KAMBOJ HISTORY

By Vinod Kamboj on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 2:41 AM

(WIKIPEDIA)

The Kambojas (Sanskrit: कम्बोज, Kamboja; Persian: Persian: ‫کمبوہ‬, Kmbvh) were a
kshatriya tribe of Iron Age India, frequently mentioned in Sanskrit and Pali
literature.

They were an Indo-Iranian tribe situated at the boundary of the Indo-Aryans and the
Iranians, and appear to have moved from the Iranian into the Indo-Aryan sphere over
time.

The Kambojas migrated into India during the Indo-Scythian invasion from the 2nd
century BCE to 5th century CE. Their descendants controlled various principalities
in Medieval India.

Vedic period India, with the Kamboja on the northwest border

Contents

[hide]

1 Ethnicity and language

1.1 Iranian characteristics
1.2 Indo-Aryan characteristics
2 Origins
2.1 Transcaucasian Theory
3 The Kambojan State
3.1 The Aśvakas
3.2 Alexander's Conflict with the Kambojas
4 Migrations
4.1 Sri Lanka
4.2 Eastern Kambojas
5 Mauryan period
6 Modern Descendants
7 See also
8 References
9 Bibliography
10 External links

Ethnicity and language

The Kambojas were an Indo-Iranian tribe.[1]

However, the ancient Kambojas are sometimes described as Indo-Aryans[2][3][4][5] or

as having both Indian and Iranian affinities.[6][6][7][7][8][8][9][10][11] However,
most scholars now agree that the Kambojas were Iranians,[12][13][14][15] cognate
with the Indo-Scythians. The Kambojas are also described as a royal clan of the
Sakas.[16][17][18][19][20][21][22] This seems to be confirmed by the Mathura lion
capital inscriptions made by Rajuvula and by one of the Edicts of Asoka.[18][23]

Iranian characteristics

A number of ancient sources indicate links between the Kambojas and Iranian
civilization.[24]

To argue that the Kambojas were an Iranian group, recent historians have used:

References to Zoroastrian customs

References to Iranian linguistic forms used by Kambojas
References to Kamboja horsemanship
Bracketing with other non-Indic peoples
There are indications that the Kambojas spoke the Avestan language. Yaska (fl. 700
BCE), in Nirukta, contrasts the speech of the Kambojas with that of the "Aryans"
(Indo-Aryans). He says that the verb shavati, "to go", was used by the Kambojas
only, although its root, shava, was used by the Indo-Aryans.[25] There is a similar
mention of Kamboja speech inPatanjali's Mahaabhaasya from the 2nd c. BCE. He says
that the verb zav, in the sense of "going", was used only among the Kambojas, while
the same verb in the nominal form zavawas used by the Aryas in the sense of
"transformation".[26] Moreover, the word shavati, in the sense "to go", is not
found in ancient Sanskrit literature but is a common Iranian word.[27]Michael
Witzel, who concludes that the Kambojas were East Iranians speaking the Avestan
language, says that the Kamboja verb shavati represents the Younger Avestan
sauuaiti "to go". The same arguments are presented by other scholars.[13][28][29]
[30][31][32][33][34][35]

In the Mahabharata and in Pali literature, Kambojas appear in the characteristic

Iranian roles of horsemen and breeders of notable horses.[13][36][37][38][39]

The Kambojas were located partly in north-eastern Afghanistan/north-west frontiers

province of Pakistan and parts of Tajikstan.[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]

The Bhishamaparava and Shantiparava in the Mahabharata indicate that the Kambojas
were living in the north of India. Like other people of the Uttarapatha region,
they are calledmlechchas (barbarians) or asuras, lying outside the Indo-Aryan fold.
[48][49][50][51] They are repeatedly listed with other north-western, non-Vedic
people like the Yavanas, Sakas,Tusharas, Darunas, Parasikas, Hunas and Kiratas.[52]
Majjhima Nikaya reveals that in the lands of Yavanas, Kambojas and some other
frontier nations, there were only two classes of people: Aryas and Dasas, the
masters and slaves. The Arya could become Dasa and vice versa.[53] This social
organisation was completely alien to India, where a four-class social structure was
prevalent.[51]

