Tribes in Ancient India c55.2

c55.2

The earliest literary reference to the country of the Gauḍas is made by the celebrated grammarian Pāṇini who seems to locate the country in the east (Pāṇini, VI, ii, 99-100). The country is also referred to in the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya as well as in the Kāmasūtra of Vātsyāyana (nakhacchedya prakaraṇam, ii, 13). Varāhamihira (sixth century A.D.) probably refers to the Gauḍa country when he places ‘Gauḍaka’ in the eastern division of India. But the first epigraphic mention of the tribe is made in the Harāhā inscription of A.D. 554 (Ep. Ind , XIV, pp. 110ff.), where King Īśānavarman of the Maukhari dynasty claims victories over the Andhras, the Śūlikas (prob. = the Cālukyas) and the Gauḍas, who are described as living on the seashore (Gauḍān samudrāśrayān). It is difficult to define with any amount of certainty the exact region which the Gauḍas occupied at that time. H. C. Ray Chaudhuri, however, suggests that their ‘proper realm’ was Western Bengal as it bordered on the sea, and included Karṇasuvarṇa and Rāḍhāpurī (P.H.A.I., 4th Ed., p. 509). This may find confirmation in the combined testimony of Bāṇa and Hsüan Tsang who state that Śaśāṅka or Karṇasuvarṇa (identified with Rāṅgāmāṭi in Murshidabad, W. Bengal) was the Gauḍa king, the great rival of Rājyavardhana and Harṣavardhana, the kings of Thāneśvar (seventh century).