X. The Struggle with the Yavanas, Sakas and Kushanas
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The foreign domination
[p.98]: In the latter half of the second century B. C. the Bactrian Greeks plunged into the Punjab and occupied a considerable part of it up to the Ravi region. One of their leaders, Demetrius, probably Demetrius II Aniketos, even overran Madhyamika or the upper part of the Bari Doab, called Manjha, advanced towards Mathura and Saketa and encamped outside the walls of Pataliputra, However a revolt in his own realm, led by one Eucratides, forced him to retreat and retire to the North-West to be entrapped and killed by his opponents. During these disturbances Pantaleon and Agathocles carved out their kingdoms in the Panjab, but, about 145 B.C., they were annexed by Menander who extended his sway up to the Ravi and raided even across it. His empire was a congeries of semi-independent principalities under Antimachus II, Polyxenus, Epander and others. Hence, after his death in course of some northern campaign in 129-28 B. C., a scramble overtook his kingdom out of which Anlialkides emerged triumphant in West Panjab and Apollodatus rose to power in the Ravi region.
In this chaos of kings and their struggles the Shaka chief Maues (c. 48-33 B.C.) occupied the Svat Valley and the Hazara country, took possession of Takshasila and the Panjab and swept up to Mathura in the Gangetic Valley. He appointed his satraps in various parts of this region, but soon they became virtually independent styling themselves mahakshatrapas, a title which replaced rajatiraja assumed by Maues.
In this chaos the Parthians or Pahlavas, particularly Gondophares, conquered the Panjab and, in alliance with the Kushana chief Kujula Kadphises, liquidated the Greeks who tried to raise their heads under Hermaeus.
Soon afterwards this Kushana ruler occupied the region to the south of the Hindukush including Gandhara and parts of Kashmira, called Kipin, and his successor Wima Kadphises consolidated his hold over the Panjab supplanting the Pahlava prince Pakores.
[p.99]: The next ruler Kanishka, whose date of accession was between 78 A.D. and 144 A D., was a great conqueror exercising sway over a vast region extending from Khwarazm and the Tarim basin to the Deccan in the south and Magadha in the east. His successors Vashiska, Huvishka and Vasudeva I maintained their hold over the Panjab, but the Sassanids threatened them in the West and the native people uprooted them in the eastern region. The later Kushana Kings, Vasudeva II, Kanishka II and Vasudeva III and their feudatories, the Shakas, Shiladas and Gadaharas, had shrunk to insignificant position as a result of these pressures from these peoples.
Social and cultural life during foreign domination
[p.99]: This period of foreign domination from the end of the second century B. C. to the end of the third century A. D. was marked by significant changes in the social and cultural life of the Panjab. The rise of world trade, consequent on the growth of the empires of China and Rome, led to the progress of a bourgeois class professing a syncretic religion and leading an affluent life. It also stimulated the development of agriculture, industry and technology and promoted the growth of private property. But it also changed the life of the common man as is clear from the view that that age was one of decadence and degradation. Let us study some features of this historical process.
As a result of the acquisitive attitude of the Parthians, trade between China and the West began to pass through the Panjab adding to its richness and prosperity. Besides transit trade, terminal trade gave a fillip to local industry and technology. Indian steel found such a market in Rome that the emperor Marcus Aurelius had to impose an import tax on it. Takshashila made quality steel through the process called cementation or combining wrought iron with the requisite quantity of carbon (John Marshall, Taxila, Vol. II p. 535).
Besides iron, copper, zinc, bronze and brass and goods made of them were exported from India overseas. Finds from Takshashila indicate that the techniques of hammering, rivetting, soldering, casting in the cire perdue process and repousse work were employed in working these metals. The art of jewelry also reached a high standard of workmanship synthesizing European, West Asian and Indian elements. Textiles of various sorts, like monache, molochine and sagmatogene of western India, had a good-market abroad. The list of artisans and their guilds in the Milindapanho and the Mahavastu show a rapid proliferation of
[p.100]: crafts and industries of varied types. Important cities, like Sialkot, having separate markets for these goods, reflected the many sided industrial activity of those times.
Industrial advance went hand in hand with agricultural and horticultural development. The law that land belongs to him who clears it gave an incentive to large scale reclamation. The insistence on title besides possession strengthened the system of private property in land.
That the lands on the banks of rivers were widely brought under the plough is manifest from the description of Yugakshaya in the Vanaparvan of the Mahabharata, which reflects the conditions of that age (Sarittireṣu kuddālayirvāpaiṣyanti cauṣadhih - Mahabharata, III, 190, 23).
Even lowlands, pastures and ponds were cultivated and milch cows and young calves were yoked (Nimne kṛṣim kariṣyanti yokṣyanti dhuri dhenukāḥ. Ekahāyanavat- sānśca yojayiṣanti mānavāḥ -Ibid., III, 190, 27).