The Buddhist commentator and scholar Buddhaghosa (2nd or 4th c. CE,[54] expressly
describes the Kambojas as having Persian affinties.[55][56][57][58][59]

Indo-Aryan characteristics

Various ancient documents mention "Kamboja" in the context of the Indo-Aryan

civilisation. Vedic sage Kamboja Aupamanyava is mentioned in the Vamsa Brahmana in
theSamaveda.[60] His father or ancestor, the sage Upamanyu, is mentioned in the
Rigveda.[2][8][41][61][62][63][64][65][66][67] He has been described as the
composer of Rigvedic Hymn 1.102.9.[65][67] These references have made various
scholars argue that the Kambojas were Indo-Aryans and that in the early Vedic times
they formed an important division of the Vedic Aryans.[2][5][41][68][69]

The Drona Parva section of the Mahabharata attests that, besides being fierce
warriors, the entire Kamboja soldiery which participated in the Kurukshetra war was
also noted as "learned people".[70]

In the Paraskara Grhya-sutram (verse 2.1.2), the Kambojas, as scholarly people, are
classed with the Vasishthas—the cultural heroes of ancient India—and were counted
amongst the six great scholarly houses of Vedic India. The social and religious
customs of the Kambojas and Vasishthas are stated to be identical.[71]

The Khadga legend related in the Shantiparva section of the Mahabharata[72]

indicates a Vedic Aryan background for the Kambojas.

In the more ancient portions of the Mahabharata, the Kambojas appear as warriors
and rulers,[56][73] and are described as "scholars of the Vedas".[74]

In the Ashtadhyayi (probably 4th century BCE), Pāṇini describes the Kamboja
janapada as "one of the fifteen powerful Kshatriya janapadas" of his times,
"inhabited and ruled by Kamboja Kshatriyas", implying that the Kambojas were both
Indo-Aryan and Kshatriya.[75][76][77][78][79][80]

The Kambojas' religious customs were Hindu.[81]

Origins

The earliest mention of the name Kamboja is in the Vamsa Brahmana (ca. 7th century
BCE).

References to the Kambojas as a tribe or kingdom appear in the Mahabharata and in

Vedanga literature beginning in the final centuries BCE. Their Kamboja Kingdoms
were located beyond Gandhara in eastern or northern Afghanistan.[82]

Within traditional Hindu cosmography the Kambojas, with the Gandharas, Yavanas
(Greeks), Madras, and Sakas are located in the Uttarapatha, the northern division
of Jambudvipa, the island of the terrestrial world.[83][84][85][86]

Some sections of the Kambojas crossed the Hindu Kush and planted Kamboja colonies
in Paropamisadae and as far as Rajauri. The Mahabharata[87] locates the Kambojas on
the near side of the Hindu Kush as neighbors to the Daradas, and the Parama-
Kambojas across the Hindu Kush as neighbors to the Rishikas (or Tukharas) of the
Ferghana region.[41][88][89]

The confederation of the Kambojas may have stretched from the valley of Rajauri in
the south-western part of Kashmir to the Hindu Kush Range; in the south–west the
borders extended probably as far as the regions of Kabul, Ghazni and Kandahar, with
the nucleus in the area north-east of the present day Kabul, between the Hindu Kush
Range and the Kunar river, including Kapisa[90][91] possibly extending from the
Kabul valleys to Kandahar.[92]

Others locate the Kambojas and the Parama-Kambojas in the areas spanning Balkh,
Badakshan, the Pamirs and Kafiristan,[93][94] or in various settlements in the wide
area lying between Punjab, Iran and Balkh.[95][96] and the Parama-Kamboja even
farther north, in the Trans-Pamirian territories comprising the Zeravshan valley,
towards the Farghana region, in theScythia of the classical writers.[3][97][98] The
mountainous region between the Oxus and Jaxartes is also suggested as the location
of the ancient Kambojas.[99]

