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The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations

Hukum Singh Panwar (Pauria)

Manthan Publications, Rohtak. ISBN 81-85235-22-8

Chapter VIII:The Scythic origin of the Jats

(An Ethnological Study)
Re-appraisal of the Theory

The theory of the Scythic origin of he Jats is not a terra incognita. During the middle of the 19th century the study of the Jats, as an ethnic group by itself, invited the attention of the European ethnologists who served in India. Later, In the first quarter of the 20th Century, the subject caught the imagination of the native as well as foreign scholars who may be grouped as the exponents of the theory and as the revivalists of it. Early advocates of this theory started from the assumption that Scythians were foreign invaders and were distinct from Aryans. This assumption has caused a lot of confusion among those who trace Jat ancestry to the Scythians, because it would make them non-Aryans while there were strong reasons to believe that they were Aryans. This factor has resulted in a big sea-saw in the fate of this theory which has dipped and surfaced repeatedly as a result thereof.

The pioneers to identify Jats with Scythians

The pioneer scholar to identify the Jats with the Scythic Getae was Father Monserate1 (1536-1600 A.D.) a Jesuit at the court of Akbar. The writers considered as the main exponents and adherents of the theory, however, are James Tod, Alexander Cunningham and Vincent Smith whereas Balfour, Denzil Ibbetson, Elphinstone, Bingley, Baden Powell, Elliot, Jackson, Waddel, Campbell, Hewitt and Trevaskis are their loyal adherents. The scholars whom we can revivalists include Arnold Toynbee, Calvin Kephart, Ujagar Singh Mahil and Satya Shrava. Prof. K.R. Qanungo happened to be the main critic of the theory, but ultimately he, too, seemed to have swung towards the revivalists. S. Har Iqbal Singh Sara is the latest and the most vigorous writer to re-animate this theory.


From 4th century B.C. to 7th century A.D. the whole of the north western India was subjected to successive invasions by the Greeks and by central Asian nomadic races; Viz., Sakas, Parthians, Yueh Chih, Kushanas an Hunas or Epthalites. Notwithstanding their different nomenclatures, all these invaders, except the Greeks, are collectively called Scythians by ethnographers and historians, native as well as


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foreign, and are generally regarded as foreigners who intruded into India. Tod, Cunningham and Smith invariably agree on the Scythian origin of the Jats as a whole but they differ in their opinion as to which particular horde they are connected with. To Bhandarkar2 also they are the descendents of Scythians.

James Tod3 asserts that "the Jats of India, the Goths of the Roman Empire and the Juts of Jutland are kith and kin. He also opines that the sound of the name Jat suggests similarity with that of Getae, Yuti and Yatha of the Oxus region. He further holds that "a small nation of Thrace", known to Herodotus as Getae, "probably migrated to India where they ere called Indo-Scythians". Cunningham4 identifies "the Jats with the Zanthi of Strabo and the Jatii or Iatii of Pliny and Ptolemy, who probably entered the Panjab from their home on the Oxus about a century before Christ. They seemed to have first occupied the Indus Valley as far down as Sindh and then spread into the Panjab proper".


The third great champion of the theory is Vincent Smith. He5 asserts that "when the numerous Bala, Indo-Scythian, Khizar and Hun tribes (of the sixth century A.D. invaders) had settled in India,the leading military and princely houses were accepted as Rajputs, while those who took to agriculture became Jats and the cattle-breeders were known as Gujars". Bagchi6 opines that the Ephthalite invasion also brought in its train the Gujars and the Jats.

All the three afore-mentioned ardent adherents7 of the theory seem to have vied with one another in propagating the theory in India as well as abroad. Prof. Qanungo8 however, considers the Jats as the descendents of the Kushanas whose famous ruler in India was Kanishka". As noted above, he was earlier a staunch critic of the theory but later (1960) he supported the claim of Elliot, Jackson and Campbell as indisputable. Cunningham9 and Smith agree on the Scythic origin of the Jats, but to the former Rajputs are from the original Aryan stock, and the latter is more prone to connect the Jats, Rajputs and Gujars with the Huns. Besides him, S.C. Ray10 also considers the Jats as belonging to the Huns. However, it may also be noted that to Cunningham11 the original habitat of the Jats was on the Oxus between Bactria, Hyrcania and Khorasmia, a fertile region irrigated from the Margus river which was named as Zotale or Yothale also by Pliny. The


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The basic assumption of all these writers was that Scythians were a race different from the Aryans, that they were foreign to the Indian soil and that they had come to India from outside as invaders.

The people of Kent and Jats from Jutland

The theory, though considered "fanciful", yet. "cast a mighty magic upon several generations of scholars 11a," So much so, that when, after the annexation of Panjab, Maharaja Dalip Singh was deported to England, his friend, Col. Sleeman, a former political officer-wrote to the Maharaja that he (Dalip Singh), being a Jat, was going to live among his own people in Kent who are also Jats from Jutland12. That the people of Kent are Jats from Jutland is also asserted by Tod when he says that "The Jut brothers Hengist and Horsa, led a colony from Jutland and founded the Kingdom of Kent (Canthi 'a coaste' in Sanskrit as Kontha in Gothic and Kantha in Jatu dialects). The laws they there introduced, more especially the still prevailing one of gavel kind (were alone the sons share equally the ancestral property like the Jats of Haryana & Panjab), are purely Scythic13". Does not the customary law of the British and Indian Jats remind us of its primary enforcement by their fore-most alleged forefather, Yayati (infra) who divided his kingdom equally among his five supposed sons? Stamped with the hall-mark of approval of the most eminent British scholars and their Indian followers, the theory rapidly gained popularity throughout the country, especially with the Jats; and the principle of the similarity of the sound of the names of people, though separated by time and space, seems to have been accepted by all, including Waddell, as valid ground for determining a common origin of these people, Waddell, in addition, supports it on archaeological and numismatical grounds.

Evidences against the Indo-Scythian origin of Jats

Nevertheless with the advent of the 20th century, the nine day's wonder of the theory seemed to be on the wane. he Indo-Scythic origin of the Jats was under heavy fire. Investigations in the field of philology, anthropology and history armed the critics like Trump and Beames, Miller and Grierson, Risley and Russell. Elliot and Haddon, Havell and Nesfield, C.V. Vaidya and Vidyalankar, Qanungo and Deshraj, Y.P. Shastri and Ram Pande, etc. to controvert the theory vehemently.


The first assault came from the famous philologists, viz. Griesrson14, Trump and Beames. They strongly claimed a pure Indo-Aryan descent for the Jats. Trump and Beames15 vigorously advocated that "both in consideration of their physical type and language, which has been


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authoritatively pronounced as a pure dialect of Hindi without the slightest trace of Scythian, the Jats are the pure descendents of the Aryans;" and the learned scholars further asserted that the theory on the Aryan origin of the Jats,if it is to be thrown at all,must have stronger arguments directed against it than any that have yet been adduced, physical type and language are considerations which are not to be set aside by merely verbal resemblance when the words come to us mingled beyond recognition in Greek and Chinese". These scholars violently disagree with the exponents of the Scythic origin of Jats, but share with them the belief that Scythians were non-Aryan foreigners. Consequently they seem to argue, that these non-Aryan Scythians could not have been the forefathers of the Jats who were of Aryan descent.

The above argument, is as valuable as it is ingenious, but it was silenced and sealed by the progressing science of ethnology with its axiom, contributed to it by Cuno16, that "Language is neither the proof of a race nor is a race coextensive wiih1anguage which is stable whereas race is persistent." Cuno's small pamphlet demolished Penka's passionate pleading for the German origin of the Aryans on linguistic basis and in India his dictum did away with the advocacy of the giants on philology advanced in strengthening the Scythic origin Of the Jats. What a a wonder! An arrow from the bow of an insignificant Bahelia smote down Lord Krishna, and in the like manner Cuno's axiom "made an end of the popular theory which had been painfully reared by some of the giants of philology."

The controversy between the ethnologists and the philologists seems to further wrap the riddle of the origin of the Jats in mystery rather than solve this enigma. The greatest weakness of their contrversy is their neglect of the anthropological evidence which is, nonethelcss, important. Posche and Penka17 opine that "anthropology, and next to it, archaeology, either supplement or correct the conclusions philology, if at all, those are disputable." Broca18 holds the view that 'the ethnic characteristics of the first order of importance are not linguistic but physical". The yoeman's service that was rendered by Posche and Penka in distingushing the Aryans from other races of Europe was rendered by Risley in distinguishing the Jats from the other races of the Indian sub-continent, considered as "an anthropologist's paradie.


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The next major assault on the theory of the Scythic origin of the Jats came from Risley19 who having measured the skulls, noses etc of- people people of India with his anthrometrical apparatus, melted down his silver in identifying the Jats, Rajputs etc. representative of the Vedic Aryans and not of the Scythians whom he, too, regarded as non-Aryan. Following him, other anthropologists argued that" the Scythian2O invaders with brachycephalic and mesocephalic heads, straight eyes, platyrhine noses, short statured and high cheek bones, could never be the progenitors of the delichocephalic, leptorhine, ?all statured, broad shouldered and fair complexioned Jats, Rajputs and Khatris, who approach most closely the Aryans21" who also are credited22 with the same physical characteristics".

The Aryan pedigree of the Jats receives unstinted support from Havell23, who asserts that "ethnographic investigations indicate that the Indo-Aryan type described in the Hindu Epic- as tall, fair-complexioned, long-headed, with narrow prominent noses, broad shoulders, long arms, thin waist like a lion, and thin legs like a deer- is now as it was in the earliest times; mostly confined to Kashmir, Punjab and Rajasthan, and represented by the Jats, Rajputs and Khatris". To ?crown all C.V. Vaidya24 restores to the Jats their pristine and prestigious Aryan lineage when he declared them to have descended from the first, i.e. the Solar race of Aryans, who originally invaded and settled in the Panjab". All these critics, like most of their predecessors, fortunately, seem to be obsessed with the idea that the Scythians were a race distinct from Aryans. This was their greatest weakness.

Existence of Jats prior to invasion of the Huns

In addition to the anthropolgoical evidence cited against the theory, there is ample historical evidence to thwart it as well as to establish the existence of the Jats prior to the invasion of the Huns etc. Vaidya and Qanungo, however, combat the assertion of the Smith and Ray who regard Jats to be descendents of the Huns. The former25 contends, rather firmly, on the authority of Chanragomin26 a gramarian of the 6th century AD. as well as on the testimony of a contemporaneous inscription of Mandasor (558 AD.) that the Jats, under command of Yashodharman Virk, not only defeated the Huns but also exterminated them from India". Consequently, we may reasonably conclude that the Juts cannot be the progeny of the Huns. Vardhman Kasika27 a Jain scholar of 12th century A.D. and Acharya Gopika28,



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according to whom the Huns were defeated by the Jats," indirectly support the contention of Vaidya. Similarly Qanungo29 , pointing to the 'traditional enmity between Jats and Rajputs,' considers it extremely dubious that "they hadd entered India," if at all they did, "at the same time as comrades and had afterwards divided into two hostile groups". He also observes that "the Rajputs wrested power from the Jats who were a ready were already wielding it in Malwa, Delhi, Bikaner and Jaisalmer prior to the invasion of the Huns on India."


History further speaks by her literary and inscriptional cards which substantially negate the feeble claim of the exponents of the Hunic origin of the Jats. K.P. Jayaswal30 attests "the existence of the Jats up to Magadha in India in the 5th century AD." B.C. Law31 likewise claims that "the Jats conquered the Gandharas in the same century'.

Presence of Jats in the Indus Valley

Their presence in the Indus Valley is fully confirmed by external sources. Hamza32 of Isfahan (893-970 AD.) and halt a century later, Firdausi33 furnish us with unimpeachable evidence that "the Iranian Emperor, Behram Gour (420-448 AD.) secured from king Sankhala34 of North India his princess in marriage besides 12000 musicians of both sexes, known as Luri Jats, or participation in an Iranian national celebration, and in lieu of their excellent performances, settled them with ex gratia grants of land, oxen and grain in a province called as Luristan after them in Iran'. Discovery of a district known as Zutt and certain villages of similar name in Luristan by the Arab geographers35 and travellers, viz, Istakhari, Ibn-Hawkal, Mukaddasi, Yakut and Mustawfi reasonably compels us to conclude that those names must have been given by the Jats who were settled in Luristan by Behram Gour in the first half of the 5th century AD.


