365bet娱乐

Kamboja [kambojah] / By Dr. D. C. Sircar; Carmichael Professor of Ancient Indian History and Culture, Calcutta University / 215-220

My article entitled 'The Land of the Kambojas' appeared in this journal, Vol. V, No. 2, July 1963, pp. 251-57. I pointed out that the Kambojas, who lived in Asoka's empire and were his subjects, could not have been inhabitants of the Pamirs, where some scholars locate the Kamboja country, since the Pamirs lay outside the Mauryan empire. It was also suggested that the Aramaic version of the Kandahar Rock Edict of Asoka was meant for the Kamboja subjects of the Maurya emperor, so that the concentration of the Kamboja population in the Maurya empire was in the region around Kandahar, which was apparently a district of Asoka's dominions. Elsewhere in the same issue of the journal (pp. 355-59), Dr. V. S. Agrawala has disagreed with me and has supported the location of the Kamboja land in the Pamirs. Unfortunately, Dr. Agrawala does not categorically state that the Kambojas were not Asoka's subjects and that they lived outside his empire or that the Pamirs formed a part of the dominions of Asoka. Consequently, much of what he has said is not really relevant while many of his statements and suggestions appear to me quite clearly wrong. In the first half of his note, Dr, Agrawala enumerates three points of discussion and these we shall take up first for our comments. 1. This point may probably be ignored since Dr. Agrawala himself admits that it is not useful for a definite location' of the Kamboja country. 1. Cf. hide raja-visavaspi Yona-Kamboyesu, etc. (Shahbazgarhi) in Rock Edict XIII.

216 puranam - PURANA [Vol. VI, No. 1 2. In Dr. Agrawala's opinion, the discovery of the Aramaic version of the Kandahar Rock Edict of Asoka does not help us in locating the land of the Kambojas, because two Aramaic inscriptions were discovered at Taxila and Laghman. He further observes that the Aramaic Edict of Asoka at Kandahar does not prove the existence of an Aramaic-knowing colony in that area during the age in question and says, "Kharosthi, Aramaic and Greek were the three scripts selected for the north-western province of Asokan empire, and no good reason can be pointed out why a particular script was chosen for a particular place." It is, however, a matter of regret that I do not agree with any of these points raised by Dr. Agrawala. In the first place, the Aramaic Edict of Asoka at Kandahar is an official record engraved on rock, so that it was undoubtedly meant for the Aramaic-knowing people of the area just as the Greek version of the Edict certainly points to the existence of Greek-knowing subjects of Asoka in the same region. If such was not the case, the very purpose for which Asoka is known to have issued his Edicts would have been defeated. In the Edicts, the Maurya emperor very often clearly states the reasons why he engraved his rescripts on Dharma on rocks, and it is well known that one of these reasons was to make his views known to his officers and subjects who, as well as those who would read them in future, were expected to follow his instructions. Secondly, the fragmentary Aramaic inscriptions from Taxila and Laghman are not definitely known to have been official records engraved on rock, while the Shahbazgarhi (Peshawar District) and Mansehra (Hazara District) Edicts in the Kharosthi script and Prakrit language would suggest that, even if there were settlements of Aramaic-knowing people in the area, the majority of Asoka's subjects in these parts, for whom the Edicts were meant, were used to Kharosthi and Prakrit and not to Greek and Aramaic. What I said is that there could have been persons knowing Greek and Aramaic outside the Kandaharegion, but that the concentration of such people in Asoka's empire was in Jan., 1964] KAMBOJA 217 the area where his Greek and Aramaic Edicts engraved on rock have been discovered. Thirdly, the reason why particular languages and scripts were chosen by Asoka for his Edicts meant for different parts of his empire is quite obvious. The emperor wanted that his Edicts should be intelligible to the majority of the local people. in 3. Dr. Agrawala says, "The Yavanas in Indian history are found in two regions, namely, at first in Bactria and secondly Gandhara and Punjab...... The yavanas in Bactria were remembered as Bahlika-yavanas as mentioned in the Brahmanda Purana... in a list of horses from that country (n:). This was the situation in the post-Alexandrian period during the period from Candragupta to Asoka. Therefore, it were the Bahlika-yavanas, to whom Asoka was referring...... The country of the Bahlika-yavanas, i.e. Bactrian Greeks, being Balkh on the south of the Oxus, Kamboja mentioned along with the yavanas could very well have been in the region of the Pamir." I am sorry that none of these statements seems to be acceptable. Firstly, the statment regarding yavana rule only in Bahlika, Gandhara and the Punjab is wrong since certain yavana kings (e.g. Hermains) are known to have ruled outside those territories. Secondly, I do not find any reference to the Bablika-yavanas or Bactrian Greeks in the expression Bahlika-yavan-odbhutah which in my opinion, means 'born in the Bahlika and yavana lands (i. e. the lands of the Bahlikas and Yavanas).' Thirdly, even if we accept that the Brahmanda Purana mentions the Bactrian Greeks, it is quite impossible to assign the reference to 'the period from Candragupta to Asoka' for the simple reason that Bactria, as is well known, never formed a part of the Maurya empire. It was at first a province of the Selucid empire and was ruled by the Greek governors of the Selucids. About the middle of the third century B. C., when Asoka was on the Maurya throne, Divodotus I, governor of Bactria, threw off the Seleucid yoke and, from that time, it 28