The name Kamboja may derive from (Kam + bhuj), referring to the people of a country
known as "Kum" or "Kam". The mountainous highlands where the Jaxartes and its
confluents arise are called the highlands of the Komedes by Ptolemy. Ammianus
Marcellinus also names these mountains as Komedas.[100][101][102][103] The Kiu-mi-
to in the writings of Hiuen Tsang[104]have also been identified with the Komudha-
dvipa of the Puranic literature and the Iranian Kambojas.[105][106][107]

The two Kamboja settlements on either side of the Hindu Kush are also substantiated
from Ptolemy's Geography, which refers to the Tambyzoi located north of the Hindu
Kush on the river Oxus in Bactria,[108][109] and the Ambautai people on the
southern side of Hindukush in the Paropamisadae.[110] Scholars have identified both
the Ptolemian Tambyzoi andAmbautai with Sanskrit Kamboja.[41][109][111][112][113]
[114][115][116][117] Ptolemy also mentions a people called Khomaroi and Komoi in
Sogdiana.[118] The Ptolemian Komoi is a classical form of Kamboi (or Kamboika, from
Pali Kambojika, Sanskrit Kamboja).[119]

The Kambojas on the far side of the Hindu Kush remained essentially Iranian in
culture and religion, while those on the near side came under Indian cultural
influence.[8][120][121][122][123][124][125][126][127][128][129] Later some sections
of the Kambojas moved even farther, to Arachosia, as attested by an inscription by
Ashoka found in Kandahar.

Transcaucasian Theory

The Sanskrit term Bahlikas may have its counterpart in the Avestan term Pairikas to
cover the swarm of Eurasian and Central Asian nomads that, in the migration period
of the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, poured out of the Eurasian steppe into the Punjab
and beyond. It is also believed that these Cimmerians, Scythians, Kurus and the
Kambojas tribes contributed to the formation of the Achaemenid Empire.[130][131]

... the Kambojas and Kurus from Caucasian region north-west of Iran, took part in
the volkerwanderung of the eighth and seventh centuries BCE and then split into two
wings. (...) these two peoples who stamped their national names on the local
landscape must have been closely associated and both played some part in Achaemenid
history that had been auspicious as well as important.

—Arnold Joseph Toynbee, A Study of History[131][132][133]

The connection of the Achaemenid rulers of Persia to the Kambojas and Kurus is
reflected in the royal name Kuru and Kambujiya or Kambaujiya, which several
Achaemenean monarchs adopted. Close connections among the Kambojas (Parama-
Kambojas), the Madras (Bahlika-Madras or Uttaramadras) and the Kurus (Uttarakurus),
which tribes were all located around the Oxus in Central Asia in remote antiquity,
suggests that the Kurus, the Kambojas and the Parśus were related.[134] Kambujiya
or Kambaujiya was the name of several great Persian kings of the Achaemenid line.

The names Kamboja (Cambyses) and Kuru (Cyrus) occur as place names both in
Transcaucasia,[135][136] in Media Atrapatein, close to the northern Hindu Kush[137]
[138][139] and south of the Hindu Kush in the Indian sub-continent.[140] and the
name Cambysene or Cambyses may transliterate into Kamboja and the name Cyrus into
Kuru of the Sanskrit texts.[65] These invading Aryan Central Asian nomads may have
been Scythian tribes from the "Cyrus" (Kurosh) and "Cambyses" (Kambujiya) valleys,
around the "Cambysene" province of Armenia Major west of the Caspian Sea. The
province Cambysene got its name from the river Cambyses, which in turn got its name
from the Sanskrit word Kambhoja. In the Epitome of Strabo[141] a nation of the
Caspians is spoken of περι τὀν Καμβύσην ποταμόν (Kambysen).[65][142] Stephen of
Byzantium defines Kambysēnē as a Persian country and relates the name to the
Achaemenid king Cambyses.[143][144][145] The Greek form Kambysēnē must have been
derived from an indigenous name, corresponding to Armenian Kʿambēčan, with the
common ending -ēnē. In Georgian it is written Kambečovani, in Arabic Qambīzān.[146]
In Sanskrit it is believed to have been transliterated as Kamboja. The region
Cambysene and the rivers Cyrus and Cambyses are believed to have borne these name
since remote antiquity. The territorial name Cambysene (Gk. Kambysēnē) as well as
the river names Cyrus (Kurosh) and Cambyses (Kambujiya) occurring in Strabo's
Geography and Pliny's Histories may be related to the ethno-geographical name
Kambuja/Kamboja and Kuru of the Sanskrit texts.[65][147]
The hordes who had participated in the earlier invasion of Iran along with the
Yauteyas were identified as the Kambysene Scythians living around the Kambysene
region, near the Caucasus Mountains in ancient Armenia. Later, they became the
Kuru-Kambojas of the Sanskrit texts.[67] These Kuru-Kamboja later mixed with the
mountain-based Parsa-Xsayatia(Purush-Khattis) Iranians[148] giving rise to the
Achaemenid dynastic line of Persia.[67]