Interestingly, Weber informs us that "the seven musical notations, passed from the Hindus to the Persians, and from these again to the Arabs, were introduced into European music by Guido d' Arezzo at the beginning of the eleventh century, Corresponding to the Indian. sa ri ga ma pa dha ni sa we have in Persian da re ni fa sa la be. Similarly he conjectures that "the word gamma, 'gameet', French gamma, which has been in use since the time of Guido d' Arezzo to express the musical scale, itself come from the equivalent Sanskrit term grama (Prakrita gamma), and so exhibits a direct trace of the Indian origin of the seven notes", (Weber, 191 4, p. 272 f.n. 315). This evidence naturally persuaded


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us to come to the irresistible conclusion that the seven Indian musical notes were introduced by the Luri or Luli Jat musicians whom Bahram Gaur took to Persia and settled them in a province known as Luristan after them, for, we know it for certain, from Panini (lVA.55-56;111.1.14,5,147;11.4.2; etc.) that the ancient art of Music and Dance had been developed as full-fledged 'Silpas' by his time in his home region i.e. the north-western India, where from Bahram Gaur picked up his entertainers.

However, De Guines36 attests that "the Jats were firmly established in Panjab in the 5th century A.D." Moreover, the discovery37 of inscriptions of the Jat rulers at various places in Rajasthan does prove that the Jats were there before the advent of the Huns and defeats the theory of the Hunic origin of the Jats, as an invention of some writers alluded to above.

Drs. Sigrid Westphal-Hellbusch and Heinz-Westphal 38 inform us about "the movements of the Jats from the Indus Valley up along the Persian Gulf as early as 2nd century A.D. in search of pastures for their cattle". This evidence undoubtedly dis-proves the descent of the Jats from the Huns who came to India as invaders in the 6th century A.D.

Ptolemy39 (63 B.C. to 23 A.D.) mentions the Zaratoi living near Jalandhar, whereas Pliny40 (23-79 A.D.) describes Geratae in the country of Amanda, identified with the Salt Ranges in Panjab. As the names of Zaratoi and Geretae suggest, they are undoubtedly the Jartas of the Indian texts41, who defeated42 the Huns in India at a later date. These people are also identified with the Jats43. If this identity is correct, as is firmly believed by some historians of the Jats, it does prove the presence of the Jats in Panjab in the contemporary period of the above cited Greek and Roman historians, and also of the Scythic invaders.


It is extremely interesting to note the remarks of Diodorus Siculus44 (60-20 B.C.) about the contemporary Indian tribes that "not even one of them was originally of foreign descent and all were evidently indigenous to India where from the have spread out."

Pliny45 opines that "they are continuing from the past." The views of Megasthenes, who was, in his capacity of an ambassador at the court of Chandragupta Maurya, more familiar with the Indian people than any other foreign writer of that period, are no less significant and naturally enjoy more credibility. He46 observes that "none of the peoples inhabiting India is


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an alien and all of them are India's indigenous citizens". Even silence has a tongue if we can understand it. His contemporaneous writer Kautalya47, and prior to him Panini48, do not describe the Vahika Ayudhajivi republican tribes of Punjab and Sindh, identified49 invariably with the Jats, as of foreign origin.

The eye cannot see itself except with the help of a mirror. We have a mirror i.e., another foreign source. Let us see, what it reflects. Abu-i-Hassan Ali-bin-Mohammad-al Jili50, a native of Jilan or Gilan, keeper of the library at Jurjan for the Chief of the Dilamites, and author of the Persian version of Maimulut-Twarikh (12th century AD.), a translation of an earlier Arabic work (of 1026 AD. whic was still an earlier translation of an ancient Sanskrit text of the Mahabharata, records the internecine wars of the Jats and Meds of the Sindh valley and their joint emissary to Duryodhan requesting him for a ruler to restore peace and order in the valley'. The late professor G.C. Dwivedi51 does not give much credence to the episode. But we hold that it does possess some kernel of historical truth. Qanungo52 also holds the legend to be as a fanciful story invented by the orthodox elements to brahmanise the Jats who displayed, under impact of Buddhism, little enthusiasm in upholding the canons of orthodox religion and the rigid caste system." But neither of the learned scholars questions the existence of the Jats and Meds on the Indus. "The older the evidence, the more reliable it is". This unmistakably points to the presence of the Jats the time of Mahabharata war in 3102 B.C. 53


The formidable array of evidence against the Scythic origin of the Jats notwithstanding, we are not inclined to rule out the theory in its entirety. All the Scythian people, who entered India in the century before Christ and the White Huns, popularly known as Ephthalites, who invaded India in the 6th century AD. could not have been and were not exterminated in toto. Some of them who acquired India as their (new) home, must have been assimilated in the Indian society,and may have added some foreign element to the Jats also. This does not mean that all the Jats as a whole may be declared to have originated from them. In fact, as the evidence shows, the Jats were already there fn India before the advent of these hordes, and the reality is that India has been without any doubt and exaggeration, the officina gentium54 of the Jats since the very beginning of civilization. This contention of


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ours may appear to scholars to be more sensational than sound, but we have discussed it in detail elsewhere in the book, and we hope that our claim, as a result of our findings, will be found to be equally sound and solid.


The theory under discussion also generated the idea that the Jats are late arrivals in India and have originated from peoples who invaded India from the western and central Asiatic countries. The hypothesis was stamped with the hall-mark of approval of scholars like Tod, Cunningham and Smith. It was, therefore, accepted by our foreign lords and masters (Britishers) as gospel truth, especially because it presents a view-point that suited to them (Britishers).

Theory of Migration of Jats from west rejected

On the contrary, we have unassailable evidence which counteracts the claim of the proponents of the theory.

C.V. Vaidya55, for whom the Jats, as already noted, hail from the Solar Aryans and are the oldest of the three, viz; the Maratha, Rajputs and the Gujars, also maintains that "there is neither a scrap of historical nor inscriptional nor even numismatic evidence nor any tradition to attest the immigration of the Jats to India from the West". He further adds that "we can ascribe such theories to that unaccountable bias of the many European and native scholars to assign a foreign and Scythian origin to every fine and energetic people in India".

Rose56, also supports this view.

Prof. Qanungo also firmly asserts that "no proof has ever been adduced of any Jat migration from the west, " instead they have followed the movement of the sun. I can do no better than reproduce below what he contends in this respect:

"A great blunder committed by the enthusiastic exponents of the Indo-Scythian theory was to overlook the line of migration of the people who call themselves Jats today. The tradition of almost all the Jat clans of the Panjab points to the east or South-east-Oudh, Rajasthan and the central provinces (Madhya Pradesh) as their original home. If popular tradition counts for anything, it points to the view that they are an essentially Indo-Aryan people who have migrated from the east to the west and not Indo-Scythians who poured from the Oxus valley. Undoubtedly a certain section of the Jats migrated outside India and after several centuries were swept back from the borders of Persia to the east of the Indus. But they cannot be justly called foreign invaders on that account. The exponents of the Indo-Scythian theory must, in all

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fairness, admit that if the central Asian Getae could somehow become Jadu or Jut, by a reverse process the Indian Jadu (Or Jat) might as well degenerate into the Getae in Central Asia".57

Thakur Deshraj, Yogindra Pal Shastri and Ram Pande, who uphold the Jats as the true representatives of the Aryans, also reject the theory on similar grounds.

De Guines has clinched the issue once and for all, but his assertion, unfortunately, passed un-noticed. The origin of the Scythians, according to him58, took place in every appearance on the Indus wherefrom they spread out in all directions. This has led some eminent historians to remark that "throughout the whole of the plain to the west of the Indus; from the range of the Caucasus to the sea, the greater part of the original populations are Jats, who speak an Indian language, and who descended from the Scythian Getae59.

Waddell also deciphered the ethnic name Gut on the Indo-Surmerian seals found at Harappa and Mohanjodaro in the Indus Valley. He identifies the Guts with the Getae (Sakas) whom he considers as the ancestors of the Goths or Jats. The excavations at Mehargarh (infra) (Balochistan) also reveal Saka (Scythian) elements in its population.

Recently, Dr. Sandhya Kamble of the Archaeology Department, Deccan college, Pune (Indian Express, Sept. 9, 1992, p. 17, cols. 5-8) recovered from the excavation site at Padri in Bhavanagar district of Gujrat human figures with horned headgears similar to ones reported earlier from Kalibangan (Rajasthan), Mohanjodaro and Kot Diji (Pakistan).

The valuable findings of De Guines and Dr. Sandhya Kamble naturally lead us to conclusively decide that the Saka Tigarkhauda (Sakas with pointed head-gear, i.e. helmets) of Akhemenian, Byzantine and Greek Sources were none else but the descendents of the Sakas, as their cultural affinity warrants, of the Indus valley where from they migrated towards north-west after the desiccation of the valley or still earlier as the vanquished victims of the Rig Vedic Dasharajna wars.


The possibility can not be ruled out that the "human figures with horned headgears" of Dr.Sandhya Kamble and the Saka Tigarkhaudas of foreign writers were none else than the Visanins with horn-shaped helmets, who are the Sringala of the Harivamsa Purana (65, 15-20), the Sringin of Mahabharata (II, 47, 26) and the Visanins; of Rigveda (7, 18, 7), and who were the victims of Dasharajana wars. They might be among


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the authors of Harappan culture. They are probably survived now by the Bisain or Basain and Vasan Jats in Panjab and Pakistan. The Sringalas may now be Singala Jats and Banias.

To sum up, the disenchantment resulting from the refutation of this theory in the first quarter of the 20th century was; all the greater because of its charismatic appeal on its adumbration. The theory, undoubtedly, stood refuted and discarded, but so alluring was its charm that it continued to lure the successive generations of scholars. The inadequacy of the arguments of its supporters coupled with the ignorance of the critics of the so-called Scythian race and its branches led to its denunciation. On the other hand, the inherent truh ensconced in this theory, which could not be clearly perceived by its opponents, is so promising and prolific that it led to its acceptable resuscitation later on. The "inherent truth" is that scythians were Aryans (as we hope to aprove), who, in their sojourn in certain climes, developed certain brachycephalic characteristics. The whole confusion about the ancestry of the Jats arose from the inability of these scholars to realise that Scythians were Aryans. Jats are their descendents, but not in the sense in which the earlier theory presented them, for it looked upon Scythians as the exact opposite of what they really were, i.e. indigenous Aryans, not foreign invaders.

This confusion is best illustrated in the approach of Prof. Qanungo to this subject. The theory was rejected on anthropological grounds by him with the argument that dolicocephalic Jats cannot be the descendents of the brachycephalic Sakas (Scythians) and strongly favoured their Aryan descent. Unfortunately, in his enthusiasm to connect the Jats with the Aryans, the learned Professor paid little heed to two important facts:

  1. first, that the broad-headed element, as our observation shows, is not totally absent in the Jats of the Panjab and Sindh, and
  2. secondly, that the Scythians were also Aryans, who, having resided for a very long time in the higher altitudes of Kashmir, Western Tibet, Ladakh and the Pamir ranges developed60 brachycephaly.

Some of the critics also attached unnecessary importance to and placed undue reliance upon the science of philology in rejecting the theory. They rejected it for the wrong reasons. Their judgment was blurred and biased by the newly coined dicta and axioms of the anthropologists and linguistic of early 20th century. Their opinions were mere far-fetched


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surmises and, of course, are of no weight, for they could not develop the insights that we have developed now as a result of later investigations. Neither the stand of the early exponents of the theory nor that of its opponents is based on sound reasoning, for it starts with a faulty premise about the identity of the Scythians.

Scythians not a race

It was Calvin Kephart61 who, for the first time, declared that

"Scythian conveys only geographical sense and there was ethnically no Scythian race".

