Karkandhu

Author: Laxman Burdak IFS (R)

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Karkandhu (कर्कन्धू) is place name mentioned by Panini in Ashtadhyayi.

Mention by Panini

Karkandhu (कर्कन्धू) is place name mentioned by Panini in Ashtadhyayi under Karkyadi (कर्क्यादि) (6.7.87) group.

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Karkandhu (कर्कन्धू) is name of a place mentioned by Panini in Ashtadhyayi under Madhvadi (मध्वादि) (4.2.86) group.

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Karkandhu, Badara (कर्कन्धू बदर) is mentioned by Panini in Ashtadhyayi.

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Karkandhuprastha (कर्कन्धूप्रस्थ) is mentioned by Panini in Ashtadhyayi.

History

V. S. Agrawala writes that Panini mentions village name in category ending Kanthā (IV.2.142). .... Panini must also have known Shakas, not in Seistan but in their original home in Central Asia.

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[p.69]: How a string of kanthā-ending place names was found in Ushinara country in the heart of Punjab, is an unexplained problem. It points to an event associated with Shaka history even before Panini, possibly an intrusion which left its relics in place names before the Saka contact with India in the second century BC. Katyayana mentions Shakandhu and Karkandhu, two kinds of wells of the Shakas and Karkas (Karkians), which may be identified as the stepped well (vāpī) and the Persian wheel (arghaṭṭa) well respectively.

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Tej Ram Sharma writes that the place-names ending in kantha existing in the

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Personal and geographical names in the Gupta inscriptions 165

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whole of the Punjab from the Bannu valley to the Kankhala region and even beyond suggest an intrusion of the Sakas long before the time of Panini, who is known to have flourished one century before the invasion of Alexander the Great. Kantha is a Saka word for city and is akin to kadhavara or kanthavara of Kharosthi inscriptions, Kand of Persian, Kantha of Khotanese, Kandh of Sogdian, Kandai of Pushto, Kanda or Koent of the dialect of the Rsikas. It is significant that the land beyond the Oxus, the Urheimat of the Sakas, abounds in Kantha-ending place names, such as Samarkand, Khokand, Chimkand, Tashkand, Panjkand, and Yarkand.

The reference to the stepped-well, called Sakandhu after the Sakas, together with that worked by Persian Wheel, known as Karkandhu after the Karkians, in a varttika of Katyayana also leads to the same conclusion.