Barley and wheat were the staple crops (Ibid., III, 190, 44) though new plants, fruits and vegetables, like pistachio (akṣota), walnut (pārasi), pomegranate (dādima), coriander (kustumburu), shallot (melecchakanda), garlic (laṡuna), onion (tandula), asafoetida (hingu), oakgalls (mājuphala), cummin (jira), almond (vātāma), watermelon (tarambuja), carrot (yavana), peach (cināni), apricot (cinarājaputra), were also introduced from Iran and China.
The commercialization of agriculture is indicated by the remark of the Mahabharata (III, 190, 52) that all regions would trade in foodstuffs (aṭṭaṡāla janapadāh). The expansion of agriculture can be gathered from the interest in irrigation an idea of which can be had from the numerous tanks and reservoirs built by pious men and referred to in inscriptions.
The above developments brought in a money economy of an international character symbolized by a gold currency. The Greeks were the first to introduce die-struck coins with portraits in India. Menander’s coins suggest a flourishing economy. Lamotte thinks that he received the support of an urban bourgeoisie that was more interested in trade than in politics (E. Lamotte, Historie du Bouddh- imie Indien, p. 462). But after him internecine troubles presaged, economic decline as is clear from the cessation of good coins.
The coming of the Kushanas signified the return to gold currency which was based on Roman patterns and standards. The Kushana gold dināra of 123.3. grains corresponded to the Roman aurei of the pre-reform period. Its ratio to silver coins 1:12 was the same as between these two precious metals in the Roman world (C. H. V.
[p.101]: Sutherland, Gold, p. 99). Robert Gobi thinks that the Parthian war of Trajan synchronized with the Kushana conquest of the Panjab and that subsequently the liaison between the Roman and Kushana empires was quite close (R. Gobi, ‘Roman Patterns for Kushana coins’, A. S. Altekar Commemoration Volume, Journal of the Numismatic Society of India, Vol. XXII (1960), p. 90). Recently a hoard of Kushana coins has been discovered in a very old monastery in northern Ethiopia which suggests that the Kusanas entered into some commercial arrangement with the Axumites probably as a measure against the policies of Rome (D. Mathews, ‘The Monastery of Debra Damo’, Archaeologia, Voi. XCVII (1959) p. 53). All these data indicate that the people of the Kushana empire, including those of the Panjab, cultivated an international outlook as a result of commercial and industrial progress.
Impact on religious belief
[p.101]: The hall-mark of the aforesaid developments was a syncretic approach to religion implicit in the tenets of Mahayana Buddhism. Consequently Zeus Ombrios or Jupiter Pluvius was identified with Indra, the concept of Artemis mixed with that of Anāhitā or Nanaia and the cult of Mithra became one with that of Helios or Apollo or Surya and the eight Magas of Iran emerged as the eight Buddhas in the art of Bamiyan. The worship of Graeco-Roman goddesses like Pallas (Apalā), Irene (Airāṇi), Artemis (Missakesi) and Selene (Ṡālimālini) became popular under Indian names (Aṅgavijjā ed. Muni Puṇyavijaya, p. 69) ; the cities of Nikaia and Boukephala were renamed as Adirajya and Bhadrashva and brought into relation with the legendary biography of Mahāsammata (Gilgit Manuscripts, III, 1, p.3) and the corporeal relics of Buddha became more than commemorative pieces and began to be regarded as living breathing beings (praṇasameta) in the presence of which offerings of food and drink were made (Shinkot Reliquary Inscription, Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXIV (1937) pp. 1-7). The cult of Puja with the object of lengthening of life and increase of strength and promotion of prosperity and protection of children from epidemics became the dominant feature of religion (Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. II, pp. 28, 145, 77, 1 14, 137, 141, 127).
The change in religious belief is manifest from the remark of the Mahabharata (III, 190. 67) that the earth would be full of eḍukas or jālūkas or graves or burials of saints and bodhisattvas, which the people will worship, in place of the temples of gods. The antinomian, luxurious and sensualist leaning of the people is implicit
[p.102]: in the remark that they would be debauchees and drunkards (III, 190, 68). The art of this period, especially that of the Gandhara school, is an index to the mentality of the people. In the said environment the heroic tradition took a new turn and assumed a religious form. Those, who distinguished themselves in the field of sacrifice and service of others, ranked as heroes and numerous traditions were woven round them.
At Pushkalavati (Charsadda) Shibi was believed to have donated his eyes to a beggar.
At Varshapura (Shahbazgarhi) Vishvamitra was known to have given his kingdom, white elephant, wife and children to a greedy Brahmana.
At Mangalapura (Manglor) Kshantivadin was stated to have suffered the blows of King Kali without making sound by way of complaint.
At Hi-lo or Hidda (Ilam on the border of Swat and Buner) a young Brahmana was said to have jumped from the top of a tree to hear a verse of the law.