The implications of this concept were radical and far reaching, for it meant that the distinction between brachycephalic and dolichocephalic characteristics became irrelevant. If Cuno's axiom that language is no test of a race, demolished the thesis of the Scythic origin of the Jats in India and that of the Aryan origin of the German in Europe, Calvin Kephart's formulation dismissed as untenable Risleys artificial distinction between the Aryans and the Scythians, which in fact, belonged to the same race-the white race62 which later became famous as Aryan or Nordic or Causasian race. He,however, opened up new vistas for fresh approach in the study of the German Goths and Indian Jats who were also occasionally described63 as Gaut or Gat or Ghator (in plural) in India by some British scholars.


Notwithstanding the significant role played by language in the identification of common origin of peoples separated by time and space the rejection of the Scythic origin of the Jats merely on linguistic grounds is not sufficiently convincing especially when we still undoubtedly, come across the use64 of linguistic evidence as one of the tools, though not as accurate and efficacious as anthropometrical and archaeological one. I invite attention to the patent contribution of the American Universities65 to the subject. Scholars like George L. Hart Peter Edwin Hook, Colin P. Masica, David W. Mc Alpin, Franklin C. Southworth and Madhav M. Deshpande have again sharpened the linguistic toola not only to distinguish between Aryan and non-Aryan languages but also to identify and indicate the direction of the probable movements of the ancient speakers of these languages from the place of their origin. Similarly, the Russian Scholars65a like Bobojan Gufarov, E. Berzin, S. Orlova, V. Ivonov, T. Gamkrilitze, etc. are depending largely on literary and linguistic evidence as reliable tools in their identifications and migrations, of various peoples, though some of then draw on the archaeological testimnny also.


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As for the names, Jat, Jut, Getae, Goth, Got, Gaut, Gat, Gut, Zot, Zut etc. not much linguistics is involved in them except that they are spoken and written as "the phonemes of different languages and dialects of various countries dictate, otherwise their kernel apparently , as well as invariably remains the same66. Undoubtedly, these philological terms even now hold the day in their ethnic classifications.

Revival of Scythian origin theory

The theory again raised its head from its state of hibernation with a clarion call the melodious note of which brought fresh enchantment to the ethologists and historians. Scholars of the eminence of Arnold Toynbee67, Calvin Kephart68, J.F. Hewitt69, L.A. Waddell70, Buddha Prakash 71. Chandra Chakraberty 72, Satya Shrava73, Ujagar Singh Mahil74, Lt. Ram Sarup Joon 75 and B.S. Dahiya76 revived the theory with full vigour. Even Prof. Qanungo77, who was earlier the staunchest critic of the theory, favourably modified his stand and considered the claims of its exponents partly indisputable. Probably Har Iqbal Singh Sara78 is the latest revivalist who strongly upholds Scythian origins of the Jats on archaeological and cultural grounds.


The revivalists, especially the Western scholars, are no less illustrious than its original adumbraters. All the writers mentioned above, except - Kephart and Waddell, reasserted directly or indirectly the thesis of the propounders of the Scythic origin of the Jats. They also agreed on the direction (west) from which they are supposed to have entered India. Kephait79 and perhaps Waddell80 also dissented on the direction and considered the progenitors (Saka or Sacae or Scythian Getae) of the Jats to be the original inhabitants of India, wherefrom they migrated to the west in the hoary past. The territories they occupied were called Sakasthan which was known to the Greeks as Scythia where they stayed for a long time. Kephart's view brought the theory of the Scythian origin of Jats a step closer to the truth, but it still fell short of it, for the exponents as well as the revivalists, with one or two exceptions, identify the Jats with the Scythians who came to India a century before the Christian era and not with the Scythians or the far remoter period in pre-history, ignoring the fact that they were in India long before first century B.C. and that they were the inhabitants of India even during the period of the Harappan culture which predates all previous speculations about their antiquity, (as we hope to show later).


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It was Wadell who took the first step in the right direction. He81 deciphered Some words like Gut, Guti, Tax, Har, Hariasva, Mudgal, Dama or Damu and Dilipa an ancestor of Sri Rama) which he believed, were impressed, in Sanskrit language on some Indo-Sumerian seals found at Mohanjodaro and Harappa. These, according to him, belonged to the Post-vedic period. He83 identifies the Gut or Guti with Goth, Getae Sacae or Sakas (Scythians) who were,to him, the descendents of Narishyant of Vaisali84. Interestingly, perusal of the Ikshvakus' genealogies shows that Dama85 was the sonn of Narishyant and Dilipa86 was the grandson of Sagar, an ancestor of Sri Rama (Dashrathi). Unfortunately Waddell's bold opinions made little headway in the beginning in the teeth of firmly established views of the schools led by Marshal and Wheeler. However, when assertions of these scholars stood impugned, Waddell began earning recognition by Indian archaeologists87, though only partially88 . It is only now that some of them have taken full cognizance of his contribution to deciphering the Indus seals. The complimentary acknowledgments to Waddell made in this respect by Pargiter and Dr. S.R. Rao, Dr. S.M. Punekar (l984) fully confirms certain decipherments of Waddell. Punekar has decoded at least 100 Indus Seals which bear the names of earlier and Contemporary prominent Indian chefs and kings including Brahmans and Kshatriyas who played significant roles in the life of the people of Sapta Sindhu from the Rig Vedic period down to that of the Harappan Culture, and these findings, too, seem to be acceptable. Dr. S.R.Rao (The Statesman, June 5, 1993, p. 4, cols. 3-4) avers that Aryan speaking people dominated the population of the Harappan civilization and the Harrapan Language was very close to Sanskrit, in fact to the Rigvedic Sanskrit. .

The Puranas89, Pargiter90, Pandey91 Shafer92, and Pusalker93 also corroborate the descent of the Sakas from Narishyant. According to Wilson, as already noted, these very Sakas (Scythians) were the Haihayas of James Tod. Archaeological evidence and the descent of the Sakas from the Aiksvaka Aryan king Narishyant of the Solar race of Vaisali, indisputably attest that they were Aryans, and this is recognised by Kephart, C.V. Vaidya and others a so. They were expelled by Sagar to north western countries after their defeat at Ayodhya where they, in league with the Yadus, Worsted Bahu, father of Sagar, in a previous battle. We must remember that the study of


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struggle of diverse races for supremacy in a particular country attests the tyrannical practice of the victorious kings throughout ancient and medieval times. They would either entirely exterminate the enemy or remove them, especially the vanquished tribes, from their original home and settle them in some distant part of their kingdoms as punishment. They were stigmatised with unheard of opprobrious epithets which, in course of time, became synonymous with their names. This is exactly what seems to have happened in case of the Aryan tribes vanquished by the triumphant rival Aryan tribes.


These conclusions have, by now, earned wide acceptance, leading to questions about the original home and the antiquity of these tribes. It has been assumed now that they migrated to India from the Central Asian Steppes sometimes in the 2nd century B.C. while ancient Indian tradition connect them wit Vaishali as early as in the times of Sagar and ans Narishyant. These questions need to be settled as the answers may have direct bearing on the possibility of the ancient Sakas as the foreathers of the Jats.

Original home of Sakas was Sapta Sindhu

Let us list our views on the subject here before we proceed to enlarge on them. We believe that the original home of the Sakas was Sapta Sindhu (and not central Asia: that from there they pushed their way eastwards,to the Gangetic Plain; that this plain, now consisting of U.P. an Bihar, was then a vast sea from which land emerged later, and that the locations now so known came up much later, borrowing their names from the original sites.


These formulations are likely to prove startling, even shocking, to the orthodox antiquarians who regard present theories as finally settled and sacrosanct. They are likely to be dismissed as fantastic. The various components of our thesis, however, were arrived at by scholars and archaeologists, independently of each other, after solid research. We have brought them together from their scattered and divergent sources and synthesised them into a coherent theory. We are supported on our views about the submergence of present U.P. and Bihar by AC. Das's Rigvedic India and ML. Bhargava's Geography of Rigvedic Ihdia. For the status and antiquity of Ayodhya and Vaishali we rely on Bhupender Yadav, Surinder Ajnat and, above all, on the archaeological findings of H.D. Sankalia.


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We shall have occasion later to marshal evidence on these issues and on Sapta Sindhu as the original home of the Sakas. Here we may make some preliminary statements about Ayodhya and Vaisali. In connection with Ayodhya we cite Sakapura of Ceylonese Buddhist literature95", which is considered more reliable "for preserving stronger historical sense"96. According to it, the name Ayodhya given, in fifth century A.D. to a pre-Buddhist settlement called Saket97 The new name was given by Skand Gupta alias Vikramaditya (455-67 AD)98. According to Bhupinder Yadav, "there was no city of the name of Ayodhya at its present site in the Treta Yuga"99. The name Ayodha was popularized by the Valmiki Ramayana, of which the oldest manuscript dates back only to 1020 A.D. a few centuries after the new name was given to Saket.


There are, in our view, two Ayodhyas and two Vaishalis-those located originally in Sapta Sindhu and those in U.P. (Ayodhya) and Bihar (Vaishali) that arose later after these areas emerged out of the sea. To ignore these facts is to misread references to our histories ancient records. If we shed the obsession that there is no history in the Rigveda, the careful study of that book as well as that of the history and geography of the Sapta Sindhu, the home of the Rigvedic peoples) may possibly provide solutions of the problems. Interestingly, Sagar 100 and Sakas101 are mentioned in the Rigveda, and a section of the Rigvedic Aryans is said to have descended from the Sakas102, Narishyant is represented as a contemporaryl03 of Sagar in the genealogies of the Iksvaku" rulers of Ayodhya and Vaisali. The stage on which the Rigvedic Aryans had ever been playing their drama was the Sapta Sindha country upto the time of Bhagiratha104 who was the first Ikshvaku leader to have descended on and explored the Gangetic valley, which was, prior to his time, a sea known either as the Gangetic Sea or as the Arvavata or the Purvasea.

"The Sapta Saindhava country comprised roughly the northern parts of the Merath (Merrut) division and Kumaon division, the Jalandhar, the Lahore and the Rawalpindi divisions, former prince states of pre- partitioned Panjab except Bahawalpur, the Jammu and Kashmir state, the former North-West Frontier Province and the eastern parts of Afghanistan. It was, therefore, bounded by the Arvavata Sea and Tibet in the east, Turkistan in the north, the Persian


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Afghanistan and the Paravata Sea in the West, and the Sarasvata Sea and the northern Pariyatras (or Aravalis) in the South105". As the geographical data of the Rigvedi India show, obviously there was no scope for expansion of the Aryans in the east i.e. the Gangetic valley, which being submerged in the Aravavat Sea, remained cul de sac for them for a very long time, say, till the drying up or receding of the eastern sea round about 8000 B.C.106.

However, our perusal of the genealogies of the Iksvaku rulers of Ayodhya and Vaisali indicates that Bhagirath, who is accredited with bringing the Ganges to the plains of the Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal, happened to be in 45th107 generation. It means, in other words, that the prior 44 generations remained confined to the Sapta Saindhava country or might have, if at all needed, moved to the north and west but they could not have inhabited, and so did not inhabit the jungles and the unexsiccated marshes of the Gangetic Valley. Bhagiratha's ancestor, Sagar, the ruler of Ayodhya and his contemporary Narishyant, the ruler of Vaisali, were in the 41st108 generation As already described, we must remember that Sagar defeated and chastised the Sakas who were the descendents of Narishyant. The battle field where Sagar had to successfully measure his sword with his family's enemies,viz, the Yadus, Sakas etc. is said to be Ayodhya in eastern Uttar Pradesh.


But in view of the facts, that before Bhagiratha's time the Gangetic valley was uninhabitable and that Sagar and his father, Bahu, lived respectively four and five generations before Bhagiratha in Sapta Saindhava country, it is hardly conceivable and practically unworthy of belief that there existed an Ayodhya in eastern Uttar Pradesh during the reign of Sagar. It was merely a figment of imagination conceived by the Pauranics. Planting of Ayodhya at that time in the said region is as notorious faux pas as to represent king Sudas of the 53rd109 generation defeating king Yayati's alleged sons of the 7th110 generation on the Parusni river in the Dasarajna wars.

Where was Ayodhya ?

Without piling up anymore glaring discrepancies, we now address ourselves to the crucial problem i.e. where could that Ayodhya be where the Sakas, the alleged progenitors of Jats, had a dig in against king Sagar and consequently met their Waterloo?


