Buddhist Literature
The Anguttara Nikaya refers to Kamboja as one of the sixteen great nations of ancient times.
The same fact is also conveyed by one of the oldest Pali commentary, the Culla-Niddesa
The Majjhima Nikaya attests that in the lands of Yavanas, Kambojas and some other frontier nations, there were only two classes of people...Aryas and Dasas...the masters and slaves. The Arya could become Dasa and vice versa.
The Commentary informs that a Brahmin would go to Kamboja or Yavana with his wife for purpose of trade and would die there, his wife would then be compelled to work for her living and her children might consort with slaves, in which case their children would be slaves.
This attests that in the lands of Kambojas and Yavanas (yonakambojesu), there was no place for Brahmanas.
Ashoka's Rock Edict XIII also attests the Yona and the Kamboja as a pair (Yonakambojesu), and conveys similar information on Yonas (directly) and the Kambojas (indirectly) stating that Brahmanas and Shramanas are found every where in his empire except in the lands of Yonas etc.
The Vishnu Purana also affirms the absence of chatur-varna system among the Kiratas in the east and the Yavanas, Kambojas etc. in the pashchima or west.
Many Buddhist texts like Manorathapurni, Kunala Jataka, Vinaya Pitaka, Samangalavilasini, Aruppa-Niddesa of Visuddhimagga, Mahavastu etc. etc. highly glorify the Kamboja horses and portray the Kamboja land as the home of horses (Kambojo assanam ayatnam).
Kamboja.sutta of Anguttara Nikaya states that, even in spite of their desire, the women of other countries must not visit Kamboja country (i.e. Kambojjam na gacchati).
The Commentary also supports this fact.
This implies that there was, perhaps a shortage of women in the land of Kambojas, and it was probably unsafe for women from other countries to visit Kamboja.
The Buddhist Sanskrit Vinaya text sutras, while explaining the benefits of circumambulating the stupa of the Lord of the world, emphasize that even: "One hundred maidens of Kamboj (satam Kambojakanam kanyanam) wearing jeweled earrings, with circlets of gold upon their arms and adorned with rings and necklaces of the finest gold; one hundred elephants, snowy white, robust and broad-backed, adorned with gold and jewels, carrying their great trunks curved over their heads like plowshares, could not even begin to equal one sixteenth part of the value of one step of one circum-ambulation". This Buddhist evidence obviously indicates that like the women of Madra country, the ancient Kamboj women were also proverbial for their beauty.
Bhuridatta Jataka refers to the Kambojas as following the non-Aryan (i.e. Zoroastrian) customs like killing poisonous insects, moths, snakes and worms—which is recognized as Zoroastrian from passages in Mazdean books like the Vedevat and from the remarks of Herodotus.
Read more about this topic: Kambojas In Indian Literature
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