Before leaving the Caspian region for Iran and Afghanistan in the 9th and 8th
centuries BCE these people may have been living in the valleys of Cyrus and
Cambyses in Armenia. After migrating southwards to the Indian sub-continent they
split-up into two clans, Kurus and Kambojas[131][132] first settling in the Trans-
Himalayan region as Uttarakurus and Parama Kambojas before moving to regions near
the Himalayas as Kurus (south-east Punjab or Kuruksetra) and Kambojas (south-west
Kashmir and in the Kabul valley).

In the Kurukshetra War, the Kurus and Kambojas are seen as closely allied tribes.
[149] The Mahabharata attests that the Kambojas and kindred Scythian tribes like
the Sakas, Tusharasand Khasas played a prominent role in the Kurukshetra War where
they fought under the command of Sudakshina Kamboja[150] and had sided with the
Kurus.

Others remark that the names Kuru and Kamboja are of disputed etymology, but may
attach to Sanskrit Kura and Kamboja, originally Aryan heroes, whose names were
revived in a royal house in Persia. Kamboja is a geographical name, and often so is
Kuru: hence their appearance in Iranian to-day as Kur and Kamoj.[151]

The Kambojan State

The evidence in the Mahabharata and in Ptolemy's Geography distinctly supports two
Kamboja settlements.[152] The cis-Hindukush region from Nurestan up to Rajauri in
southwest Kashmir sharing borders with the Daradas and the Gandharas constituted
the Kamboja country.[153] The capital of Kamboja was probably Rajapura (modern
Rajori). The Kamboja Mahajanapada of Buddhist traditions refers to this cis-
Hindukush branch.[154]

The trans-Hindukush region constituted the Parama-Kamboja country. It included the

Pamirs and Badakhshan, sharing borders with Bactria in the west and Sogdiana in the
north.[155]The trans-Hindukush branch of the Kambojas remained culturally Iranian,
but a large section of the Kambojas of cis-Hindukush appears to have come under
Indian cultural influence.

In the Mahabharata, Kamboja is referred to as a republic or a kingless country

where elected chiefs among the people ruled the country. It refers to several Ganah
(or republics) of the Kambojas.[156] Kautiliya's Arthashastra [157] and Ashoka's
Edict No. XIII also attest that the Kambojas followed a republican constitution.
Pāṇini's Sutras[158] tend to convey that the Kamboja of Pāṇini was a "Kshatriya
monarchy", but "the special rule and the exceptional form of derivative" he gives
to denote the ruler of the Kambojas implies that the king of Kamboja was a titular
head (king consul) only.[159] A kingless country is otherwise called Arashtra or
Aratta. This name is sometimes collectively used to denote many other western
kingdoms like Madra, Kekeya and Gandhara. Another collective name denoting the
western kingdoms is Bahika ( Vahika, Vahlika, Bahlika or Vahika) meaning outsider.
This is to denote that their culture was outside or different from the Vedic
culture, prevailing in the Kuru, Panchala and other kingdoms of the Gangetic plain.

A clan of tribes called Kinnaras were believed to be the Kamboja horse warriors.
Kinnaras were described as "horse-headed humans". This could be an exaggeration of
their extra ordinary skill in cavalry warfare. In Kali Yuga, Kambojas had many
colonial states in central India, including the Asmaka or Aswaka of Maharashtra
state.

