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Tribes in Ancient India c17: Chapter XIII. The Yaudheyas

Tribes in Ancient India c17

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Chapter XIII. The Yaudheyas

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The Yaudheyas were a republican tribe of the Punjab known as early as the time of Pāṇini, the celebrated grammarian (c. sixth century B.C.), whose Sūtras contain what are probably the earliest reference to this people. In ‘na prācya Bhargādi Yaudheyādibhyaḥ’ (IV, 1, 178) the term Yaudheya-ādi includes the two tribes, Yaudheyas and Trigarttas (according to Scholiast). Elsewhere in the Sūtras (V, 3, 117) the Yaudheyas (counting the Trigarttas with them) are referred to as forming an ‘Āyudha-jīvī Saṃgha’, or a tribal republican organisation depending mainly on arms (cf. the name ‘Yaudheya’ = warrior).

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The historical tradition of the tribe, however, goes back still farther than Pāṇini’s time. The Purāṇas¹ refer to the Yaudheyas as having been descended from Uśīnara, while the Harivaṃśa too connects the Yaudheyas with the Uśīnaras.² According to Pargiter, King Uśīnara established the Yaudheyas, Ambaṣṭhas, Navarāṣṭra, and the city of Kṛmila, all on the Eastern border of the Punjab; while his famous son Śivi Auśīnara originated the Śivis or Śibis in Śivapura.³ In the Mahābhārata,⁴ the Yaudheyas are described as having been defeated by Arjuna, along with the Mālavas and Trigarttas; while in the Sabhāparvan (Chap. 52, 14-5), the Yaudheyas, together with the Śibis, the Trigarttas, and the Ambaṣṭhas, are represented as having paid homage to Yudhiṣṭhira. Elsewhere in the Great Epic (Droṇaparvan, Chap. 159, 5) the tribe is mentioned along with the Madrakas and Mālavas.⁵

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¹ Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa, III, Chap. 74; Vāyu P., Chap. 99; Brahma P., Chap. 13; Matsya P., Chap. 48; Viṣṇu P., Chap. 17, etc.

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² Harivaṃśa, Chap. 32; cf. also Pargiter, Mārk. P., p. 380.

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³ A.I.H.T., p. 264.

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⁴ Droṇaparvan, Chap. 18, 16; Karṇaparvan, Chap. 5, 48.

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⁵ ‘Yaudheyāadrijān rājan Madrakān Mālavānapi’. Here ‘Adrijān’ has been interpreted by some as signifying a tribe, the ‘Adrijas’ (possibly = the Adraistai of the Greeks); but it seems more likely that it is simply an epithet qualifying the Yaudheyas (‘mountain-born’). There is no mention in Sorensen’s Index to the names in the Mahābhārata of ‘adrija’ used as the name of a tribe.

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The Bṛhatsaṃhitā places the Yaudheyas along with the Ārjunāyanas in the N. division of India. According to Ray Chaudhuri, they may have been connected with the Pandoouoi or Pāṇḍava tribe mentioned by Ptolemy as settled in the Punjab⁶;

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⁶ Ind. Ant., XIII, 331, 349.

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for Yaudheya appears in the *Mahābhārata* (*Ādiparvan*, Chap. 95, 76) as the name of a son of Yudhiṣṭhira.¹

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¹ Ray Chaudhuri, *P.H.A.I.*, 4th Edn., p. 457.

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Cunningham identifies the Yaudheyas with the Johiya Rajputs, and the country of the Yaudheyas with Johiyabar (= Yaudheyavāra), the district around Multan. The Johiyas, he points out, are divided into three tribes; and he finds a strong confirmation of his identification in the fact that in the coins of the Yaudheya clan there can be traced the existence of three different tribes. These coins are of three classes, of which the first bears the simple inscription: ‘jaya-Yaudheya-gaṇasya’, i.e. ‘(money) of the victorious Yaudheya tribe’. The second class has ‘dvi’ at the end of the legend, and the third has ‘tri’, which are taken by Rapson to be contractions for ‘dvitīyasya’ and ‘tritīyasya’, 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 Sutlej, it is almost certain that they belong to the Johiyas who now occupy the line of the Sutlej.²

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² Cunningham, *Ancient Geography*, p. 245; pp. 281-2. Rapson, *Indian Coins*, p. 14.

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The Yaudheyas are known from the Bijayagadh (Bijegarh?) Stone Inscription³ (C.I.I., Vol. III, pp. 250-1) to have occupied the Bijayagadh region of the Bharatpur State, and we may assume that they had extended their rule quite far to the South by about 150 A.D., the date of the Junāgarh (Kathiawar) Inscription of Rudradāman,⁴ which contains that monarch’s boast of having ‘rooted out the Yaudheyas’. The tribe was not entirely extinguished, however, for in the Allahabad Pillar Inscription of Samudragupta (fourth century A.D.) the Yaudheyas are included in the list of tribal states who paid him homage (Mālavas, Ārjunāyanas, Yaudheyas, Madrakas, Ābhīras, Prārjunakas, Kākas, and Kharaparikas).⁵

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³ Paleographically the inscription is of an early date, the characters being of the so-called Indo-Scythic form. The leader of the Yaudheya tribe who is referred to in the inscription is styled Mahārāja and Mahāsenāpati.

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⁴ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. VIII, pp. 36ff.

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⁵ Ray Chaudhuri, *P.H.A.I.*, 4th Edn., p. 457.

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