Kambojas - Modern Descendants

Modern Descendants

The Kafirs of Kafiristan (modern Nurestan) once occupied a wider region before the pressure of events squeezed them into their present narrow valleys. They or some earlier ethnic type on which they become superimposed, may have been the Kambhojas and the Alinas of the Vedas whose offshoots were probably the tribes encountered by Alexander in Kunar, Bajaur and Swat. Among the Greek writers Arrian refers to them as Assakenoi and Aspasioi. These names are associated with the old Aryan word for horse (asva) and that the horse's head is still recognized as a sacred symbol by these Kafir remnants. —The Pakistan review, 1962

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

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

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