At Mahavana (Sunigram) the king Sarvada was reputed to have sold himself and given away the price he fetched to the beggars when he had disposed of everything he had by way of charity.
At Masurasangharama (Gumbatai near Toursak in the Buner) one Dharmarāta was held to have transcribed the sacred text on his skin with the pen of his bone and ink of his blood.
In the monastery of Sarpauṣadhi in the Valley of Saniraja (Adinzai) Indra was known to have taken the form of a serpent to save the people from famine and pestilence whereas another serpent brought water from a rock.
At Takshashila (Taxila) the king Chandrakumara was said to have cut his head to give to a Brahmana Raudraksa and, on the upper Indus, a prince Mahasattva offered his body to a hungry tigress.
At Rohitaka (Rohtak) the king Mitrabala was trusted to have nourished five Yakshas with his own blood.
These and many other similar legends, spread over and associated with numerous localities in the Panjab and the North-West, demonstrate how the heroic tradition had struck root in the domain of philanthropy, sacrifice and virtue under the spell of Buddhist religion. Militarism and pacifism both were equally germane to it.
Impact on literature
[p.102]: But though the people of the Panjab developed a cosmopolitan outlook and an ethics of philanthropy and sacrifice and also experienced the heyday of economic growth and material prosperity, the literature of that time depicts this age as one of grave degeneration and misery. Buddhism is said to have flourished in it, but an old tradition points to its decline 500 years after the
[p.103]: Buddha. The Mahāsannipātasūtra and the Mahāmāyāsūtra state that the saddharma would last for 500 years and the pratirūpaka for 1000 years. A coalition of foreign kings would carry fire and sword in the country, massacring the monks, destroying the monasteries and burning the sacred texts, till a king of Kaushambi would drive them off and relieve the people. But by that time so much laxity would have seized the monks that they would neglect the discipline and ignore the law. The Vibhasha calls these foreign kings dasyu mleccha (Ta-siu Mi-li-tcho) and says that they would come from the West, pillaging throughout their march, and reach the East. At last a king of the East would repel and kill them. He would then convene an assembly of monks at Kaushambi but a decadence would come over them. The Kātyāyanapanpṛccha states that the invasion, resulting in the decline of the true law (saddharma) would be led by three kings of Ta-ts'in (Roman World), Po-lo (Pahlava) and Ngan-si (Parthava). The Ashokavadāna names these three kings as She-kiu (Shaka), Yen-wou-na (Yavana) and Po-lo-jao (Pahlava). The Samyuktāgama raises their number to four, that is to say, She-kia (Shaka), Ye-p'an-na (Yavana), Po-Jo-p'o (Pahlava) and Teou-sha-lo (Tushara or Tukhara).
The Chandragarbhasutra combines the Saka with the Huna under the name Shakuna (Shan-yi She-kia). These references show that the Buddhists regarded the period from the irruption of the Bactrian Greeks to the inroads of the Hunas as one of decline and decadence of their religion. It is wrong to say that they hailed the domination of the Bactrian Greeks, Shakas, Pahlavas and Kushanas as the harbinger of prosperity and progress. In their eyes its character was just the reverse of this view.
If the Buddhists denounced this age as one of decline and decadence, the Brahmanas also condemned it as that of utter degeneration and decrepitude. This is clear from the description of yugakṣaya (युगक्षय) (the decadence of the age) in the Vanaparvan of the Mahabharata. There it is stated that the world will be dominated by the mlecchas (mlecchabhūtam jagat sarvam) (III, 190, 29, 38) or foreigners, social distinctions will be blurred, vocational discipline would disappear and mankind would be an amorphous mass of dissentient elements (Brāhmanāh kshatriyā vaishyā na ṡiṣyanti janādhipa. Ekavarṇastadā loko bhaviṣyati yugakṣaye) (III, 190, 42). There was a furious dash and grab (hasto hastam parimuṣet), father
[p.104]: and son will forget their respective duties, teacher and pupil will ignore their code of conduct, husband and wife will be licentious, and the whole structure of values will totter and tumble down (III, 190, 38, 43, 45, 47, 50, 53). Aping the foreigners (mlecchas), the people will give up the inhibitions of food and drink and will eat from one plate in common (ekāhāryam yugam sarvam) (III, 190, 41). This pammixia and promiscuity, masquerading as cosmopolitanism and egalitarianism and bolstering rationalism and ratiocination (hetuvāda), will, indeed, be an anarchy of values encasing disorder and disturbance (III, 190, 74).
Thus picture of social disequilibrium unmistakably depicts the conditions under foreign rule lasting from the first century B. C. to the third century A.D.
Exploitation
[p.104]: The significant fact that both Buddhists and Brahmanas joined to denounce this period shows that they regarded it as an unmitigated evil inasmuch as the people were unhappy and scared in it. The reason was that tyranny, greed and grab reached their high watermark. The bourgeois class, traders and merchants, deceived, fleeced and exploited the people through commercial transactions (Krayavikrayakale ca sarvah sarvasya vancanam. Yugānte bharatashrestha vittalobhāt kariṣyati) (III, 190, 54).
