[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Historical geography](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography) › [Tribes in Ancient India](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943) › c19 # Tribes in Ancient India c19: Chapter XV. The Ābhīras Tribes in Ancient India c19 - **Language:** English ### Chapter XV. The Ābhīras ### [c19.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.2) The Ābhīras as a tribe are well-known in the history of ancient India. Probably coming into prominence for the first time during the age roughly covered by the Epics, at a later period they came to occupy an independent kingdom, and establish more centres than one in the country. The tribe can still be traced in the present Āhīrs (Āhīr being the Prakrit form of the Sanskrit word Ābhīra) who, in tribal groups, abound largely in the United Provinces, Bihar, Nepal and some portions of Rajputana. They are a band of simple, sturdy people, mostly cowherds and agriculturists. ### [c19.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.3) According to the \*Mahābhārata\* (\*Sabhāparvan\*, Chap. 51), the Ābhīras were located in the western division of India (Aparāntaka). The Epic evidence is supported by that of the author of the \*Periplus of the Erythrean Sea\*, a Greek record of commercial geography of the first century B.C., as well as by Ptolemy, the Greek geographer who flourished in the middle of the second century A.D. Later epigraphic evidence also definitely places the Ābhīras in the west, but the Purāṇas seem to locate them in the northern division or Uttarāpatha. ‘The fact seems to be’, says Wilson, ‘that the people along the Indus, from Surat to the Himalayas, are often regarded as either western or northern nations, according to the topographical position of the writer’.¹ A more definite location of the tribe is provided by a śloka in the \*Mahābhārata\*, which places them in West Rajputana, ‘where the Sarasvatī disappears’.² ### [c19.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.4) ¹ Wilson, \*Viṣṇu Purāṇa\*, II, 168, f.n. 4. ### [c19.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.5) ² \*Mbh.\*, IX, 37, 1. ### [c19.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.6) The \*Mahābhāṣya\* of Patañjali (second century B.C.) is perhaps the earliest authority that introduces the Ābhīras into Indian history. At I, 2, 3 of that work, the Ābhīras are associated with the Śūdras, who are most likely identical with the Sodrai or Sogdoi of Greek historians of Alexander’s time. The tradition of their association with the Śūdras ³ is upheld not only by the above-mentioned śloka of the \*Mahābhārata\* (IX, 37, 1), but also by the Purāṇas. The \*Viṣṇupurāṇa\* ⁴ places them in the extreme west along with the Surāṣṭras, Śūdras, Arbudas, Kārūṣas, and Mālavas, dwelling along the Pāripātra mountains. The \*Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa\* (Chap. 57, verses 35, 36) groups the Ābhīras with the Vāhlikas, Vāṭadhānas, Śūdras, Madrakas, Surāṣṭras, and Sindhu-Sauvīras, all of whom are said to have occupied tracts of country that are included in the Aparāntaka or western country. According to Pargiter, the Ābhīras who are referred to in the \*Mahābhārata\* had something to do with the events following the great Kurukṣetra war: ‘Some years after the battle, the Yādavas of Gujarat were ruined by fratricidal strife, and Kṛṣṇa died. Under Arjuna’s leadership they abandoned Dvārakā (on which the sea encroached) and Gujarat and retreated northwards, but were attacked and broken up by the rude Ābhīras of Rajputana’.¹ ### [c19.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.7) ³ Some scholars read Śūra for Śūdra. ### [c19.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.8) ⁴ \*Viṣṇu P.\*, Ed. Wilson, Bk. II, Chap. III, pp. 132-5. ### [c19.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.9) ¹ A.I.H.T., p. 284. ### [c19.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.10) Both Ptolemy and the \*Periplus\* stress the close association of the Ābhīras and the Surāṣṭras. The \*Periplus\* mentions the country of Aberia (doubtless identical with Ābhīra) and its seaboard Syrastrene (= Surāṣṭra); while Ptolemy speaks of Abiria (= Aberia = Ābhīra) as having been included in Indo-Scythia, by which was meant practically the whole of the country along the lower course of the Indus. Indo-Scythia in Ptolemy’s time was divided into three parts, viz. Syrastrēnē (Surāṣṭra), Patalene (= Skt. Pātāla), and Abiria (Skt. Ābhīra),—Abiria being identified with the region east of the Indus, above the insular portion formed by its bifurcation.² ### [c19.