During the reign of Cyrus (558-530 BCE) or in the first year of Darius these
nations fell prey to the Achaemenids of Persia. Kamboja and Gandhara formed the
twentieth and richest strapy of the Achaemenid Empire. Cyrus I is said to have
destroyed the famous Kamboja city called Kapisi (modern Begram) in Paropamisade.

The Aśvakas

Main article: Aśvakas

The Kambojas were famous in ancient times for their excellent breed of horses and
as remarkable horsemen located in the Uttarapatha or north-west.[2][160][161][162]
[163][163][13][164][165]They were constituted into military sanghas and
corporations to manage their political and military affairs.[166][167] The Kamboja
cavalry offered their military services to other nations as well. There are
numerous references to Kamboja having been requisitioned as cavalry troopers in
ancient wars by outside nations.[2][168][169]

It was on account of their supreme position in horse (Ashva) culture that the
ancient Kambojas were also popularly known as Ashvakas, i.e. horsemen. Their clans
in the Kunar and Swatvalleys have been referred to as Assakenoi and Aspasioi in
classical writings, and Ashvakayanas and Ashvayanas in Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi.

The Kambojas were famous for their horses and as cavalry-men (aśva-yuddha-Kuśalah),
Aśvakas, 'horsemen', was the term popularly applied to them... The Aśvakas
inhabited Eastern Afghanistan, and were included within the more general term
Kambojas.

—K.P.Jayswal[170]

Elsewhere Kamboja is regularly mentioned as "the country of horses" (Asvanam

ayatanam), and it was perhaps this well-established reputation that won for the
horsebreeders of Bajaur and Swat the designation Aspasioi (from the Old Pali aspa)
and assakenoi (from the Sanskrit asva "horse").

—Etienne Lamotte[171][172][173][174][175][176][177]

Alexander's Conflict with the Kambojas

Main article: Alexander's Conflict with the Kambojas

Bust of Alexander in the British Museum.

The Kambojas entered into conflict with Alexander the Great as he invaded Central
Asia. The Macedonian conqueror made short shrifts of the arrangements of Darius and
after over-running the Achaemenid Empire he dashed into Afghanistan. There he
encountered incredible resistance of the Kamboja Aspasioi and Assakenoi tribes.
[178][179]

These Ashvayana and Ashvakayana clans fought the invader to a man. When worse came
to worst, even the Ashvakayana Kamboj women took up arms and joined their fighting
husbands.[180] Diodorus gives a graphic account how the Ashvakayanas conducted
themselves when faced with the sudden onslaught from Alexander:

Undismayed by the greatness of their danger, the Ashvakayanas drew their ranks
together in the form of a ring within which they placed their women and children to
guard them on all sides against their assailants. As they had now become desperate,
and by their audacity and feats of valour, made the conflict in which they closed,
hot work for the enemy—great was the astonishment and alarm which the peril of the
crisis had created. For, as the combatants were locked together fighting hand-to-
hand, death and wounds were dealt round in every variety of form. While many were
thus wounded, and not a few killed, the women, taking the arms of the fallen,
fought side by side with their men. Accordingly, some of them who had supplied
themselves with arms, did their best to cover their husbands with their shields,
while the others, who were without arms, did much to impede the enemy by flinging
themselves upon them and catching hold of their shields. The defenders, however,
after fighting desperately along with their wives, were at last overpowered by
superior numbers, and thus met a glorious death which they would have disdained to
exchange for the life of dishonour

—Diodorus[173][181]

The Ashvakas fielded 30,000 strong cavalry, 30 elephants and 20,000 infantry
against Alexander.

The Ashvayans (Aspasioi) were also good cattle breeders and agriculturists. This is
clear from the large number of bullocks, 230,000 according to Arrian, of a size and
shape superior to what the Macedonians had known, that Alexander captured from them
and decided to send to Macedonia for agriculture.[8][173][182][183][184]

Migrations

During the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE, clans of the Kambojas from north Afghanistan
in alliance the with Sakas, Pahlavas and the Yavanas entered India, spread into
Sindhu, Saurashtra, Malwa, Rajasthan, Punjab and Surasena, and set up independent
principalities in western and south-western India. Later, a branch of the same
people took Gauda and Varendra territories from the Palas and established the
Kamboja-Pala Dynasty of Bengal in Eastern India.[185][186][187][188][189][190][191]
[192]

In their advance from their original home one branch of the Kamboja allied with the
Sakas and Pahlavas, had proceeded to Sindhu, Sauvira and Saurashtra, while the
other branch, allied with the Yavanas, appears to have moved to Punjab and Uttar
Pradesh.

