The Aśvakas or Aśvakayanas, classically called the Assacenii/Assacani (Sanskrit Sanskrit , is an historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is a classical language of India,others being Tamil, Telugu and Kannada: अश्वक), is the Sanskrit name of a people who supposedly lived in northeastern Afghanistan The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked country in South-Central Asia. It is variously described as being located within Central Asia, South Asia, Western Asia, or the Middle East. It is bordered by Iran in the west, Pakistan in the south and east, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast and the Peshawar Valley. They are/were believed to be a sub-group of the Greater Kamboja tribe profusely referenced in ancient Sanskrit Sanskrit , is an historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is a classical language of India, others being Tamil, Telugu and Kannada/Pali Pāli is a Middle Indo-Aryan language (or prakrit) of India. It is best known as the language of many of the earliest extant Buddhist scriptures, as collected in the Pāḷi Canon or Tipitaka, and as the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism literature and were partitioned into eastern and western Aśvakas [1]. They find mention in the Puranas The Puranas are a group of important Hindu (or Jain and Buddhist) religious texts, notably consisting of narratives of the history of the universe from creation to destruction, genealogies of kings, heroes, sages, and demigods, and descriptions of Hindu cosmology, philosophy, and geography, Mahabharata The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Rāmāyaṇa. The epic is part of the Hindu itihāsa (or "history"). A major text of Hinduism and a cornerstone of Hindu mythology, it is of immense importance to the culture of the Indian subcontinent. Its consideration of human goals (dharma or and numerous other ancient Sanskrit and Pali texts. Today, their descendants are mostly heterogeneous people.
The Sanskrit term aśva, Iranian The Iranian languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family and its subfamily, Indo-Iranian. They are spoken by the Iranian peoples. Avestan is the oldest recorded Iranian language aspa and Prakrit Prakrit (Sanskrit: prākṛta प्राकृत (from pra-kṛti प्रकृति)) is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular" assa means horse The horse is a hooved (ungulate) mammal, a subspecies of the family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began to domesticate horses around 4000 BCE, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BCE. Although. The name Aśvaka/Aśvakan or Assaka is said to be derived from Sanskrit Aśva or Prakrit Assa and it literally denotes someone connected with the horses---hence: a horseman, or a cavalryman Cavalry were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the second oldest (after infantry) and most mobile of the combat arms. A soldier in the cavalry is known by a number of designations such as cavalryman or trooper [2] or "breeder of horses" [3]. The Aśvakas were especially engaged in the occupation of breeding, raising and training war horses, as also in providing expert cavalry Cavalry were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the second oldest (after infantry) and most mobile of the combat arms. A soldier in the cavalry is known by a number of designations such as cavalryman or trooper services to outside nations A nation is a grouping of people who share real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin, often possessing or seeking its own government. The development and conceptualization of a nation is closely related to the development of modern industrial states and nationalist movements in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth, hence they also constituted an excellent class of Kshatriyas Kshatriya is one of the four varnas (social orders) in Hinduism. It constitutes the military and ruling order of the traditional Vedic-Hindu social system as outlined by the Vedas and the Laws of Manu. Lord Rama belonged to this social order (warriors A warrior is a person experienced in or capable of engaging in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based society that recognizes a separate warrior class. According to the Random House Dictionary, the term warrior has two meanings. The first literal use refers to "a man engaged or experienced in warfare."). Like tribal term Kamboja, the tribal term Aśvaka is also interpreted as "land or home of horses"'.