Out of pugnacious acquisitiveness these men misappropriated, squeezed and coaxed money from all sections of the people, not sparing even the wealth of the widows, disabled and destitutes (III, 190, 30), reducing, all of them to acute misery and anguish (III, 190, 58). The burden of taxes and corvee, levied by the rulers, crushed the people compelling them to leave their home and hearth (Nirvvisheṣa janapadastathā viṣṭikararditah , Ashramānupalapaṣyanti phalamulopajivinah) (III, 190, 73).
That the weight of these imposts was ordinarily unbearable for the people is manifest from the boastful declaration of Mahakshatrapa Rudradaman that he avoided saddling his subjects with kara, viṣṭi and pranaya while executing such works of public utility as the embankment of the Sudarshana lake.
The people reacted to this tyranny, cruelty and oppression by rising enmasse and overthrowing the regime of the Shaka-Kushanas. The tribes of Hariyana and East Panjab took the lead of this widespread movement giving the heroic tradition a martial and nationalist turn.
Tribes who took up the struggle against the Sakas and Kushanas
Yaudheyas
[p.104]: Foremost among the tribes, who took up the struggle against the Saka-Kushanas, were the Yaudheyas. They were akin to the Iranian tribe Yautiya, who figured in the volkerwanderung
[p.105]: of peoples which brought the Medes and Persians into Iran about the 9th-8th century B. C. Driven forward by the Medes, these people bifurcated into two wings, the right one pushing north-west- wards up to Transcaspiana and the left one wheeling towards the south-east and penetrating into the Panjab. In the sixth century B. C. their chief Vahyazdata posed a challenge before the Achaemenian emperor Darius by capturing the Kabul Valley, but was defeated by the governor of Harahvatis, Vivana.
Along with the Yautiya the warrior clans of the Hindukush region, called ‘the ten mandalas of Lohita’ in the Mahabharata (II, 27, 17) and Rohitagiriya in the Kashika (IV, 3, 91), who gave their name Roh to medieval Afghanistan, also seem to have moved cast. The name of the township of Rohitaka or Rohtak in Hariyana appears to enshrine a reminiscence of their settlement. The name of a Jat gotra Rohila also suggests that these people are connected with the ancient Rohitas or Rohs who had come to East Panjab. Subsequently they moved into Rajasthana where we come across the name Rohilladdhi in the Jodhpur inscription of Bauka. In medieval times they settled in the Transgangetic region of Uttar Pradesha which came to be known as Rohilkhand after them. That the Rohitas (Ruhilas of medieval times) moved with the Yautiya becomes clear from the existence of the settlements of both of them in the same region of Hariyana.
The Yaudheyas are mentioned with the Parshus or Persians by Panini (V, 3, 117). The Mahabharata (II, 48, 14-15) brackets them with the Sibis and Traigarttas and, at another place (VII, 159, 5), with the Adrijas,Madrakas and Malavas, and the Puranas connect them with the Ushinaras of East Panjab (F. E. Pargiter, Markandeya Purana, p. 380). Varahamihira refers to them along with the Arjunayanas, Rajanyas, Malavas etc. (Brihatsamhita, XIV,28) On the basis of their extensive coinage their history in East Panjab can be tentatively reconstructed as follows.
The earliest coins of the Yaudheyas belong to the late second and first centuries B.C. One group of them, the earliest, consists of small potin coins without their name. On the obverse of some of them a tree in railing in shown, on others the same tree is coupled to the Ujjain symbol and on the third and fourth varieties the symbol of a banner and sun are added below which is the legend mahārājasa. The second group is of coins of metal varying from potin to
[p.106]: copper. On the reverse of them there is an elephant to right with a nandipada above it and a flowing pennon behind it. The obverse has a bull before a sort of post or standard in a railing and a legend yaudheyānāmbahudhānyake. The third class consists of a single small copper coin with the legend yaudheyānām above a bull. These coins show that, when the Bactrian Greeks launched their raids to the east of the Ravi, some local chief in eastern Panjab organized the people and assumed the title of maharaja. He may have successfully withstood the onslaughts of Menander and entrenched his hold after his death. It appears that many tribes and peoples marched under his banner for which reason he did not mention any one of them. But soon the Yaudheyas of Bahudhanyaka (Hariyana) were in the ascendant among them, excelling both in military exploits and in agronomic progress, as the elephant and bull on the reverse and obverse of the coins of the second class show. These coins pointedly refer to their eminent position as a leading tribe among the peoples of eastern Panjab. As will be shown later, they collaborated with the Arjunayanas.