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.11) ² See Chap. on Surāṣṭras, and McCrindle’s \*Ptolemy\*, pp. 136, 139-40. ### [c19.12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.12) By the middle of the second century B.C. the Ābhīras and their country must have been overpowered by the Bactrian Greeks who, not long after the expedition of Antiochus the Great (Antiochus III of Syria, 223—187 B.C.), had planned to extend their kingdom to the south of the Hindu Kush. It seems that these Bactrian Greeks occupied the whole of the country which Ptolemy designates as Indo-Scythia, and which included Aberia or Abiria. In Ptolemy’s time, however, the Abiria or Ābhīra country was ruled over by the Śaka rulers or Kṣatrapas of W. India, who seem to have held sway over the entire realm of Indo-Scythia (cf. the Junāgaḍh Inscription of the Śaka ruler Rudradāman who flourished in the second century A.D.; \*Ep. Ind.\*, Vol. VIII, pp. 36ff.). The Guṇḍa Inscription of the Śaka king Rudra Siṃha (A.D. 181), who was third in succession from Rudradāman, refers to an Ābhīra general named Rudrabhūti who excavated a tank in his realm. Shortly afterwards³ we find a certain Īśvaradatta, who was probably a native of Ābhīra, holding the office of Mahākṣatrapa. It is likely that Īśvaradatta was the same person as Īśvarasena,⁴ an Ābhīra king (son of Śivadatta), who became Mahākṣatrapa of W. India and wrested from the Sātavāhanas, probably in the third century A.D., portions at least of Mahārāṣṭra, which was ruled over by them up till the reign of Yajñaśrī Sātakarṇi. ### [c19.13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.13) ³ 188-90 A.D., according to Prof. Bhandarkar; but Rapson assigns Īśvaradatta to the period after 236 A.D. ### [c19.14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.14) ⁴ ‘It is also suggested that this dynasty of Īśvarasena is identical with the Traikuṭaka line of Aparānta, and that the establishment of the Traikuṭaka era in A.D. 248 marks the date at which the Ābhīras succeeded the Sātavāhanas in the ### [c19.15](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.15) The Ābhīras are next mentioned in the celebrated Allahabad Iron Pillar Inscription of Samudragupta (2nd quarter of the fourth century A.D.) as one of the tribal states of W. and S.W. India who paid homage to the great Gupta emperor, and who were thus a semi-independent people living outside the borders of his empire. ### [c19.16](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.16) If the traditional and legendary history of Nepal as contained in the Vaṃśāvalis has any historical value, the Ābhīras or Āhīrs had a settlement in Nepal in very early times. The traditional history of Nepal as recorded in the Vaṃśāvalis begins with a long line of legendary kings, after which the country was taken possession of by a line of Kirāta pretenders, whose passing away probably marks the entry of Nepal into the domain of fairly precise historical tradition. These Kirātas were succeeded by eight princes belonging to the Gopāla dynasty. The Gopālas in their turn were supplanted by the Ābhīras. ### [c19.17](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.17) The tribe seems to have had another settlement in the South or Dakṣiṇāpatha. According to the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa,¹ the Ābhīras are classed with the Puṇḍrakas, Keralas, Kaliṅgas, Pulindas, Andhras, Vidarbhas, Kuntalas and others, all of whom are said to be Dakṣiṇāpatha-vāsinah, or dwelling in the southern country. The Vāyupurāṇa also records the same tradition (Chap. 45, 126), and describes the Ābhīras, Ātabyas, Śabaras, Pulindas, Vaidarbhas and Daṇḍakas as ‘Dakṣiṇāpatha-vāsinah’. ### [c19.18](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.18) ¹ Chap. 57, vv. 45-8; Chap. 58, v. 22. ### [c19.19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19.19) government of northern Mahārāṣṭra and the adjoining region. The last known rulers of the Traikuṭaka line were Indradatta, his son, Dharasena and his son, Vyāghrasena’—Ray Chaudhuri, P.H.A.I., 4th Ed., p. 418, f.n. 2. ## Linked texts (4) - [Mahābhārata](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.mahabharata.vyasa.2.51) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit - [Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.purana.markandeya.57.35) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit - [Vāyupurāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.purana.vayu) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit - [Viṣṇupurāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.purana.visnu) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.law-1943.c19) · Pramāṇa