Tribes in Ancient India c45.1

c45.1

The Aśmakas or Assakas formed one of the Kṣatriya tribes of ancient India. They are not mentioned in the Vedic literature, but we find them referred to in the Epics and Purāṇas. In an enumeration of the countries in ‘Bhāratavarṣa’, the land of the Aśmakas is mentioned along with those of the most prominent Kṣatriya peoples of ancient India, such as the Kurus and Śūrasenas.¹ In the different recensions of the Mahābhārata, the name of the tribe varies, being spelt either Aśmaka or Aśvaka. In Pāli Buddhist literature, the name is Assaka which, as Rhys Davids points out, may be the vernacular equivalent of either Aśmaka or Aśvaka. He continues: ‘Either there were two distinct tribes so called, or the Sanskrit form Aśvaka is a wrong reading or a blunder in the Sanskritization of Assaka.’² The Greek writers mention a people called the Assakenoi in eastern Afghanistan and the Kunar valley, with their chief town at Massaga or Maśakāvatī.