The coming of the Shakas and Pahlavas posed another challenge before the Yaudheyas, but they faced it squarely and bravely. The Junagarh inscription of the Saka chief Rudradaman states that they were not prone to submit being proud of their title of heroes among the Kshatriyas. (sarvakṣatrāviṣkṛtavivaṡabdajātotsekavidheyānām Yaudheyānām) (Epigraphia Indica, Vol. VIII, p. 36). Though thwarted, they continued their struggle with renewed vigour as their coins of that period indicate. The first class of these coins, consisting of one silver and many copper pieces, have the figure of the six headed generalissimo of the gods, Karttikeya, and the legend yaudheya-bhāgavata-svāmino-brahmaṇyasya (of Brahmapya or Karttikeya the divine lord of the Yaudheyas) on the observe and that of Laksmi standing on lotus between the symbols of mountain and tree with a river below on the reverse. On some varieties of these coins Karttikeya is replaced by Siva with a trident and, on others, Laksmi is substituted by a deer. The second class of coins has an incomplete legend bhanuva standing perhaps for bhanuvarmasa, between a mountain and svastika above and a snake below on the obverse and a trident and a standard each in a railing on the reverse. These coins
[p.107]: show that, faced with the menace of the Sakas, the Yaudheyas strengthened their military orientation as is clear from the adoption of the war-god Karttikeya or Siva with trident as their tutelary deity, and also perhaps their supreme ruler (J. N. Banerjea, Development of Hindu Iconography, p. 143). Inspired by him, they marched against the enemy, as he himself led the army of gods against the demons, and claimed victory over mountain, river and earth, as the figure of Laksmi, accompanied by these symbols for them, on the reverse of the coins suggests. It may be that one Bhanuvarman was one of their leaders in their heroic struggle against the Sakas.
The advent of the Kushanas gave a rebuff to the Yaudheyas, but they did not lose heart and were on a lookout for the opportune moment to strike at them. On the death of Huviska they began their offensive by capturing some of their strongholds like Naurangabad near Bamla in Hariyana. This is clear from the fact that there only the coin-moulds of Kanishka and Huvishka have been found besides numerous coin-moulds of the Yaudheyas. It appears that this mint centre was wrested by the Yaudheyas soon after the death of Huvishka for no coin-mould of Vasudeva has been found there.
In other parts of the region the Yaudheyas struggled with the Kushana monarch Vasudeva and supplanted his rule.
At village Malhana, near Sonepat, a big hoard of coins has been found in which there are some coins of Vasudeva but about one maund and thirty-seven seers of Yaudheya coins.
At Sidipur Lova, Kisrenhati, Karauntha, Bhiwani etc. also coins of Vasudeva have been discovered with those of the Yaudheyas.
At Sunet, near Ludhiana, also coin-moulds of Vasudeva are found with those of the Yaudheyas. Thus it appears that the Yaudheyas were chiefly instrumental in uprooting the rule of Vasudeva from Hariyana and eastern Panjab.
On the North-West the Sassanids exercised pressure on him as is clear from the absence of his coins at places like Surkh Kotal. As a result of these troubles he was compelled to seek succour from the Chinese and, for that purpose, offered tribute to the Wei emperor (P. Pelliot, ‘Tokharien et Koutcheen’ Journal Asiatique (1934) p. 40).
In token of their splendid victories over the Kushanas the Yaudheyas struck a new type of coins the obverse of which bears the figure of the war-god Karttikeya, standing
[p.108]: facing holding spear in right hand and placing the left one on the hip, accompanied by his peacock, and the reverse has a goddess to left with right hand raised who may probably be identified with Caṇḍamāri whom Jaina Kathas associate with them. The legend on the obverse is yaudheyagaṇasyajaya (Victory to the Yaudheya people). There are three varieties of these coins. On variety A the goddess on the reverse is alone, on variety B she has a kalasha to the left and an inverted trishula to the right, and on variety C, the kalasha is replaced by a Sankha and the inverted trishula by two snakes separated by a vertical stroke like SIS. On the obverse of variety B the legend yaudheyaganasya jaya is followed by dvi and on that of variety C it ends in tri which obviously stand for dvitiya (second) and tritiya (third) respectively. It appears that, at that time, the Yaudheya tribe consisted of three sections which maintained their identities and struck coins with their distinctive marks. The second section added the kalasha and the inverted trishula to the design on the reverse and the word dvi to the legend on the obverse, and the third section inserted the shankha and the snakes separated by the stroke in the plan of the reverse and the word tri in the legend on the obverse to distinguish themselves from the first section. But, on fundamental issues, they displayed a large measure of agreement as the common figures of Karttikeya and Candamari and the common legend indicate. It also seems that, to emphasize their solidarity as a people, they agreed to omit references to their chiefs, the Maharaja-senapatis, and mentioned instead their tribe. Thus it is clear that they devised a unique framework of integration within which they could reconcile their individualities to their unity.