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In fact, there was an ancient city named Ayodhya or Ayodhin Ajudhan in the Sapta Saindhava country, the original home of the Jats or that of the Rigvedic Aryans, but unluckily it was not given the attention by historians it eminently deserved. It was first of all brought to light by Nearchus111, one of the generals of Alexandar, when he undertook the return journey to Greece along the Satluj river. The name is mentioned next by Waddell112, but neither Nearchus nor Waddell gives any information about the founders of the city. Bhargaval13 merely shows this city on the map in his famous book 'Geography of the Rigvedic India'. It is, as far as we know, the Imperial Gazetteer of India 114 and also Khalid Ahmad Nizami115, the biographer of Sheikh Farid-ud-din, that inform us that the Yaudheyas (Johiyas) were,the probable builders of the city. Precisely speaking modern Pakpattan in Pakistan is Ayodhin on river Sutlej, not far from Kasur, below Ferozepur; more or less opposite Harappa116. The foundations of Lahor and Kasur are traditionally attributed respectively to Lava and Kush sons of Rama Dasharathi.These cities still exist in the neighborhood Ayodhin. Kekayi's ancestors, the Kaikayas, who derived their name from their eponymous ancestor Kaikeya, son of Sivi-Ausinar, had their capital at Girivraj,identified by Cunningham with Virjak or Jalalpur on the river Jhelum (Pakistan)116a. As is well-known Kaithal near Kurukshetra was Kapisthala, the birth-place of Hanuman, the monkey god. All this geographical evidence goes to prove conclusively that Ayodhin was the original Ayodhya.

However, diving deeper into the ocean of history we are rewarded with invaluable light, the effulgence of which dispels the fog shrouding the mystery of Ayodhya or Ayodhin just as the rising sun makes the darkness of night disappear "with its heels on its head". As the name suggests, Ayodhin must be original Ayodhya, "the invincible city", founded by the invincible Yaudheyas of yore, who remained a paramount power in (hat region for a very long time in the past before their migration to the eastern parts of the Sapta Sindhu. Alexander the Great, who stormed the Panjab like a whirlwind, is said to have meekly retraced his steps back to Greece and Mahmud Gazanavi had to flee the field of Multan incognito and returned empty-handed to his country for fear of those warriors. Just as the Sakas, so are the Yaudheyas identified with the Jats. Anyway, the pertinent question we are now confronted with is, who were the Yaudheyas? The answer is not far to


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seek. They are described at different places in the Rigveda117. We know that 16 generations before Sagar there was Usinara in the 25th generation118 in the line of Anu. Usinara had five sons namely, Nriga, Nava, Krimi, Suvrata and Sivi. The Yaudheyas119 are the descendents of Nriga in the 27th generation, or say, 14 steps before Sagar. They are also identified with the Sakas.

The City of Vaisali

I also make bold to assert that similarly a 'visaal' (big) cobveb was woven by the Pandits of history to camouflage the reality of he original Vaisali city. It is shown in northern Bihar and Cunningham identifies its ruined site with modern Basar120. The foundation of this city is attributed in the Puranas121 to king Sagar's contemporary king Narishyant's descendent, king Visala of 54th122 generation i.e. 13 steps later than (or about 250 years after) Sagar and Narishyant. We also know from the Atharva Veda123 that a descendent of Visala named Takshak, also known by his surname Vaisaleya in the Veda, ruled over Vaisali. I must say that the basic trouble with the Pauranics and their ilk is that either they were abysmally ignorant of the truth about Ayodhya and Vaisali or if they knew it, they concealed it as a guarded secret lest a Scythian (Saka) Jat should steal and expose it to the public. As the common belief has it, we must admit that the older the evidence, the more reliable it is. The Vedas are said124 to be less tempered with, hence they enjoy more credibility. As we will presently show, the testimony of the Atharva Veda is quite convincing. A small amount of genuine evidence is more valuable than a thousand baseless conjectures.

We identify Vaisali with Basal125 (35.35 N & 72.17 E ) in Campbelpore (now Attock) district in Pakistan, which was, in fact, a part of the Sapta Saindhava country of the Vedas (RV. 8. 24. 27, PV 8.4.24.27.). The name of this city might be a distortion of Vaisali which we presume to have been founded or ruled by a certain Takshak whose surname was Vaisaleya, for he is said to be a descendent of Visala also. The fact that Taxila (Takshashila) was ruled over by Taksa126, son of Bharat, brother of Rama of Ayodhya, itself divulges the secret that Takshashila did exist before the time of Rama Dasrathi whose family came much later, and must have been the seat of the Takshakas for centuries anterior to Taksa. However, it is but natural that Vaisaleya, the Takshaka, must have built the eponymous city in the penumbra of


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their ethnomymous capital. If the name Vaisali can get distorted int Basar in Bihar ('R' in the east being interchangeable with 'L', in west) the Vaisali of the ancient Takshak descendent of Visala can without any difficulty degenerate into Basal in the Sapta Sindhu.

Incidentally, it is extremely interesting to note that some important personages connected with king Sagar and Narishyant are mentioned by Waddell in the Indus valley. As already pointed out; he claims to have deciphered the Indo-Sumerian seals found at Harappa and Mohanjodaro, which according to him belong to the time bracket of 4000 B.C. to 2300 B.C.127. On some seals he reads the name Dilipa, who was an ancestor of Rama Dasarathi128 and was the grandson of Sagar129, i.e. Bhagiratha's father130. He has also deciphered the name of Dama131, the son of Narishyant or warrior Damu, the Guti or Gat son of Tax, the Har(i). He equates Dama Gut etc. with Goths, Saca (Saka, Scythians) whom we have already described as the descendent of Narishyant, the contemporary of Sagar. Dr. Punekar also confirms the above decipherments in his famous book "Mohanjodaro Seal (1984).

Our in-depth study of the Rigveda shows the Yadus, who were assisted by the Sakas132 in their infructuous wars against Bahu and Sagar, were living as republican Yadava-jna133, famous as remarkable navigators and sea-faring people134. Their habitat was in the southern and the south-western portion of Saraswati region including north-west Rajasthan and Sindh territories extending up to the mouth of the Saraswati close to sea-shore135. They had not penetrated into eastern regions. It is very significant and pertinent also to mention here that part of the Sapta Sindhu country was known as Sakaldvipa136 in the Mahabharata (3102 B. C.) 137. The dvipa is said to have derived its name from the Sakas138 who were, as we have already shown, the descendents of Narishyant of Vaisali. Since its occupation by Sivi's descendent Madras, in the 27th generation139 it was called Madra-desha up to Guru Govind Singh's time (1675-1708)140. The Sakas are said141 have invaded India (Sapta Sindhu) from the north and not from the West. This is indeed correct, for the newly discovered Vaisali, the stronghold of the Sakas in the shadow of Taxila (Takshashila), lies just


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in the north of Ayodhin, (Pakpattan) on the Satluj, identified by us as original Ayodhya of the Rigvedic times. Like the Yadus they also had not gone beyond the Saraswati.


This evaluation of all available data from the above researches and discoveries concerning Ayodhya and Vaisali, Sagar and Sakas, fulfills a long-standing desideratum which somehow or other escaped the attention of the erstwhile historians. These considerations make us bold to suggest that, to all intents and purposes, as the circumstantial evidence warrants, the original Ayodhya and Vaisali were, located in the Sapta Saindhava country in the Rigvedic time. The wars of the Iksvaku kings (Bahu and Sagar) against the Yadus assisted by Sakas, Paradas, Pahlvas, Yavanas and Kambojas must have been fought in this very country and not in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, for the cities under review and these states had not come into being (in the eastern region) at the time of Sagar and Bahu.

Origin of Kashi

By the way, even Kashi did not exist there at that time. The original Kashi, according to Dr. Silak Ram Phogat142, was also situated in Haryana, the south-eastern part of the Sapta Saindhava country. Dr. Silak Ram Phogat has identified it, in his recent research, with Kameshawar, a Tirathsthan or centre of pilgrims (Mbt.Aranyaka Parva, 81. 46; Vamana Purana Saramahatmya, 14.42) traditionally known as Kasisvara, on the ruins of which now is the village named Theh Polar, 15 Km. NW of Kaithal (Kapisthal, birth-place of Hanuman), in the Guhla Tehsil of Kurukshetra district. We mention this en passant, since it indirectly corroborates our stand on the location of Ayodhya and Vaisali.

Ayodhya, Kosala and Vaisali in Sagar's time

The wide region, where Ayodhya, Kosala and Vaisali (Basar) are situated now, was not habitable during Sagar's time. Had it been so then Sagar's army, sent to explore the new country beyond the previously upheaved and by then dry north eastern parts of the bed of the Arvavata Sea, would not have been caught in the seismic disturbances which, according to Bhargava143, were still going on there, nor , would the army have been consumed in the volcanic fire that burst out probably in the regions now occupied by Varanasi (or Kasi) area and southern Bihar. Amsuman, the crown prince, whom Sagar despatched in search of the army, is reported to have been horrified at the awful sight of the remnants of the burnt and the dead. This, too, would have been impossible if the area were habitable. However, the fact that


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earlier expeditions ended in a fiasco did not faze the Iksvakus who continued their efforts, for several generations, for a suitable place to settle in the eastern region. Ultimately, Mother Ganges turned in favour of Bhagiratha and graced the earth by flowing after him. The Bhagiratha-Ganga myth hides, beneath it, the ultimate success of the exploratory expeditions of the Iksvakus in search of new settlements. These explorations were necessitated by their sense of insecurity and was actuated by their driving concern. These were actually their efforts to move to the east because they considered themselves quite insecure in the face of their old enemies, the Yadus, Sakas, etc. of the Sapta Saindhava country. In the course of their eastward movements, as Weber informs us on the authority of the Ramayana, "Bhagirath dis- covered the mouths of the Ganges" (Weber, 1914, 193, f.n.).


Whatever may be the case, the circumstantial as well the internal evidence support our contention that the original Ayodhya was Ayodhin or Ajodhan on the Satlej and original Vaisali was the city on the ruins of which now stands Basal in the periphery of Taksashila (Taxila, Pakistan) which was also a part of the ancient Sapta Saindhava country. The Iksvakus sought refuge in the eastern corners of the country, out of their fear of the Yadus.It is not at all improbable that Yadus, with their allies, the Sakas etc., might have turned the tables on them in these or subsequent wars. It is they who must have dislodged them and forced them to search for a new home in the east, for the Sakas with their kith and kin, the Paradas (Parthians) etc. were firmly entrenched in the Western Sapta Sindhu and effectively blocked their expansion in that direction. Most probably the Sakas were in slow migration under Trinavindu towards the east, i.e. nine generations after Narishyant144.

P.L. Bhargava 145 accredits Bhagiratha with the foundation of the present Ayodhya and the Kosala kingdom. If we rely upon him, it does substantiate our assumption about Avodhya beyond any shadow of doubt- There has been a universal practice to name countries, towns, mountains and rivers, especially in newly developed regions, after discoverers, conquerors, founders and c1ebratcd men or tribe. There is every probability that Bhagiratha might have founded a town of the name of Ayodhya at the present site in eastern U.P. in memory of the Conquwst of Ayodhin by his ancestor, Sagar, in Sapta Sindhu from the


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Sakas who considered it as invincible. But the enigma we are faced with is that where did the Ayodhya of Bhagiratha disappear that we do not hear of it till the time of the Guptas? Had there been actually that Ayodhya, as claimed by Bhargava, why did Skanda Gupta Vikramaditya need to rename Saket or Sakapura, as we have already noted, as Ayodhya in the 5th century AD.? Be that as it may, whether the Ayodhya in question was founded by Bhagiratha or was given this name by Skand Gupta Vikramaditya, to all intents and purposes, it was posterior to the Ayodhin (Ayodhya in the Sapta Sindhu) and was stamped on the popular mind by the Ramayana of Valmiki, the oldest manuscript of which is dated as 1020 AD. i.e. about six centuries later than Skand Gupta Vikramaditya.

