A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature c5.5

c5.5

ABHĪRA, ĀBHĪRA. A cowherd; according to Manu the offspring of a Brāhman by a woman of the Ambashtha or medical tribe. A people located in the north of India along the Indus. There has been a good deal of misapprehension respecting this people. Hindu writers have described them as living in the north and in the west, the quarter varying according to the locality of the writer, and translators have mixed them up with a neighbouring people, the Sūdras, sometimes called Sūras, with whom they are generally associated, and have called them Sūrābhīras. Their modern representatives are the Ahīrs, and perhaps there is something more than identity of locality in their association with the Sūdras. It has been suggested that the country or city of the Abhīras is the Ophir of the Bible.