The aforesaid coins show that the Yaudheyas had geared their war-machine to a high pitch of efficiency. The figure of the war-god, holding the spear in one hand and placing the other on the hip, suggests the posture of advance and offensive whereas the figure of the goddess with right arm upraised indicates the goddess of war and victory, probably Candamari, blessing the conqueror with success. The conch gives the call to war and the kalasha bespeaks complete safety and triumph. The influence of Kushana types on the said designs proves that the Kushana mint masters were employed to cast them for circulation in the areas which were under Kushana rule before the rise of the Yaudheyas. These
[p.109]: coins have been found from Delhi, Sonepat, Panipat, Hansi, Sirsa, Abohar, Bhatner, Saharanpur etc. to Depalpur, Satgarha, Ajudhan, Kahror and Multan westwards and the Kangra Valley in the north. From Khokhrakot to Ludhiana, they must have been in wide circulation. This vast extent of this currency proves that the Yaudheyas had liberated this region from the Kushanas.
The Yaudheyas marched from victory to victory in their struggle with the Kushanas, knowing no failure or rebuff. Hence in popular estimation, they were believed to be knowing the mysterious charm of victory which ensured their success at every step. The legend yaudheyānām jayamantradharāṇam on a large clay seal, found at Sunet, gives expression to this popular belief.
The modern descendants of the Yaudheyas
[p.109]: The modern descendants of the Yaudheyas are the Dahiya and Dheya Jats of Hariyana and the Juhiyas spread up to Bahawalpur and Jaisalmer, called Juhiyabar after their name. The Dahiyas carved out separate kingdoms for themselves at Maroth and Parbatsar in Rajasthana. Cunningham identified the Janjuhas or Januhas, living in the district of Potawar, between the Indus and the Jhelum, with the Yaudheyas which shows that they had spread up to West Panjab also (A. Cunningham, Later Indo-Scythians, p. 98).
Thus it is clear that the Yaudheyas were the dominant power in parts of western U.P., Delhi, Hariyana, East Panjab and parts of Rajasthana and even dashed up to West Panjab.
Under them a revival of militant Hinduism and Sanskrit language was coupled to agricultural advance and economic development.
As we have seen, the Yaudheya coins of the late second and first centuries B.C. resemble those of the Arjunayanas which not only shows their contemporaneity but also suggests their collaboration in the task of fighting the Yavanas. The coins of the Arjunayanas are of several varieties. In variety A the obverse shows a bull to left, apparently standing on a hill, and the reverse has a standing goddess, probably Lakshmi, between a linga symbol and a tree and the legend ajnāyanana. On the obverse of variety B the bull, which looks more like an elephant with uplifted trunk, is to right before a tree in railing and, on the reverse, another bull faces a linga symbol and the legend is
[p.110]: ajunayananajaya. The third variety has a ball in the obverse and a svastika with taurine symbols at the end of arms and a branch or palm leaf and the legend janayana on the inverse recalling some Yaudheya coins. These coins show that these people were devotees of Shiva and adopted his symbols of linga, and nandi on their coins. They are mentioned in the Arthashastra of Kautilya as prājjūnaka together with Gandharas and are referred to as Prārjuna and Arjunayana in the Allahabad inscription of Samudragupta. Varahamihira counts them among northern peoples.
From the findspots of coins, it can be gathered that they occupied the tract between the triangle Delhi-Jaipur-Agra, but they must have lived in Hariyana and East Panjab also as the gotra name Juna (Joon) among the Jats of this region, which is obviously reminiscent of these people, suggests.
Their very name shows that they connected themselves with the Pandava hero Arjuna.
About the same time the Agreya or Agravalas of Agrodaka, modern Agroha in Hariyana, also issued their coins the obverse of which shows a tree in railing and the reverse a bull or a lion. The legend on them reads as agodakā agāca janapadasa which refers to the Agreya community of Agroha. It is noteworthy that up to the sixteenth century the Agreyas or Agravalas were counted among the martial classes as a reference in the Padmāvat of Jayasi (42, 503, 3-4 ed. V.S. Agrawala) shows. (Khatri o pancabān baghele. Agarwal chauhan chandele, Gahanvar parihar so kuri. Milan hansa thakurai juri)
Audumbaras
[p.110]: Another People, who challenged the Yavanas in the upper part of eastern Punjab, were the Audumbaras. On the basis of the finds of their coins they may be located in the Valley of the Beas or perhaps the wider region between the upper Sutlej and the Ravi in the Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur and eastern part of Kangra districts. They are mentioned as a constituent of the Salva confederacy, the other members being Tilakhala to the south of the Beas near Hoshiarpur, Yugandhara on the Yamuna, who gave their name to modern Jagadhari, Bhulinga, living to the north-west of the Aravallis, Sharadanda, occupying the Yamuna basin areas like Patellar and Kunjpura, and Madrakara a branch of the Madras in the Rechna Doab. The Salvas settled in Rajasthana also and the town of Alwar bears their name even now. They
[p.111]: played an important part in opposing the Shakas and seem to have collaborated with the Malavas and others for that purpose.