Even Varanasi the oldest living city not merely of India but of the world, is said146 to have been first occupied by late Vedic Aryans between 1400 and 1000 B.C. Likewise, the antiquity of Sonkh and Mathura, does not according to Dr. Haertel, go beyond 1000 B.C.147. Similarly, the foundation of Vaisali in the east may well be assigned to the Saka descendents of Narishyant who might have followed Trinvindu. Again, the fact that it was the capital of the Sakyas (Sakas), the tribe to which Lord Buddha belonged, till the time of Virudhaka or Vidudhaka of Kosala148, who massacred them and expelled the remnants to across the Himalayas, indeed lends strength to our conjecture.

However, experience shows, beyond doubt, that names of new cities and towns in freshly acquired lands are not coined indiscriminately. The names of previous ancestral habitations are generally carried there by the migrants and bestowed on the denovo founded settlements. It is common knowledge that majority of the names of the cities and states in Australia, Canada and the Americas are the old Asian European names which were planted by the immigrants from the latter continents to the "New World". Likewise, when the Iksvakus and the Sakas moved to eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar from the Sapta Sindhu at the time of or after Bhagiratha they assigned the names of their erstwhile ancestral cities, viz. Ayodhya, Vaisali and Kasi to their new settlement in the east.


When the Saka people moved still further in the far eastern countries, they founded a city named Vaisali149 in Burma, which became the capital of Arakan, ruled over by the Hindu dynasty of


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Dhanyawati from 8th century AD. to 11th century A.D., and which is now identified with Vaithali village, surrounded by monuments ancient Vaisali. It is further interesting to note that the ancient Kambuja150 (modern Cambodia and Cochin-China, or Kampuchia Kambojia, Thailand-Dahiland?) and Ayuthya = Ayodhya, which was made capital by a chief of Utong, who assumed the title of Ramadhipat in 1350 A.D. in Siam (Thailand or Dahiland) are unmistakably reminicent of the migrations and settlements of the Sakas, Kambojas and probably Manvas (Manns) 151 also in those countries in olden times152 (For ancient Indian Literature in Java and Bali islands, see Weber, 1914; 189 195, 208,229, 271, 280). Jitra or Jatra, a place name in the plains of Malaya, may well be attributed to the old Saka Jats (Mall or Mallli from ancient Malloi) in that peninsula, probably known as Malaya after them.


The mythological curtain wrapped round the antiquity of Lord Rama's Ayodhya, Kausambi, Kanyakubja and Mithila has been, to the chagrin of the orthodox believers, lifted by the late Dr. H.D. Sankalia, an eminent archaeologist of international fame. He153 contends that these cities might have come into existence at least by 1000 B.C. Plausibly, his views appear to be more sound than sensational, for archaeology154 does not, in any way, support older Aryan habitations in that region. "The second half of the first millennium B.C. was the period, according to Dr. Romila Thapar , which saw the gradual but extensive urbanisation of the Ganges valley with the advent of the Aryans who knew iron technolo '. She further adds that the "recent carbon-14 analyses have suggested c. 1100 B. as the date for the use of iron. In view of this evidence, we may safely conclude that Ayodhya and other cities did not come into existence in the valley prior to 1100 B.C.

Aryans and Scythians are the same races

After this long, and seemingly rambling, account of Ayodhya and Vaishali which was necessary to establish as corroborative evidence of our main thesis, we may return to our main thesis. We may sum up our review of the theory of the Scythic origin of Jats by pointing out why this theory saw many ups and downs. To sum up the ethnological study and related matters regarding the Scythic origin of the Jats were anthropologically sound, but the theory was rejected in the first quarter of the twentieth century Simply because its opponents were swayed by


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contradiction in this theory, namely, that the Jats, who are Aryans, can not be the descendents of the Scythians, who were supposed as a distinct race from Aryans. But in the third quarter of the century when the Scythian veil was lifted as a result of researches in various sciences too conclusively prove that these were not separate races, but one and the same, the theory was revived and regained its lost ground.

The Scythian or Saka ancestors of the Jats, who are thought, and rightly so, to be the aboriginal inhabitants of the Sapta Sindhu, are shown in ancient Indian literature to have fought in league with Yadavas etc. against Bahu and Sagar at Ayodhya and Vaishali in the eastern part of India. But these parts were under a sea, known as Arvavata or Gangetic Sea at that time (8000 B.C.), and were ravaged by volcanic disturbances. This has led us to question the present lacation of Ayodhya and Vaishali and to search for their original locations, since the antiquity of the present Ayodhya and Vaishali does not, according to archaeologists, go beyond c.1200 B.C. To our pleasant surprise, Ayodhya and Vaishali, are now discovered to have been found by the forefathers of the Jats in the Sapta Sindhu (their cradle), which,has been witnessing the drama of the Aryan struggle from the beginning of the Civilization. Our surmise is that this very country must have also been the scenario of the Ramayana. This surmise may not be base less: it calls for further investigation. We have also come to believe that the Aryan drama shifted its stage to the east at the time of Bhagiratha and farther east much later.


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Notes and References

1. Maclagan, Edward; The Jesuits and The Great Moghal, Vintage Books. Gurgaou, 1990, p. 154. cf. also Sulliven. Sir Edward; Mughal Empire in India. Royal Pubns, Delhi, n.d. pp. 59.66. He considers Jits, Getae, Getes, Yutes, Juts or Jats as identical.
2. Dhandarkar, D.R, Ind. Ant. Vol. XL p. 21.
3. Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, Vol. 1. p. 85; Vol. 11, pp. 138,180.299. Ency. Asiatica, Vol. v, pp. 420-23.
4. Pb. Castes, p. 97.
5. Early His. Ind., p. 411.
6. Bagchi, P.C.; Ind. & Cen. Asia, 1944, Calcutta, p. 17.
7. Balfour, E; Cyclopaedia of India, 1873, Vol. VII, under Jats, Elliot, Memos. of Races, Vol. I. p. 135. Jackson & Campbell, Bomb. Gaz., Vol. I, Pt. 1, p. 2; Ibid., Vol. IX. Pt. 1, p.461. D. Ibbetson, Pb. C.R 1891. Vol. I, pp. 421,481; JRAS, 1899, p. 534. Baden Powell, Indn. vill. Community, 1896, p. 216; Land sys. of Brit. Ind., 1892, Vol. 1, p.141. Trevaskis, H.K; Land of the Five Rivers, 1928, p. 87. Bingley, Major A.H.; Jats, Gujars and Ahirs, 1987, pp. 1-22. Elphinstone, Hon. Mountstuart, His. of Ind., 1916, pp.247-50.
8. Historical Essays, Delhi, 1960, p. 45.
9. Russell, R.V. & Hira Lal, Tri. & Cast. of Cen. Prov. of Ind., Vol. 3, p. 226.
10. Ear. His. & Cul. of Kashmir, 1957, p. 21.
11. ASRI, 1883-84. Vol. 11. (Ethnology). pp. 1-82.
11a. Qanungo, K.R.; His of Jats, pp. 377.
12. MacMann, George; The Martial Races of Ind., Delhi, 1969, p. 14, Carter, E.H. & Mears, R.A.F.; His. of Eng., pp. 27ff. Ujagar Singh Mahil, Antiquity of Jat Race, pp. 9-14.
13. Op.cit., Vol. I, p. 88. (within brackets mine).
14. Q. by Qanungo, KR; His. of Jats, Vol. 1, 1923, p. 5, fn. 2.
15. Elliot, Mems. of Races of N.W.p. of Ind., Vol.1, pp. 135 ff.
16. Taylor, Issac P., Origin of Aryans, Delhi, 1980. pp. 18-19,27.
17. Ibid., pp. 24f.
18. Ibid., p. 37.
19. The People of Ind., pp. 32-47, 58-89.
20. Risley, op.cit.;pp.58-59. Vidyalankar, Bhartiya Itihas Ki Ruprekha, Pt. 1, p. 278. Elliot's Mems., Vol. 1, p. 134. Ency. Brt., Vol. XX, p. 235. Russell & Hira Lal, op.cit., p. 226. Haddon, Races of Man, p. 112f. Vaidya, C.V.; His. of Med. Hindu Ind., Vol.1, pp. 63f. Ibbetson, op.cit., p. 100.
21. Risley, op.cit.; Miller, Dist;. Gaz. of Muzzafarnagar, 1920, 99 ibid, op.cit., p. 112. Nesfield q. by C. V. Vaidya, op.cit., p. n. Dr. Ram Pande, The Jats, pp. 1-5. Deshraj, op.cit., p. 85-95.

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22. Vidyalankar, Bharatbhumi aur uske niwasi. p.279. Risley, op cit., pp. 32-47.
23. Havell, E.B., His. of Aryan Rule in India, p. 32, . Nesfield - If appearance is an index, the Jats could not but be Aryans.
24. His. of Med. Hindu Ind., VoI 1. pp. 87f.
25. Op.cit., p. 87.
26. Ibid.
27. BhagvatDutt, Bharatvrash ka Brihad Itihas, Vol.II, p. 325.
28. Ibid., p. 202.
29. Op.cit., p. 173; His. Ess., p. 45.
30. Imperial His. of Ind., p. 52.
31. Some Kshatriya Tribes of Anc. Ind., Varanasi, 1975, p. 270.
32. MacRitchie, David, Gypsies of Ind., Delhi, 1976, pp. 4f.
33. Ibid.
34. Fergusson (JRAS, 1870, p. 88) identifies King Sankhal with Maharaja Adhiraj Vasudev of Magadha and Kanoj who ceded to Behram Gour Sindh and Makran (may be in dowry). D.J. Paruck and H.H. Wilson do not disbelieve Behram Gour's adventures in India as mere fiction (Sassanian Coins, N. Delhi, 1976, p. 98) and the latter describes his visit to India incognito for the Iranian Emperor required the help of the Yueh-Chih (Jats) princes of Kabul and the Rajputs (Jats) of Central India against the Huns (Antiquities and Coins of Afghanistan aod N. Ind., Delhi, p. 389). It is very probable that the 12000 Luris was the army of the Jats who were notorious as mercenary soldiers in the Indus Valley. Since their army was raised by Bahram Gour for Iran, a good number of their dependent entertainers must have accompanied the Jat force. It was with the help of this army that Behram Gour defeated the Huns, drove them across the Oxus, defeated them again and compelled them to sue for peace (Sykes, Brig. Gen. Sir Percy, His. of Persia, Vol. 1, London, 1958, pp. 433f). The love affairs of Bahram Gour with the Indian princess and her exceptional beauty became talk of the town in Iran. For further details cf. B.D. Mirchandani, "Bahram Gour's Marriage with an Indian Princess: Fact or Fiction?" in JIH, Vol. 56, Aug., 1978, Pt. 11, pp. 313-328.
35. Strange, G. Le; Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, London, 1966, pp. 244-31.
36. Tod, Vol. 1, p. 89. De Guines, Historie des Huns, Vol.II. p. 41. Academic des inscriptions, vol. XXV, with annexture by D'Anville.
37. Tod, Vol. 1, pp. 621-29.
38. The Jat of Pakistan, Berlin, p. 102, fn. 53.
39. AnC. Ind. as described by Ptolemy, ed. by McCrindle, reprinted by Surendra Nath Majumdar Sastri, Calcutta. 1927, p. 288. Satya Shrava, Sakas in Ind., Delhi, 1981, p. 5.
40. Majumdar, R.C.; The Classical Accts. of Ind., p. 345.
41. Chandragomin- 'Ajay Jarto Hunan'. Dwivedi, Loc. cit., p. 392, fn. 91
42. Vaidya, op.cit., pp. 87f.