218 puranam - PURANA [Vol. VI., No. 1 continued to be an independent kingdom till long after the fall of the Mauryas. In his eagerness to look the Kambojas in the Pamirs Dr. Agrawala has ignored this well-known fact of history. The points raised in the latter part of Dr. Agrawala's note have not been enumerated as in the above cases. But we shall take them up one by one for the convenience of discussion. 1. Dr. Agrawala elaborately discusses the value of the evidence of Kalidasa's Raghuvamsa in locating the Kambojas in the Pamirs especially because, in my opinion, the Raghuvansa dose not prove anything at all. (a) He points out that Kalidasa takes Raghu from the land of the Parasikas to the bank of the Oxus 'without mentioning any other territory in the way' probably because 'the whole area from Sindhu to the Oxus was already included in the Gupta empire.' But, in Kalidasa's age, Parasika would mean the Sasanian empire and, in marching from the Sasanian capital on the Tigris to the Oxus, Raghu would have little to do with 'the whole area between Sindhu and the Oxus.' A more serious error in Dr. Agrawala's statement is that the Gupta empire extended only upto the Punjab and did not include the land between the Indus and the Oxus where the Kusanas were still ruling. (b) In Dr. Agrawala's opinion, Kalidasa's reference to Raghu's conflict with the Hunas on the Oxus is supported by the Meharauli pillar inscription describing the conquest of Bahlika by Candra (i.e., Candragupta II Vikramaditya) after crossing the Indus Delta. Probably he means that the former is an echo of the latter. Unfortunately the Meharauli inscription also merely describes Candra's conventional dig-vijaya or conquest of the cakravarti-ksetra, and hundreds of such conventional descriptions are noticed in the epigraphic and literary records of India. Such claims cannot be regarded as historically true.' (c) Kalidasa takes Raghu from the Parasika country in the west to the Huna land on the Oxus, which has been regarded as the northern boundary of the cakravarti-ksetra here as well as 1. See my Stud. Geog. Anc. Med. Ind., pp. 1-16, Jan., 1964] KAMBOJA 219 in the description of a conventional digvijaya attributed to the Parmara king Laksmadeva in an inscription of Vikrama 1161.' After subduing the Hunas, Raghu is said to have gone to the land of the Kambojas. In my opinion, this does not go against the location of the Kambojas to the south of the Hunas. Dr. Agrawala, however, says, "The whole description of Kalidasa would become topsy-turvy if Kamboja is placed in the region of Kandahar, for Raghu in that case would have to return southward and thus would be placed in an almost impossible geographical position to make an attempt on the Himalayas." But Raghu went by the land route from the Northern Konkan to the Sasanian kingdom through Baluchistan and Makru and thence to the Oxus valley. His advance from the Huna land to the Kamboja country can therefore by no means be called a "return." Again, the ranges of hills and mountains in Afghanistan and its neighbourhood formed parts of the Himalaya according to the ancient Indian conception of the varsa-parvata. I therefore see no difficulty at all if Raghu moved towards the south from the Oxus valley and then, after subduing the Kambojas in Southern Afghanistan, reached the Indus valley through the Khyber Pass and moved towards the north along the Indus. Dr. Agrawala should not have ignored the very significant fact that Kalidasa locates the Kambojas on the plains and not on the Himalaya while the Pamirs are in the Himalaya (d) More important than the above is the fact that, even if the Kambojas lived in the Pamirs in the 4th or 5th century A. D. when Kalidasa is now generally supposed to have flourished how does it prove that Southern Afghanistan was not their principal homeland nearly seven centuries earlier during the days of Asoka? We know that the Turuskas are located in India by the medieval authors. It certainly does not prove that they lived in this country in pre-christian times. (2) Dr. Agrawala refers to Yaska's statement that the root sava meaning 'to go' is used only in the language of the 1. See Bhandarkar's List, p. 27, note 8. 2. Cf. my Suc. Sat., pp. 325-26.

220 puranam - PURANA [Vol. VI., No. 1 Kambojas as well as to the view that the root is still current in the Ghalcha dialect of the Pamirs. But, even accepting that the present Ghalcha dialect is the only language using sava in the sense of 'to go', does it prove that the ancestors of the modern Ghalcha-speaking people were inhabitants of the Pamirs more than two millennia ago when Asoka flourished in the third century B. C.? On the face of it, the evidence is at best problematical. (3) In an attempt to show that there was no space for the Kambojas in Southern Afghanistan, Dr. Agrawala unnecessarily mentions Darva, Abhisara, Urasa, Gandhara, Kapisi, Bablika, Aparita and Darada, none of which he locates in Southern Afghanistan. He then locates the Harahuraka, Jaguda and Ramatha countries about the Kandahar area. Unfortunately he does not prove that the said peoples lived in Southern Afghanistan during the age of Asoka. As a matter of fact, apart from the uncertainty regarding the location of the Harahurakas and Ramathas, the three peoples are known only from records which are many centuries later than Asoka's time. We may repeat here the question about the Turuskas already cited above. Moreover, even if the Harahurakas, Jagudas and Ramathas lived in Southern Afghanistan in the third century B.C., is it possible to prove that no other people then lived in that area? 4. Dr. Agrawala seems to hold that two routes, one starting from Dvaravati and another from Tamralipti met at Bablika and thence the joint route entered Kamboja. This is partly based on imagination. What I meant is that the mention of Kamboja and Gandhara in the list of sixteen big states flourishing in the age of the Buddha and of Yavana, Kamboja and Gandhara as people living in the north western districts of Asoka's empire would suggest that the Kamboja capital was connected by road with the headquarters of Gandhara in the RawalpindiPeshawar region and that the Kamboja country was nearer Gandhara and more easily accessible from it than the distant and inaccessible Pamirs were.