There are references to the hordes of the Sakas, Yavanas, Kambojas, and Pahlavas in
the Bala Kanda of the Valmiki Ramayana.[193] In these verses one may see glimpses
of the struggles of the Hindus with the invading hordes from the north-west.[5]
[194][195][196][197] The invading hordes from the north-west entered Punjab,
Sindhu, Rajasthan and Gujarat in large numbers, wrested political control of
northern India from the Indo-Aryans and established their respective kingdoms as
independent rulers in the land of the Indo-Aryans, as also attested by the
Mahabharata[198] as well as the Kalki Purana.[199] There is literary as well as
inscriptional evidence supporting the Yavana and Kamboja overlordship in Mathura in
Uttar Pradesh.[200] The royal family of the Kamuias mentioned in the Mathura Lion
Capital are believed to be linked to the royal house of Taxila in Gandhara.[201]
The Maitraka Dynasty ofSaurashtra, in all probability, belonged to the Kambojas,
who had settled down in south-western India around the beginning of the Christian
era. In the medieval era, the Kambojas are known to have seized north-west Bengal
(Gauda and Radha) from the Palas of Bengal and established their own Kamboja-Pala
Dynasty. Indian texts like Markandeya Purana,[202]Vishnu Dharmottari[203] Agni
Purana,[204] Garuda Purana,[205] Arthashastra of Barhaspatya[206] and Brhatsamhita
of Vrahamihira[207] attest Kamboja references in south-western and southern India.
[190][208] The inscriptions of the medieval rulers of Vijayanagara of southern
India also attest a Kamboja kingdom abutting on the borders of the Vijayanagara
Empire, which may indicate that there was a Kamboja kingdom near Gujarat. Some
Buddhist inscriptions found in the Pal caves, located about a mile north-west of
Mhar in Raigad district of Maharashtra, contain a reference to a chief of a Kamboj
dynasty, Prince Vishnupalita Kambhoja, as ruling in Kolaba (near Bombay) probably
around the 2nd century CE.[209]

The Sakas, Yavanas, Kambojas, Paradas, Pahlavas etc. were foreign tribes from the
west but were absorbed among the Kshatriyas in Indian population.[210]

Sri Lanka

See also: Ancient history of Sri Lanka

There are several ancient inscriptional references found in Rohana province, Sri
Lanka, belonging to the 2nd century BCE[211] which may indicate Kamboja presence in
various parts of Sri Lanka in the late centuries BCE and mention a Kamboja
Sangha[212] as well as "grand Kamboja guilds"[213] located in the island, thus
indicating that the Kambojas had also migrated to Sri Lanka before 1 CE. The
Sihalavatthu, a Pali text of about the 4th century CE, also attests a group of
people called Kambojas living in Rohana province in southern Sri Lanka.[214][215]
[216][217][218]

Eastern Kambojas

See also: Kamboja-Pala Dynasty of Bengal

A branch of Kambojas seems to have migrated eastwards towards Tibet in the wake of
Kushana (1st century) or else Huna (5th century) pressure and hence their notice in
the chronicles of Tibet ("Kam-po-tsa, Kam-po-ce, Kam-po-ji") and Nepal
(Kambojadesa).[219][220][221] The 5th century Brahma Purana mentions the Kambojas
around Pragjyotisha andTamraliptika.[222][223][224][225][226][227]

The Kambojas of ancient India are known to have been living in north-west, but in
this period (9th c AD), they are known to have been living in the north-east India
also, and very probably, it was meant Tibet.

