habitat, but also in Gujrat on the one hand, and Central and United Provinces on the other.³

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³ See *Ann. B.O.R.I.*, Vol. XIII, parts III-IV, 1931-2, p. 229.—‘In *Ep. Ind.*, V, 229, the Daṇḍanāyaka Anantapāla, a feudatory of Vikramāditya VI, is said to have subdued the Sapta Mālava countries up to the Himālaya mountains. This proves that there were as many as seven countries called Mālava. These were probably (1) *Mo-la-po* (Mālavaka-āhāra of Valabhi grants) on the Mahi, governed by the Maitrakas, (2) *Avanti* ruled by a Brāhmaṇa family in the time of Hsüan Tsang, (3) Pūrva Mālava (round Bhilsa), (4) District round Prayāga, (5) Fatehpur District, in U.P., (6) Cis-Sutlej districts of the Punjab, (7) Some Himalayan territory’ (*P.H.A.I.*, 4th Ed., p. 492, f.n. 4).

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