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43. Ibid.
44. Majumdar, op.cit., p.,235.
45. Ibid., p. 340.
46. Diodoros, 11, 220. Majumdar, op.cit., p. 340.
47. Arthasastra does not describe the Shastropijivan ganas as foreigners.
48. Dwivedi, Girish Chandra; 'Origin of Jats",JIH, Vol. XLVIII, pt.II, Aug. 1970. S.N. 143, pp. 396ff. V.S. Aggarwal, Ind. known to Panini, p.77, Aitreya Brahmana, Ramayana and Manusmriti do not consider the Vahikas as foreigners.
49. Ibid., cf. Desh Raj, Y.P. Shastri, B.S. Dahiya also.
50. Elliot & Dowson, Vol.I, pp. l00-04.
51. The Jats (Their Role in the Mughal Empire) Arnold Pubs., N. Delhi, 1989, p. 14.
52. Jats, p. 27. cf. Elliot & Dowson, Vol.1. p.187; Vol.III, p. 491.
53. Vaidya, C.V., Mahabharata, A Criticism, Bombay, 1904, pp. 55-78.
54. Kunte M.M. : Th Vicissitudes of the Aryan Civilization in India, Delhi, 1974, p. 517. He considers the Jats as an aboriginal race in the Punjab.
55. Op.cit., Vol. 1, p. 88.
56. Gloss., Vol.III, p. 416.
57. His. of Jats, pp. 174 ff. within brackets mine.
58. De Guines, op. cit., p. 41.
59. Elphinstone, M., Cowell, E.B., W.W. Hunter and Wheeler J. Talboys; Ancient India, Antiquarian Book House, Delhi, 1983, p. 14.
60. Kephart, Calvin; Races of Mankind, pp. 55f, 67f. "It is believed that differences in altitude, climate, diet and environmental conditions account not only for differences of complexion and figure but also for the character of the hair, the width of the nostrils, the cephalic index, and other physical variations of man. Despite the present inability of biological science to explain the phenomena the fact exists that alotrichous (curly) hair and platyrhine (wide) nostrils are associated with long continuous life in hot and moist climate and that leiotrichous (straight) hair and leptorhine (narrow) nostrils are associated with long life in cold and dry climate, which may cause some contraction of skin. The conditions favouring cymotrichous (wavy) hair and mesorhine (inter-mediate) nostrils are more variable, such as long habitation in cold and moist or hot and dry climates. The environmental influences seem to become impressed on the germ plasm in some manner, so that definite responses become heritable, such as the persistence of Nordic blondness in an originally brunet race, and when the environmental conditions are markedly altered the racial types undergo modifications. But sufficient time must be allowed (or these modifications to become noticeable (see A. Thomson and I .. H. Oudley Boston, Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute). During such period, natural selection or elimination also is effective in causing diffrentiation in isolated regions" (Ibid., pp. 55-6).

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"The characteristic of brachycephaly in human or animal life, of which mesocephaly is merely a sizable degree, is a result of evolution at high altitudes over very long periods, Brachycephaly usually is associated with stockiness of physique and for the same reasons, namely, the increasing rarefaction of the air and diminishing superficial atmospheric pressure with rise of elevation from the lowlands. A human being requires a definite quantity of oxygen in his lungs for the functions of life. The higher the altitude and the more rarefied the air, the greater is the volume that he must consume in order to sustain life, especially on the rugged terrain of mountainous regions. The atmospheric pressure on the external surface of the body is diminished from 14.7 pounds per square inch at sea level to 10.1 pounds per square inch at 10,000 feet above sea level. Consequently, we find that branches of human race which ascended to and evolved on the highlands of Kashmir, Tibet and the Pamirs developed large air passages through the head, larger necks, and broader and deeper chests than normal and concurrently broader heads in proportion to length and heavy arms and legs (substantially this same thought seems to be expressed by W. Ridgeway in Ency. Brit., 13th Ed., Vol. 5, p. 611). An interesting study of the effect of altitude in the alteration of cephalic index of man might be made from the following approximate chronology of the ascent of man to and his descent from the highlands of Kashmir, Tibet and the Pamirs:-

Racial Movement Approximate Time Average Index at the time
Indonesians Ascent 25000 B.C. 70-72 per cent.
Nordics Descend (Jats) 12000 B.C. 75-78 per cent.
Paleo-Kelts Descend (Jats) 8000 B.C. 80-84 per cent.
Kelto-Slavs Descend 2300 B.C. 85-90 per cent.

(The words Jats within parenthesis are by the present author. Kephart the word Sikhs in place of Jats. Perhaps he did not know that Sikhs are Jats also. The time necessary for these changes is measured only in thousands of years. Mesocephalic branches are those that either evolved at lower altitudes or did not remain at high altitudes long enough to attain brachycephaly (ibid., pp.67-8)".

61. Races of Mankind (Their Origin and Migration), Peter Owen Ltd., London, 1961, p. 261. He also holds that ethnically there is no Caucasian or Aryan race. Caucasia is like Scythia the name of a region in Central Asia and Arya in linguistic term which denotes the cultural state of a people. The people designated as Scythian or Caucasoid or Aryan are none else but White race. Leeuw, J.E. Van L. De; The Scythains, pp. 44-49, 328; q. by M. Rohi Uighur of Kashgar, "The Original Home of the Tukharians, JPHS, Vol. XIII, Pat.II , April, 1965, ed. by Dr. S. Moinul Haq., Karachi, p. 167.
62. Rice, T.T.; Scythians, London, 1961, p. 39.
63. Settlement Report of Distt. Sialkote. Sec. 36. Rose. Gloss. Vol.III. p. 416.
64. The Indian and Russian scholars use it as one of the roots in the study of different people.
65. Loc. Cit., Reference No. 109
66. Vibhakar, Jagdish: Garg, Usha: Glimpses of Vac. Ind. through Soviet Eyes, Sundeep. 1989. Delhi. pp. 24-29. l64ff. l94ff. 206-212.

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66. See Chapter on Variants of Jat as a name.
67. A Study of His., Vol. XI (His. Atlas & Gaz.) map No. 24 & pp. 122f
68. Op.cit., pp. 261-67, 463-504, 524-38. According to him the Getae are the progenitors of the White race and the Sikhs (Jats) of Panjab are their pure representatives. These very Getae are the Goths of Europe
69. Ency. Brit., 9th ed., Vol. X, p. 847. Hewitt, J.F.; The Ruling Races of Pre. historic Times, 1972, pp. 42lff. He connects the Jats with the Getae of Thrace, With the Gutones who, according to Pytheas, were living on the southern shores of the Baltic sea, with the Guthones placed by Ptolemy & Tacitus, on the Vistula in the country of Lithuanians and with the Goths of Gothland in Sweden. All these people were one and the same.
70. Indo-Sumerian Seals Deciphered, Reprint, Delhi. 1876. pp. 1,8,16,35.70.72.100.
71. Pol. & Soc. Movements in Anc. Pb., Delhi, 1964, p. 243, George Rawlinson His. of Herodotus. Vol.III.
72. Anc, Races and Myths, Calcutta, pp. VII, VIII, 2,17,91,109.
73. Sakas in Ind., New Delhi, 1981, pp. 2f.
74. Antiquity of the Jat Race, pp. 9-14. Historians History of World, Vols. 2-4, 6-8,1987, (Rep.).
75. His. of the Jat Kshatriyas (Urdu), 1936, p. 40.
76. The Jats, (The Anc. Rulers), New Delhi, l,2,4,5,15,55,69,160,293f,305,341f.
77. Historical Essays, p. 45.
78. 'The Scythian Origins of the Sikh Jats' in -Punjab Past and Present. Vol. IX, Pt. II, S. No. 22, Pbi. Uni. Patiata, 1977, pp. 247-69.
79. Op.cit., pp. 53f. Sidhanta-Shastree, R., His. of Pre-Kalyuga Ind., Delhi, 1978, pp.8f.
80. Op.cit., p. 67.
81. Ibid., pp. 16,35,70,72,100.
82. Kalyanaramana, A., Aryatarangini, Vol. One, p. 15.
83. Ibid., p. 67.
84. The Visala Kings of Solar Dynasty as given in Visnu Pur. (IV. I). Bhagwata Purana (IX. 2) and Ramayana (1,46), and the Narishyant Family in Bhag. Pur. (IX. 2).
85. Pargiter, AIHT, p. 147.
86. Ibid.
87. Kalyanaramana, Op.cit.
88. Shri T.N. Ramchandran concurs on the decipherment of the Seals by Wadell but his contention that the Indus or Harappan culture is the gift of Sumerian immigrants is unacceptable to us. Cf details some where else in the book.

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89. Br. Pur. 7,24; Hrv. 10,641; Ag. Pur. 272, 10; Shiv Pur., 7,60,19.
90. Anc. Ind. His Tradi., pp. 206f, 256f, 267. Regmi, D.R.; Anc, Nepal,. Cal. 1969, p.158.
91. Pandey, R.B.; The Puranic Data on the Original Home of the Indo-Aryans. IHQ, No. 24, 1948, pp. 94-103.
92. Shafer, R; Ethnography of Anc, Ind., Weisbaden, 1954. p. 16.
93. The Vedic Age, Bombay, 1965, p. 276.
90. Dehkan, A.; (of Shiraz, Iran) in Cen. Asia in the Kushana period, Vol.I, Dushanbe Conference, USSR, 1968, p. 113. Kephart, op.cit., pp. 77;266. Manu, X. 43-4; O.B. Obelcnenko, in Dushambe Conf., op. cit., pp. 208-09. Gankovsky, Yu. V.; The Peoples of Pakistan (An Ethnic History), Lahor, 1971, pp. 66,88f.
95. Cunningham, Anc. Geog. of Ind., p. 38, also Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, p. 301.
96. Ibid.
97. Bhupendra Yadava, "Gods need neither History nor Politics' in the Tribune, Feb. 2,1990; Surendra Ajnat (Dr.), "Ayodhya or Saket' in Ibid, Feb. 15, 1990; J.P. Sharma, op.cit., p. 6.
98. Surendra Ajnat, op.cit.
99. Bhupendra Yadava, op.cit.
100. R.V. 10.89.4; Index of the RV. Padapatha ed. Vishva Bandhu, Hoshiarpur, 1966, p. 583. RV. Bhasha Bhasya, Vol.II., Daya Nand Sansthan, N. Delhi, 1973, p. 459.
101. RV. 8.80.3; 7. 20.9. Vishva Bandu, op.cit., p. 557. Dayanand Sansthan, op.cit., pp. 231, 446. Jarata (RV. 10.284; 10.34.3; 80.3. as protector), Jat (RV. 1.28.4; 1.128.4,189.4). Parthavas (RV. 4.18.2.), Aulan (RV., 10.98.11), Cumuri (RV. 2.15.9; 6.18.8; 26.6; 7.19.4; 10.113.9). All the people mentioned are Sakas.
102. Ghurye, S.; Vedic Ind. Bombay, 1979, pp. 363, 368.
103. Pargitcr, AIHT. Genealogical tables, p. 147, S. No. 41.
104. Bhargava, M.L.; Geog. of Rigvedic Ind., Lucknow, 1964, pp. 138f. According to the tradition of the Jats the 'yash' (credit) of bringing down the Ganga goes to Bhagirath.
105. Ibid., pp. 129f. Das, x.c, Rigvedic Ind. Calcutta, 1920, pp. 8ff.
106. Das, AC.; op.cit., p. 13.
107. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 147, S. No. 45.
108. Supra.
109. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 147, S. No. 53.
110. Ibid., p. 146, S. No. 7. Sharma, Sri Pandit Raghunandan; Vaidic Sampatti, Dayanand Sansthan, N. Delhi, 1983 (Hindi), pp. 39-44. More discrepancies are highlighted by Mr. Sharma.
111. Vincent, William; The Voyage of Nearchus, London, 1797, p. 88. Majumdar RC., Class. Accts. of Ind., p. 326, fn. 2.