Pāṇini styled the Aspa and the Aśvaka clans A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if actual lineage patterns are unknown, clan members may nonetheless recognize a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be merely symbolical in nature, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a symbol of the of the Kunar and Swat valleys (earlier Kafiristan--- modern Nuristan) [4] as Aśvayanas and Aśvakayanas respectively [5]. The Classical Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world. It is the period in which Greek and Roman literature (such as Aeschylus, Ovid, Homer and others) flourished writers use the respective equivalents Aspasioi or Aspasii (Hippasii) and Assakenoi (or Assaceni/Assacani). Based on evidence from Indika of Megasthenes Megasthenes was a Greek traveller and geographer. He was born in Asia Minor and became an ambassador of Seleucus I of Syria to the court of Sandrocottus (Chandragupta Maurya) of India, in Pataliputra. However the exact date of his embassy is uncertain. Scholars place it before 288 BC, which was the date of Chandragupta's death (c. 350 BC-290 BC), Pliny Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an author, naturalist, and natural philosopher as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian. Spending most of his spare time studying, writing or investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field, he wrote an (Gaius Plinius Secundus) (23 AD–79 AD) refers to clans like Osii (Asii), Asoi, and Aseni in his Historia Naturalis [6][7] and locates them on river Indus mainly in the northern western frontier parts parts of modern Pakistan which region exactly constituted the ancient Kamboja. The Osii, Taxilae, Amanda, Peucolaitae, Arsagalitae (=Urasa + Gilgit), Asoi, Geretae and Aseni etc were all related clans and constituted mostly the Gandhara and Kamboja population. Amanda (Gandhara) [8], Taxilae, Peucolaitae etc belonged to the Gandhara set-up whereas Asoi (Aspasioi—the Aśvayanas), Geretaei (Guraeans) [9], Asii (Aśvakas/Aśvakayanas), Aurasa (=Hazaras),[10] (i.e. the Arsa-(Aurasa-) component of the Arsagalitae), and the Aseni etc belonged to the Kamboja. John Watson McCrindle [11] also regards the Asoi and Geretae to be respectively equivalent to the Aspasioi and the Gouraei of Arian Aria (Greek: Ἀρὶα/Ar(e)ia, Latin Aria, representing Old Persian. Haraiva, Avestan Haraeuua), inhabitants: Arians (Latin: Arii, Greek: Αρ(ε)ιοί/Ar(e)ioi), name of a region in the eastern part of the Persian empire, several times confused with Arianē in the classical sources--both being western-branch of the Assakenoi (Aśvakas). Bucephala was the capital of Aseni which stood on Hydaspes Jehlum River or Jhelum River (Kashmiri: Vyeth, Hindi: झेलम, Punjabi: ਜੇਹਲਮ , دریاۓ جہلم (Shahmukhi)) is a river that flows in Pakistan as well as into India. It is the largest and most western of the five rivers of Punjab, and passes through Jhelum District. It is a tributary of the Chenab River and has a total length of (Jhelum Jehlum River or Jhelum River (Sanskrit: वितस्ता, Kashmiri: Vyeth, Hindi: झेलम, Punjabi: ਜੇਹਲਮ , دریاۓ جہلم (Shahmukhi)) is a river that flows in India and Pakistan. It is the largest and most western of the five rivers of Punjab, and passes through Jhelum District. It is a tributary of the Chenab River and) [12]. Alexander Alexander III of Macedon , popularly known as Alexander the Great (Greek: Μέγας Ἀλέξανδρος, Mégas Aléxandros), was a Greeki[›] king (basileus) of Macedon. He is the most celebrated member of the Argead Dynasty and created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander received a classical had named this city after his horse Becephalus when it had died sometime in June of 326 BC after being fatally wounded at the Battle of Hydaspes The Battle of the Hydaspes River was fought by Alexander the Great in 325 BC against the Indian king Porus at Kshatriya on the Hydaspes River (the Jhelum) in the Punjab region of ancient India, near Bhera now in Pakistan. The kingdom of Paurava of King Porus was situated in the part of Punjab which is now part of modern day Pakistan (see Pakistani with king Porus (Paurava) of Punjab The Punjab (pronounced /ˈpʌndʒɑːb/ or /ˈpʌndʒæb/; Punjabi: پنجاب, ਪੰਜਾਬ, Urdu: پنجاب, Hindi: पंजाब), also spelled Panjab (Persian: پنجاب, panj-āb, "five waters"), is a cultural region straddling the border between Punjab (Pakistan) and Punjab (India). The so-called "five waters" are. A view has been held that the clan names like Osii, Asioi, and Aseni of Indika of Megasthenes equate to Asii referred to by Strabo Strabo was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher and Asiani as referred to in Historiae Philippicae by Trogue Pompey Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus, known as Pompeius Trogus, Pompey Trogue, or Trogue Pompey, was a 1st century BC Roman historian of the Celtic tribe of the Vocontii in Gallia Narbonensis, flourished during the age of Augustus, nearly contemporary with Livy and further, they also equate to the Aspasioi (Aspasii, Hipasii) and Assakenoi (Assacenii/Assacani) clans of upper Indus [13] referred to as Aśvayana and Aśvakayana in Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi Pāṇini was an Ancient Indian Sanskrit grammarian from Pushkalavati, Gandhara (fl. 4th century BCE).
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