Kambojas - Migrations

Migrations

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

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

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

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