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112. Waddell, op.cit., p. 104.
113. Bhargava, op.cit., maps. pp. 146f.
114. Imp. Gaz of Ind., New ed.,1908. Vol. XIX, pp. 323f.
115. Nizami, Kha1id Ahmed; The life and Time of Farid-ud-din Ganj-i-Shakar, Idari.i-Adbiyat-Delhi. 1973. p. 36
116. I am thankful to Dr. Ahmad Hassan Dani. S.I. Professor Emeritus, Quai-i-Azam Uni., Memorial and Museum, Islamabad, Pakistan; Director, Cent for the Study of Civilization, of Cen. Asia. for sending to me the besought useful information regarding Ayodhya vide his letter dated 20.4.88. Ayodhin is 30.20 N., 13.27 E; Harappa is 30.35 N. & 72.56 E. I am indebted to him.
116a. Chaudhuri, S.B.; Op. cit., pp. 89.
117. RV. 4.30.5; 2.30.9; 7.56.13; 7.57.3; 8.45.3; 10.27.10 and 10.903.7.
118. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 145.
119. Ibid. p. 109. According to Cunningham (ASR Vol.,II, 1883-84, p. 140) to the east of Panjab proper another descendent of Anu, called Trin became the founder of Yaudheyas, To Robert Shafer, the Yaudheyas descended from Usinar by another wife than the mother of Sibis, Sauviras, Madras and Kaikeya . (Ethnography of Ancient India, 1954, p. 146). Swami Omanand Sarswat (Ancient Seals of India (Hindi), Saini Printers, Delhi, V.S. 2031 (1975A.D.), pp. 37-42 informs us that the Yaudheyas have derived their name such from their mother Yuddha, the warrior queen of Nrga, son of Usinar (Ibir., pp. 38f). The assertions of Shafer and the Swami may be taken authentic. Some writers, however, connect them with Yudhisthira. This apparentlya surmise based on the similarity of sound of two names. Nevertheless, the descendents of Yudhisthira might have indeed joined them at later date, otherwise, they were considerably anterior to him. Trina might be ther leader in the east of the Yamuna river and they might even be the founders of Ayodhya in the eastern Uttar Pradesh, which has become so famous history. Trina may be Trinabindu the grand-father of Visala.
120. JRAS., 1902, pp. 267f. Mathur, Vijayendar Kumar; Itihasik Sthanavali (Hindi) Shahdra (Delhi), 1969, p. 881. Cunningham, Anc. Geog. of Ind., ASR, Vol.I pp.5f; Vol. XVI, p. 6. JASB., 1900, Vol. LXIX, pt. I, pp. 23Of, 78f, 83.
121. Va.·Pur., 86, 15-17, Bd. Pur.111, 61,12; Vis. Pur. IV,l, 18; Bhag, Pur. IX, 2,33; Rama.,1,47, 12.
122. Pargiter, op.cit., pp. 147,273. Chandra Chakraberty, Anc. Races and Myths, Calcutta, p. 1.
123. AV.VIII, 10,29, Cf. also Siddhantashastree, His. of Pre-Kalyuga Ind. Del 1978. p. 170. He considers Takshaka as a descendent of Visala, the founder Vaisali city.
124. Sankalia, H.D.; 'Pre-historic Colonization in India' - Arch. and Lit. Evidence' in Puratattva, No. 8,1975-76, N. Delhi, p. 81. Deshpande, Madhav, M. and Peter Edwin Hook; Aryan and non-Aryan in Ind., Delhi, 1979. p. 2: Bhandarkar, Sir, RG.; Collected works, Vol. 1, p. 398.

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125. The conjectural identification of Basal with Vaishali is entirely mine. The sheet anchor of my theory is the similarity of Basar and Basal. In the north western part of our country, especially in Panjab and Pakistan, 'B' is used and spoken in place of 'V', and 'L' is replaced with 'R', viz. Vaapas aa jaao is usually spoken as baapas aa jaao in Panjab and Pakistan, we speak Palwal and the eastern people speak Parwar. Since Vaisali is thought by me to have been a place of a Takshak chief with his surname as Vaisaleya, it gave me a hint to search it near about Taxasila and consequently found Basal in its vicinity. Fortunately my assumption was confirmed by Dr. Ahmad Hassan Dani, an archaeologist of international repute, who was kind enough to reply my query with the positive remark that 'Basal could be equated with Vaisali" in his later dated Oct. 8, 1987. I owe a debt of gratitude to him.
126. Siddhantashastree, op.cit., Delhi, 1978, p. 203. Sankalia, op.cit., p. 80; Pargiter, op.cit., p. 278.
127. Waddell, op.cit., p. 114f.
128. Kalyanaramana, op.cit., p. 15.
129. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 147.
130. ibid.
131. Waddell, op.cit., pp. 70f.
132. Pusalker, op.cit., pp. 290-91. But he shows them in the east which is not correct. JRAS., 1919. pp. 352-63. Pargiter, op.cit., pp. 206f.
133. R.V.8.2.1.48.
134. Das. x.c, Rigvedic Culture, 1925, p. 353.
135. Rig Veda, 6.2.5.12; 4.3.9.17.
136. Mbt. Karan Par. 44.7; 44.10. Interestingly enough Panini (2400 B.C. or 900 B.C. or 600 B.C.?) informs that Kantha (a Saka word for town ending place names, viz. Chihanakantha, Madarakantha, Vaitulakantha, Patakakantha, Vaidalikaranakantha, Kukkutakantha and Chitkanakantha (Asht. VI. 2.125; VI. 2, 102,124,142) where-in lies the Usinara (an ancestor of the Madra) country (11.4.20) in the Punjab (Sapta Sindhu). Cf. also Luders JRAS, 1934, p. 516. Sten Konow, Corpus of Khroshtha Inscriptions, p. 43; Saka Studies, pp. 42, 149. H.W Bailey, 'Asica', in Transactions of the Philological Society, 1945, pp. 22f. When the Sakas were turned out by Sagar towards north and west their towns were known Samarkand, Khoqand, Chimkand, Panjkand, Yarkand and Tashkant or Tashkand (V.S. Aggarwal, Some Foreign words in Anc. Skt. Literature, 1951, pp. 10f). The Mbt. calls the land of these cities as Sakadvipa and mentions its places, viz. Chaksu (Oxus) Kumud (Komedai of Herodotus, a mountain in the Saka country, Himavat (Hemodan mountain), Sita (Yarkund river), Kaumar (Komarai of Herodotus), Masaka (Massagetae of Strabo), Rishik, Asioi and Tushara (Tukhara). The Kasika also gives Sansamtkantha and Ahvarakantha III the Ushinara country in Vahika (11.4.20)-V.S.Agggarwal, Ind. as Known to Panini pp. 7Of). Aggarwal, however, finds Panini more acquainted with the Sakas in their original home in Central Asia and not in Seistan whereas they are clearly described in the contemporaneous Inscriptions, Viz. Behistun, Persepolis, Hamadan and Naqash-i- Rustam, of Darius (Daryava hush).. -(DC Sircar. Inscps.

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Bearing on Ind. His. and Civil., Vol. I, Cal, 1942, pp. 4-11). He also does not find an explanation for the kantha-ending names of places in the Usinara country and attributes them to the possible intrusion of the Sakas into Panjab before Panini's time. The Sakas are also said (Buddha Prakash, Pol. and Soc. Movements in Anc. Pb., pp. 116-200) to have invaded Ind. in 9th cen. B.C. from C. Asia and left their legacy in the place names.It is a pity that the scholars have closed their eyes to the fact that they (Sakas) were, as we have shown above, in the Sapta Sindhu since the Rigvedic time. No doubt these names are not mentioned in the Vedas. Argumentum ex silentio works like a double edged sword that cuts both ways. Possibly, the Kantha-ending place names are relics of post-Vedic Sakas in Panjab. Kantha is indeed a Saka word for city as thought by Buddha Prakash (Ibid., p. 119) who, on the authority of foreign scholars (Sten Konow, op.cit., Vol.II, intro, p. 43; Saka Studies, pp. 42, 149) ascribes it to C. Asian Sakas and not to Indian Sakas. It is no fault of theirs because they are always obsessed with the long propagated theory that the Sakas were foreign invaders from north western Asian countries in the 9th and 2nd Cens. B.C. However, the main plea of scholars like V.S.Aggarwat, Buddha Prakash etc, to consider the Sakas (Scythians as foreign Invaders on India seems to be the various forms of Kantha as found in diffrent languages and dialects of central Asia,Viz. Kadhvara and Kandhvara of Khotanese, Kandh of Sogdian, Kandal of Pushto, Kanda or Koenr, the dialect of the Rishikas or the Yueh-Chih labelled as Asika by Bailey (H.W. Bailey, 'Asica', in Transactions of the Philological Society, 1945. pp. 22f; Buddha Prakash, op.cit., p. 119) whereas they have ignored the important fact that 'Kantha' is, in fact, a Sanskrit word (Monier-Williams Sanskrit Eng. Dic., p. 249) which "as taken by the Sakas to C. Asia when they were compelled by Sagar to leave the Sapta Saindhava country. It is hardly imaginable that a word, which suffers distortions in the languages and dialects of foreign countries where it travels with its carriers, might ever suffer similar transformation in the country of its origin. In fact, Kantha is a Sanskrit word used as such by Sakas and was distorted in C. Asia according to the local phonemes of that region, which Buddha Prakash has used as tendentious evidence. Kantha is still used in the North vestern India (ancient Sapta Sindhu) especially in the Jatu or Haryanvi dialects, meaning thereby either town or husband (pati) (Or. J.N. Kaushik, Haryanvi Hindi Dic., p. 72). For that matter, Kantha is as indigenous a word in Sanskrit language as the Sakas were an indigenous race of the Rigvcdic Sapta Sindhu, and they cannot be adjudged as foreign.
Moreover, some writers think that Saka is a Sanskrit word which mean Sagwan (Teak, Tectona Grandis) which is grown generally in the monsoon region, the shape of which and that of its River Deltas was like that of a teak leaf (Satya Sharva, Sakas in Ind., N. Delhi, 1981, pp. 3f; cf. also Mat. Pur. 123.36. Viswaprakasa Kosha, p. 4, shloka no. 25; p. 5, shloka no. 35. Nanarthasabad Kosha, p.3, st. 35 and 36; p. 87, shloka no. 36), and the people popularly known as Sakas used to be the inhabitants of this land.S.M. Ali (Geog. of the Puranas, pp. 39f) identifies Saka-dvipa with the land mass in the south-east of Meru (Mbt. Ch. 14.21- 25) which falls climatically in the monsoon region and teak is ts distinctive tree in its natural and ar tificial vegetation. The Sapta Saindhava Country, the climate of which from about 8000 B.C. to nearly 1700 B.C., as stated by us somewhere else in the book, had been most congenial for man, animal and vegetation, was consequently known as 'the garden of the world". Mr. V. Unakar (JASB. No. 9,1933, p. 53; No. 10,1934, p. 58) who has made

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an in-depth study of the metereological conditions of Rigvedic India (Sapta Sindhu), confirms that the country enjoyed cool weather with rains fairly and normally distributed throughout the year in the first period, stormy with copious rains in the 2nd period, and finally a period of increasing droughts. The Sapta Saindhava country, surrounded by seas on three sides in the Rigvedic period, must have received good amount of monsoon rainfall round the year. Now if we have a look on the map (D.N. Ojha, Anc. Ind., N. Delhi, 1977, Map facing, p. 12) of the original home, in Sapta Sindhu, of the Aryans, in the South of Meru, we find that the country fulfills all the requisites of Saka-Dvipa, viz, teak leaf shape of the country as well as that of the deltas of the Sarasvati and the Indus river, so many big and small rivers, normally uniform rains (40" to 80" annually) throughout the year, congenially cool temperate climate. Deciduous forests including teak existed in Central plains of Sapta Sindhu (cf. Dr. Kailash Nath Dwivedi, Rigvedic Bhugole, 1985, Kanpur, p. 56).

The Mahabharata's reading, alluded to above, that there was Sakala-dvipa, the name of which is attributed to the Sakas, in the Sapta Sindhu, evidently carries much weight. There is every possibility that the people of the Sapta Sindhu, as a whole, might have besides their eponymous and ethnoyrns, been known as Sakas also. The Epic's another reading that, as believed by V.S. Aggarwal, the Saka-dvipa was the Oxus valley, cannot be accepted on geographical grounds. It was a misnomer perpetuated in the Pali and Sanskrit literature likewise because of the probable mistake of the author of Digha Nikaya, who used the word 'Sako' (Skt. Saka) for oak tree found in abundance in the Oxus valley, and which was stamped with the hall-mark of approval of Rhys Davids in his Translation of the Dialogues (Vol.1, p. 115), otherwise the word, used in the sense of an oak tree, is not found in the Sanskrit and Pali dictionaries (cf. J.P. Sharrna, 1968, pp. 191f). The valley should have been called Sakastan because of the settlement there of the Sakas of the Sakaldvipa of Sapta Sindhu in pre-Epic period. We must distinguish between Sakadvipa as a teak producing country and Sakastan as a country dominated by the Sakas who derived their name form Saka which means teak (Tectona Grandis).