The role of the Audumbaras in struggling with the Yavanas is manifest from their coins which fall into two or three classes. The first class consists of square copper pieces the obverse of which shows the forepart of an elephant to left and a tall tree in an enclosure and an inscription in Kharoshthi characters giving the name of the king and the reverse has the figure of a two storied domed and pillared stupa and a trident with an axe- head on the shaft with a legend in Brahmi script suggesting the reading audumbara or the king’s name. These coins reveal the names of four kings Shivadasa, Rudradasa, Mahadeva and Dharaghosha. They also show that their regal title was mahadeva. These coins reveal a unique syncretism between the Buddhist and Shaiva religions as the stupa and trident on the reverse indicate.
It appears that the Audumbara kings, who issued them, though professedly Shaivas, as their very names indicate, also carried the Buddhists with them. The use of both Kharosthi and Brahmi scripts also suggests the spirit of synthesis which animated them. The second class of Audumbara coins are of silver the obverse of which bears the figure of a bearded male with right handraised and left arm covered with deer skin, which is described in the Kharoshthi legend as that of Vishvamitra, and the reverse has the trident with axe on right and tree in enclosure on left and the Brahmi legend reading mahadevasa rana dharaghoshasa and below it odubarisa. These interesting coins show that Dharaghosha was a staunch Shaiva and treated the choleric Vedic rishi Vishvamitra was his guide and the symbol of his state. In the Rgveda (III, 53, 11), Vishvamitra is shown to be guiding the conquests of king Sudas in all directions. Later on he is said to have deserted him and gone over to the confederacy of his opponents headed by Purukutsa. By depicting him on his coins, Dharaghosha proclaimed the resurgence of aggressive and militant Brahmanism. Some other silver coins of one Bhagavata Mahadeva, who was most probably an Audumbara king, give his title rajarana or ‘king of kings’ showing that he expanded his realm over a wide region and assumed an imperial status. Obviously he repelled and supplanted Yavana rule to a considerable extent.
Afterwards the Audumbara kingdom became part of the
[p.112]: Yaudheya realm as the discovery of Yaudheya coins in Kangra region shows. Hence, in the fourth century, the Allahabad prashasti of Samudragupta made no reference to them.
Kunindas and Kuluta
[p.112]: Another people, who rose with the Audumbaras and hurled themselves against the Greeks in the first century B.C., were the Kunindas or Kulindas. The findspots of their coins show that they carved out their stale at the foot of the Siwalik hills between the Yamuna and the Sutlej and the territory between the upper courses of the Sutlej and the Beas. Some of the regions now included in Saharanpur, Karnal, Ambala, Jvalamukhi, Hamirpur and Ludhiana districts formed part of their kingdom. The leader, under whom they rose, was Amoghabhuti. His silver and copper coins, of the standard of the hemidrachms of latter Greek kings, show Lakshmi standing facing on a lotus and holding a lotus in her upraised right hand, a deer between the horns of which is the cobra symbol and above it the standard or post in railing, on the obverse, and a number of symbols of mountain and river, svastika, naga and nandipada on the reverse. The legend on the obverse is in Brahmi and that on the reverse in Kharosthi. It reads as rājñah kuṇimdasya amoghabhūtisya mahaādrājasya (of the great king Amoghabhuti king of the Kunindas). In the Kharosthi version maharaja is written independently on the exergue while the idea is to give emphasis to the status of the king as maharaja. Thus it is clear that Amoghabhuti struck against Greek rule and issued his silver coinage to compete with Indo-Greek currency in the market. His name meaning ‘of unfailing prosperity’ is of a piece with the figure of the goddess of riches Lakshmi on the obverse. All this shows that Amoghabhuti ruled over a prosperous kingdom as a powerful independent king.
The Shaka and Kushana conquests overwhelmed the Kuninda kingdom, but, at the end of the second century, they hurled themselves against them also. This is clear from the copper coins issued by them on Kushana models. The obverse of them bears the figure of Shiva holding a trident and the legend bhāgavata chatreshvara-mahatmanaḥ and the reverse has the old Kuninda symbols of deer, tree, river etc. It appears that Chatreshvara was the chief under whom the Kunindas overthrew Kushana rule at the end of the second or the third century A. D. and issued the said coins. That they held fast to an oligarchic tradition is clear from
[p.113]: the absence of any kingly title with the name of their chief Chatreshvara. But they adhered to militant Shaivism the symbol of which was Shiva with trident whom they depicted on their coins. But soon they were lost in the rising power of the Yaudheyas as the absence of any reference to them in the Allahabad inscription suggests.
