Origins
The earliest mention of the name Kamboja is in the Vamsa Brahmana (ca. 7th century BCE).
References to the Kambojas as a tribe or kingdom appear in the Mahabharata and in Vedanga literature beginning in the final centuries BCE. Their Kamboja Kingdoms were located beyond Gandhara in eastern or northern Afghanistan.
Within traditional Hindu cosmography the Kambojas, with the Gandharas, Yavanas (Greeks), Madras, and Sakas are located in the Uttarapatha, the northern division of Jambudvipa, the island of the terrestrial world.
Some sections of the Kambojas crossed the Hindu Kush and planted Kamboja colonies in Paropamisadae and as far as Rajauri. The Mahabharata locates the Kambojas on the near side of the Hindu Kush as neighbors to the Daradas, and the Parama-Kambojas across the Hindu Kush as neighbors to the Rishikas (or Tukharas) of the Ferghana region.
The confederation of the Kambojas may have stretched from the valley of Rajauri in the south-western part of Kashmir to the Hindu Kush Range; in the south–west the borders extended probably as far as the regions of Kabul, Ghazni and Kandahar, with the nucleus in the area north-east of the present day Kabul, between the Hindu Kush Range and the Kunar river, including Kapisa possibly extending from the Kabul valleys to Kandahar.
Others locate the Kambojas and the Parama-Kambojas in the areas spanning Balkh, Badakshan, the Pamirs and Kafiristan, or in various settlements in the wide area lying between Punjab, Iran and Balkh. and the Parama-Kamboja even farther north, in the Trans-Pamirian territories comprising the Zeravshan valley, towards the Farghana region, in the Scythia of the classical writers. The mountainous region between the Oxus and Jaxartes is also suggested as the location of the ancient Kambojas.
The name Kamboja may derive from (Kam + bhuj), referring to the people of a country known as "Kum" or "Kam". The mountainous highlands where the Jaxartes and its confluents arise are called the highlands of the Komedes by Ptolemy. Ammianus Marcellinus also names these mountains as Komedas. The Kiu-mi-to in the writings of Hiuen Tsang have also been identified with the Komudha-dvipa of the Puranic literature and the Iranian Kambojas.
The two Kamboja settlements on either side of the Hindu Kush are also substantiated from Ptolemy's Geography, which refers to the Tambyzoi located north of the Hindu Kush on the river Oxus in Bactria, and the Ambautai people on the southern side of Hindukush in the Paropamisadae. Scholars have identified both the Ptolemian Tambyzoi and Ambautai with Sanskrit Kamboja. Ptolemy also mentions a people called Khomaroi and Komoi in Sogdiana. The Ptolemian Komoi is a classical form of Kamboi (or Kamboika, from Pali Kambojika, Sanskrit Kamboja).
The Kambojas on the far side of the Hindu Kush remained essentially Iranian in culture and religion, while those on the near side came under Indian cultural influence. Later some sections of the Kambojas moved even farther, to Arachosia, as attested by an inscription by Ashoka found in Kandahar.
Read more about this topic: Kambojas
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