DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

248 NEW TRIBES AND KINGDOMS [8.1
the south and Kusanas in the north, as it would have done, had it simply
been a matter of overthrowing kingdoms based upon unresisting
villages. Numerous local dynasties (DKA. 72-3), also under the
stimulus of trade sprong up in portions that had been wilderness or
undeveloped territory. At least four Nagas became kings. The seven
Gardabhilas seem, from the termination, to have been Bhils, a tribe
whose remnants have yet to move completely out of the food-gathering
stage. The thirteen Pusyamitras (or Puspamitras) are known only by
their generic name ; the Hunas and Harahunas were apparently White
Huns (Ephthalites). Skandagupta crushed the former tribe towards
the middle of the 5th century, but had greater difficulty with the latter.
The (ten) Abhlra kings stern from the tribal invaders who developed
into the modern Ahir pastoral caste. Abhira kings and generals are
attested by inscriptions (Luders 1137; 963). The tribe (Mbh. 2.29.9)
decayed into fragments, each in its own hamlet, tending their own
cattle. Its mark is visible in U.P. Ahir villages, the endo-gamous Ahir
subdivisions in so many unrelated castes (Ent.
l.xii,34,263,313,368,2.245,275 &c.; perhaps 1.264,2.406 also), and the
Abhiri usage in theatrical Pnakrit. With these arose some tribes like
the Yaudheyas, ‘exterminated’ by Rudra-daroan, yet able to strike their
own coins two centuries or more later. The modern Johiyas of
Bahawalpur, on the right bank of the Sutlej, seem to be their
descendants. At the same time, the extreme south produced three
kingdoms : the Cera in Mala-bar, Pandya at the tip of the peninsula, and
Cola on the southeastern coast. By the second century A. D., they had
village settlements, wars, brahmin priests, their own poetry (the Sangam
period), and Buddhist monastries. Any fresh ‘universal empire’
would henceforth necessarily have had to make conquests of a type
entirely different from the Mauryan.
This welter of contending tribes, kings, invaders proves that
new villages yielded a first surplus that could support raiding armies.
It made the possessors of those villages still more ambitious. At times,
there also came into existence new tribes, perhaps displaced from older
homes, or formed out of diverse elements, but now become foodproducing
ganas. Among these the Malava gana founded an era,
apparently the same as the Vikrama or the krta era beginning in 57 B. c.,