While the Audumbaras and Kunindas were rising against the Yavanas, one Virayaśas organized the people of the Kulu Valley, the Kulutas, and established an independent state with its own coins. The obverse of these coins has a wheel surrounded by a circle of dots and the Brahmi legend virayaśasya rajña kulūtasya and the reverse bears the symbols of mountain, river, svastika, naga and nandipada, like the Kuninda coins, and a Kharohthi lenged raña. It appears that the Kauluta king Virayaśas collaborated with the Kuninda king Amoghabhuti in striking at the later Indo-Greeks.
Traigarttas - Rajanyas - Vrishnis
[p.113]: In the Jullundur region the Traigarttas of epic fame also established their independent kingdom and issued the coins with a four-tiered stupa and traces of Kharosthi legend on the obverse and the Brahmi legend trakatajanapadasa on the reverse.
In the Hoshiarpur region the Rajanyas also asserted themselves by issuing the coins with Lakshmi facing holding lotus in right hand on the obverse and bull to left in rayed circle on the reverse. These coins are of two types one, having Kharosthi legend rajaña janapadasa and the other Brahmi legend reading the same on the obverse. These coins of the Traigarttas and Rajanyas are of the second or first century B. C. showing that these peoples successfully challenged the Indo-Greeks. Later the Shakas and Kushanas over-whelmed them and, when they began to decline, the Yaudheyas were the dominant power.
While Hariyana and East Punjab were up in arms against the Indo-Greeks, some native powers also challenged them in West Panjab at the heart of their kingdom. From Takshashila have come the coins of a people called Vaṭāsvaka showing a female figure to left with raised arm in front of a mountain and a pile of balls below on the obverse. Buhler thinks that Vaṭāsvaka means the Ashvakas of the Vāṭa division but we are not aware of any such region. It may be suggested that this term signifies a unison of the Vatadhana Brahmanas and the Ashvakayanas of the North-West who may have jointly struck at the Greek kingdom and got some success for some time. Another people to rise in northern
[p.114]: Panjab were the Vrishnis (modern Bishnoi). The obverse of their coins shows a pillar surmounted by an animal, half-lion and half-elephant, and their reverse has an elaborate wheel. The legend in Brahmi on the obverse and Kharosthi on the reverse reads vṛṣṇir (ā) jajño (raṇṇo) gaṇasya tratarasa showing that the oligarcy of these people had attained independence.
Yaudheyas emerged as the paramount and dominant power
It is clear from the above discussion that about the end of the second or the beginning of the first century B. C. the stimulus of the Indo-Greeks filliped up the growth of a large number of peoples all over the Panjab, particularly Hariyana and East Panjab, who proclaimed their independence through their coins and conveyed their heroic spirit and military valour through the motifs on them. The Yaudheyas, Arjunayanas, Agreyas, Audumbaras, Kunindas, Kaulutas, Traigarttas, Rajanyas Vatadhanas, Ashvakayanas, Vrishnis and others displayed remarkable heroism in withstanding, repulsing and overthrowing the Yavanas or Indo Greeks. But the Shakas and Pahlavas inflicted severe blows on them and included them in their empire. However, the Yaudheyas hurled them back in the second century A.D. Then the Kushanas overwhelmed them, but soon they, along with the Kunindas, rose against them and overthrew their rule.
In this process the Yaudheyas overshadowed all their compeers and contemporaries and emerged as the paramount and dominant power characterized by singular heroism and gallantry and resourcefulness all over Delhi, Hariyana, western U. P., eastern Panjab, western Rajasthana and even parts of western Panjab. In the fourth century A.D., they were credited with the legendary quality of being conversant with the magic of victory.
Shibis
[p.114]: Along with the Yaudheyas some other peoples of the Panjab, who had migrated to Rajasthana, distinguished themselves in the struggle with the Kushanas. Among them, the Shibis, settled at Madhyamika near Chitor, and the Malavas, occupying Vagarchal in the Jaipur division and extending over Ajmer-Tonk-Mewar region, are noteworthy. The coins of the Malavas fall into two groups, one with the names of individual chiefs and the other with the legend malavahaṇa jaya in Prakrit. It is well known how they started the Kṛta era, latter called Vikrama era, by defeating the Shakas in 57 B. C. But the rise of the Western Kshatrapas eclipsed their power for a while. However, at the beginning of the third century A.D., they rose under a chief Shri Soma, who celebrated the
[p.115]: Ekaṣaṣti sacrifice in 225 A.D. in token of some victory against the Sakas probably Rudrasena I (220-222 A.D.) or his younger brother Samghadaman or Dāmasena. In the early fourth century A.D. they were a powerful people in Rajasthana as the Allahabad inscription of Samudragupta shows. The above account of the struggle of the peoples of the Panjab against the Yavanas, Sakas and Kushanas, mainly reconstructed from numismatic evidence, in the absence of other records, constitutes a glorious chapter of the heroic and patriotic history of this region.