Tribes in Ancient India c12.23

c12.23

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.