A couple of misconceptions connected with the Sakas may also be cleared. The lower Indus Valley, with both of its sides, continued to be called Indo-Scythia, which is a misnomer, since its occupation by king Sivi (Pargiter, op.cit., pp. 145ff) in 27th generation (14 generations before Sagar) down to the time of the invasion of Alexander, it was known as Sivistan or Sivisthan or Sibisthan (Dr. AH. Dani, JHP, Vol. IX, No. I. June,1964. p 13). With the advent of the Muslim invaders in India in later half of the 7th century and early decades of the 8th century AD. the Western Sivistan up to ?ra lake. including Helmund Valley, was also called Sistan or Sijistan or Sagistan or Sakistan (G. Le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, London 1966, p. 334). It seems that the Sakas after their defeat by Bahu and Sagar escaped through Swat valley to the Oxus fertile region and then spread up to the Danube Valley and Thrace where they told Herodotus (Bk. 1, Ch. 104; Bk. IV, eh. 7) that they were there from the time of their first king to the invasion of their country by Darius (526-86 B.C.), a period of 1000 years, neither less nor more. In other words they were in Thrace etc. in about 1500 B.C. Lister, (Travels of Herodotus, London, 1979, p. 50) informs us that the Sakas were Indo-Aryan people and migrated from C. Asia to Russia in 8th and 7th Cen. B.C., that means that they stayed, after leaving Sapta Sindhu, for thousands of years in Central Asia and when they attacked India in 9th and 2nd centuries B.C. they were naturally


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considered foreigners in India. It was after their intrusion in 2nd Cen. B.C. and their settlement in the lower Indus valley that the region was known Indo-Scythia. This is how Sivistan became Sakastan which was called Scythia by the Greek writers.

The migration of the Sakas (Scythians) from C. Asia to Ural and Danube indeed Corroborated by archaeological, inscriptional and literary eviden Dr. Marija Gimbutas (Review of Prof. Bosch Gompera's book on Indo European Archae. Problems (in French) in the American Anthropologist 1963, p. 817; q. by G.S. Ghurye, Vedic India, p. li) is convinced of intimate connection between the old Indic people and the so-called Tazbagjab Bronze Age Culture of north east and S. East of Aral and of eastern Caspian sea akin to Proto-Scythian culture like the timber grave culture of the Eurasian steppes (See also Prof. Stuart Piggot, Anc. Europe, pp. 81, 118, 175-6, 180; Antiquity 1962, pp. 113-16). Prof. O.R Gurney (The Hittite, pp. 164-69) attests that the mention of Rigvedic gods Indra, Varuna, etc. as guarantors in the treaty between the Mittanis and Hittites (also known as Khetas or Khattis or Xath or Khatris or Kshatris), an important branch or the Sakas, does prove the presence of the Indo-European(Indian Sakas of Rigvedic age) people Anatolia in about 2000 B.C. Their general rites, i.e. bathing the dead bod drenching the pyre, burying of dead body, 13 days' mourning, funeral repast, cart'drawn by two bulls, one named as Seri or Serisu, the other Hurri or Tella (surprisingly, the Saka Jats still observe these customs in Ind.) undoubted betray their Indian origin.

Another misunderstanding created and perpetuated by the traditional writer in connection with the Sakas, may also be removed. They are said to have escaped their annihilation through the mediation of Vasishtha and King Sagar forgiving them on his advice, merely exiled them to the west with the punishment that they would not be allowed any Brahmin to perform their sacrifice and ceremonies, that they would not be allowed to recite the Vedas, that they would shave half of their head, etc. (Va. Pur. 88. 140-141; Bd. Ch. 63; Vis. Ch 8; B.C. Law, Some Kshatriya Tribes of Anc. Ind., pp. 236f; Max Muller, His. of Anc. Skt. Literature, p. 28; Visnu Pur. Wilson's Eng. Trans., p. 374) Thereafter, they were denounced with all sorts of opprobrious epithets i.e Dvija Vratyas, Sudras etc. (Manu, X. 43-44) by the adherents as well as Champions of the Brahmanical tradition for not observing the sacred rites given in the holy scriptures and for not consulting Brahmans. Ultimately to palliate the feelings and to wash the tears of the so-called degraded Kshatriyas, it was propagated through the medium of the scriptures (Bhagavat Gita, IV. 131; XVIII, 41; Mbt. XIII, 148.50; XIIl. 144.26; Harivamsa, xi, 658; Brahma Pur. 223.32 and also 56-59) that according to "gun and Karma and neither by birth, nor by purification, nor by learning and nor even by offspring and only by good conduct a Sudra can be a Brahman, a Vaisya and a Kshatriya. And in India good conduct means only good relation with the Brahman. The status and position of a person depends more than anything else on this relation with the priest. A man may be as pure as gold, but if he does not enjoy cordiality with the priest, he is baser than even lead.


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How strange it is that Vasistha was the royal priest of Sagar in the 41st generation and he was also shown in the same capacity with Sudas in the 53rd generation of the same dynasty. If the latter Vasishtha was a different one or a descendant of the former, why he was not named as were the two Aiksvaku Kings. To us pardoning of the Sakas etc. with some punishment by Sagar at the behest of Vasishtha seems, as Pargiter also holds, "as mere absurd detail in the fables about the contest between Vasishtha and Visvamitra" (JRAS., 1919, pp. 353-64). In fact, having worsted Bahu, the Yadus, Sakas, etc. occupied his territory and remained in it till they were ousted after a long gap by Sagar. Satya Shrava (op.cit., p.14) observes that "a remarkable feature in the narrative is their non-mention as Malechha or barbarians. Nor is there any suggestion that the Sakas and the four other tribes (Paradas, Pahlavas, Yavanas and Kambojas) were different in religion from the people of Ayodhya, who professed the Vedic religion".

Arguing cogently, Pargiter, (JRAS., 1919, p. 339) concludes that "these foreign tribes were Kshatriyas and of much the same religion as Vasistha and Sagar", As for the injunctions imposed by Sagar at the command of his Justus Judex (dharmraj), Vasishtha on the Sakas etc. as the so-called punitive measures for doing or making their hair as ordered, I can do no better than verbatim quote Rev. Dr. R. Caldwell (Ind. Anti., Vol., IV, 1875, pp. 166f) who asserts.that "it is unnecessary to hold it to be historically true that this mode of distinguishing the different races inhabiting ancient India was first introduced by Sagar. Though Sagar was one of the earliest Kings or the Solar line, it cannot be doubted that the different modes of wearing the hair referred to, including the Aryan mode, had already come into use, in accordance with the practice of all ancient nations to distinguish themselves from their neighbours by such external differences, and that what Sagar is represented as commanding the different races to do is merely what they had already been in the habit of doing". The shlokas, containing the punitive measures relating to hair styles imposed by Sagar on the Sakas, Paradas etc. are considered by Morton Smith (1973: 114) as later interpolations in various Puranas. Just as keeping 'Kesh' (hair on the head) and beard etc. is 'sine qua non with the Sikhs, the descendent of the ancient Sakas, their progeny', viz. the Teutons, Juts and Goths in ancient Europe. the Hindu and Muslim Jats of the Indian sub-continent followed the similar practice 'a Ia mode' till recent time.

Asa matter of fact, the Karna Parva of the Mahabharata bears ample testimony that similar efforts were made by the orthodox Pauranics to denounce the Vahika Madras of the ancient Sakala (Saka) Dvipa in the Sapta Sindhu by targeting the whole of their life. Where Vasistha made a scapegoat of Sagar to degrade the Sakas, Sauti fired the 'Madras from the shoulder of Karna, However, we dismiss these as sheer attempts on the part of the champions of the Brahmanical tradition to bolster the preeminence of and to aggrandise the Brahman over the Kshatriya, and should not be taken seriously.

The date of Sagara - In the end I may hazard a speculation about the date of Sagar. If the genealogies are not mere 'namealogy' (namavali) of various dynasties described in the Puranas and the Epics and if they carry some weight, Sagar happens to be 53 generations before the Mahabharata War, which is moderate estimation, i.e. 25 x 53 = 1325, before the Epic War, or say 6406 years ago from today, or in other word in 4427 B.C. Pargiter and Ghurye have given only 12 years per step, which being much less, is not acceptable to us. If we accept 16th October 5561 B.C.


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as the date of Mahabharata War, worked out scientifically by Dr. Padmakar Vishnu Vartak and published by Veda Vidyana Mandal, Pune, 'Vartak Ashrama 497, Shaniwar Peth, Pune-30, Maharashtra; then Sagara's floruit will naturally go back to 6886 B.C.
137. Mirashi, V.V.; "Date of Mbt War" in JOIB, Vol., XXV, nos.3-4, 1976, pp. 2286-98.
138. Mathur, op.cit., pp. 893.
139. Pargiter, op.cit., pp. 109, 145.
140. Malcolm, Sketch of the Sikhs, p. 55.
141. Leeuw, J.E., Van Lohuizen-De; Scythian Period, Leiden, 1949, pp. 327-29. A. Dev (Dushanbe Conf. Rep. on the Kushans, Vol.II, p. 951 and B. Puri (in Ibid., Vol. I, p. 182) assert that the Kushans were a branch of Sakas and the former even opines that the Kushanas were pushed from their original Indian home towards north and west.
142. Phogat, Dr. Silak Ram; Jour. of Haryana Studies, OHS), Vol. VIII, Nos. 1-2, 1976, p. 19. See also Monier-Williams, Skt. Eng. Dic. pp. 273, 280. Chandra Chakraberty (op.cit., p. 1) holds that the Kassite Kingdom on the southern spur of Zagros was also known as Kashi and Kushinagar (Kasi Nagar) was also a town on the foot of fourth cataract on the west bank of the Nile (Ibid., p. 81) in Egypt.
143. Bhargava, op.cit., pp. 39f.
144. Smith, R. Morton; op.cit., p. 114.
145. Bhargava, P.L.; "Original Home of the Iksvakus", JRAS, No. I, 176, pp. 64-65.
146. Arun Singh, "Varanasi - A Geog. Analysis'. The Ind. Exp., Chandigarh, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 1989.
147. Dr. Herbert Haertel, q. in the Statesmen, New Delhi, Oct. 21, 1977 .
148. Law, B.C., op.cit., p. 176; Cf. also Travels of Fa Hien by Beal, pp. 85 ff.
149. Mathur op.cit., p. 883. Radha Kumud Mukerji, Anc.Ind. Allahabad, 1966, pp. 489f.
150. Radha Kumud Mukerji, op.cit., p. 492.
151. Ibid. Mathur, op.cit., p. 37. Takakusu, A record of the Buddhist Religion as practised in Ind. and the Malay Archipelago, Delhi, 1966, p. 41. Chaturvedi, Vimalkant: Bankok City of Buddha Temples. in 'The Suman Sauram' (Hind i), Jhandewala Estate, Rani Jhansi Marg, New Delhi, May 1988, p. 49. The city was destroyed by the Burmese army.
152. Ency. America, No, 28, p.107. about 100,000 Indians [of Jat tribes of Dahiya (Dahae) and Mann?) migrated to Vietnam in prehistoric time. (within brackets mine).
153. Sankalia, H.D.; Ramayana, Myth or Reality. New Delhi, 1973, pp. 62f. H.C. Joshi, 'Arach. and Ind. Trad'. in Puratauava, No. 8,1975.76, p. 101.




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154. The Earliest occupation of the site of Varanasi (Banares) goes back to the first quarter of the first millennium B.C. (Dr. A.K. Narain and Shri T. N. Roy, in Ind. Archae. 1957-58, p.86; ibid., 1960-61, pp. 35ff. If there was a Varanasi (Banares) older than the present one, it must be sought in ancient Sapta Sindhu. E. Pococke identifies it with Attock Barnes, which I could not locate and which deserves further investigation. Another possible identification can be with Varnavata (Varnu, now Bannu in Pakistan, though its more logical identification may be with Barnawa, the ancient varnavata, in Meerut District.



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