—R.R. Diwarkar[228][229][230][231]

Later these Kambojas appear to have moved towards Assam from where they may have
invaded Bengal during the Pala Empire and wrested north-west Bengal from them.
[citation needed]The Buddhist text Sasanavamsa also attests the Kambojas in or
around Assam.[232] These Kambojas had made a first bid to conquer Bengal during the
reign of king Devapala (810–850) but were repulsed. A later attempt was successful
when they were able to deprive the Palas of the suzerainty over northern and
western Bengal and set up a Kamboja dynasty in Bengaltowards the middle of the 10th
century.[2]

Burmese chronicles refer to them as "Kampuchih".[citation needed]

Mauryan period
See also: Maurya Empire

Chandragupta Maurya's alliance with the Himalayan king Parvatka, as referred to in

the Mudrarakshas play Visakhadutta and the Jain work Parisishtaparvan, gave him an
army made up of Yavanas, Kambojas, Sakas, Kiratas, Parasikas (Persians) and
Bahlikas (Bactrians).[233] With the help of these warlike clans from the north-west
frontier, whom Justin brands as "a band of robbers", Chandragupta managed to
defeat, upon Alexander's death, the Macedonian satraps of Punjab and Afghanistan
and the Nanda ruler of Magadha, thereby laying the foundations of a powerful Maurya
Empire in northern and north-western India.

The Kambojas find prominent mention as a unit in the 3rd century BCE Edicts of
Ashoka. Rock Edict XIII tells us that the Kambojas had enjoyed autonomy under the
Mauryas.[5][13][234]The republics mentioned in Rock Edict V are the Yonas,
Kambojas, Gandharas, Nabhakas and the Nabhapamkitas. They are designated as araja.
vishaya in Rock Edict XIII, which means that they were kingless, i.e. republican
polities. In other words, the Kambojas formed a self-governing political unit under
the Maurya emperors.[235][236]

Ashoka sent missionaries to the Kambojas to convert them to Buddhism, and recorded
this fact in his Rock Edict V.[237][238][239] Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa attest that
Ashoka sent missionaries to Yona, Kashmir and Gandhara to preach among the Yonas,
Gandharas and Kambojas. The Sasanavamsa attests that a missionary went to Yonaka
country and "established Buddha's Sasana in the lands of the Kambojas and other
countries"[240] Due to the efforts of Ashoka and his envoys the Zoroastrian as well
as Hindu Kambojas appear to have embraced Buddhism in large numbers.

Modern Descendants

The Kafirs of Kafiristan (modern Nurestan) once occupied a wider region before the
pressure of events squeezed them into their present narrow valleys. They or some
earlier ethnic type on which they become superimposed, may have been the Kambhojas
and the Alinas of the Vedas whose offshoots were probably the tribes encountered by
Alexander in Kunar, Bajaur and Swat. Among the Greek writers Arrian refers to them
as Assakenoi and Aspasioi. These names are associated with the old Aryan word for
horse (asva) and that the horse's head is still recognized as a sacred symbol by
these Kafir remnants.

—The Pakistan review, 1962[241]

The Kamboj tribe of the Greater Punjab[8][65][242][243][244][245][246] and the Kom

and Kata of the Siah-Posh tribe in the Nuristan province of Afghanistan[5][247]
[248] are believed by scholars to represent some of the modern descendants of the
Kambojas. The modern Kamboj are estimated to number around 1.5 million, while other
descendants of the Kambojas have merged with other castes of the Indian sub-
continent like the Khatris, Rajputs, Jats, Arain and others.

The Kambojs, by tradition, are divided into fifty-two and eighty-four clans. The
fifty-two clans are said to be descendants of a cadet branch and the eighty-four
from the elder branch. This division is said to have originated with the younger
and elder military divisions under which the Kambojas had fought the Kurukshetra
War. Numerous clan names overlap with those of other kshatriyas and the Rajput
castes of the north-west India, suggesting that some of the kshatriya and Rajput
clans of the north-west have descended from the ancient Kambojas.[249]

Another branch of the Scythian Cambysene reached the Tibetan Plateau where they
mixed with the locals, and some Tibetans are still called Kambojas.[67]
See also

Kambojas in Indian literature

Dvaravati-Kamboja route