Kambojas - Mauryan Period

Mauryan Period

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

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

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