4. The Yadavas and Krishna.

It cannot necessarily be assumed that all the above traditions relate to the Abhira tribe proper, of which the modern Ahir caste are scarcely more than the nominal representatives. Nevertheless, it may fairly be concluded from them that the Abhiras were widely spread over India and dominated considerable tracts of country. They are held to have entered India about the same time as the Sakas, who settled in Gujarat, among other places, and, as seen above, the earliest records of the Abhiras show them in Nasik and Kathiawar, and afterwards widely spread in Khandesh, that is, in the close neighbourhood of the Sakas. It has been suggested in the article on Rajput that the Yadava and other lunar clans of Rajputs may be the representatives of the Sakas and other nomad tribes who invaded India shortly before and after the Christian era. The god Krishna is held to have been the leader of the Yadavas, and to have founded with them the sacred city of Dwarka in Gujarat. The modern Ahirs have a subdivision called Jaduvansi or Yaduvansi, that is, of the race of the Yadavas, and they hold that Krishna was of the Ahir tribe. Since the Abhiras were also settled in Gujarat it is possible that they may have been connected with the Yadavas, and that this may be the foundation for their claim that Krishna was of their tribe. The Dyashraya-Kavya of Hemachandra speaks of a Chordasama prince reigning near Junagarh as an Abhira and a Yadava. But this is no doubt very conjectural, and the simple fact that Krishna was a herdsman would be a sufficient reason for the Ahirs to claim connection with him. It is pointed out that the names of Abhira chieftains given in the early inscriptions are derived from the god Siva, and this would not have been the case if they had at that epoch derived their origin from Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu. "If the Abhiras had really been the descendants of the cowherds (Gopas) whose hero was Krishna, the name of the rival god Siva would never have formed components of the names of the Abhiras, whom we find mentioned in inscriptions. Hence the conclusion may safely be drawn that the Abhiras were by no means connected with Krishna and his cowherds even as late as about A.D. 300, to which date the first of the two inscriptions mentioned above is to be assigned. Precisely the same conclusion is pointed to by the contents of the Harivansha and Bhagwat Purana. The upbringing of Krishna among the cowherds and his flirtations with the milkmaids are again and again mentioned in these works, but the word Abhira does not occur even once in this connection. The only words we find used are Gopa, Gopi and Vraja. This is indeed remarkable. For the descriptions of the removal of Krishna as an infant to Nanda, the cowherd's hut, of his childhood passed in playing with the cowherd boys, and of his youth spent in amorous sports with the milkmaids are set forth at great length, but the word Abhira is not once met with. From this only one conclusion is possible, that is, that the Abhiras did not originally represent the Gopas of Krishna. The word Abhira occurs for the first time in connection with the Krishna legend about A.D. 550, from which it follows that the Abhiras came to be identified with the Gopas shortly before that date." [23]

This argument is interesting as showing that Abhira was not originally an occupational term for a herdsman, nor a caste name, but belonged to an immigrant tribe. Owing apparently to the fact that the Abhiras, like the Gujars, devoted themselves to a pastoral mode of life in India, whereas the previous Aryan immigrants had settled down to cultivation, they gave their name to the great occupational caste of herdsmen which was subsequently developed, and of which they may originally have constituted the nucleus. The Gujars, who came to India at a later period, form a parallel case; although the Gujar caste, which is derived from them, is far less important than the Ahir, the Gujars have also been the parents of several Rajput clans. The reason why the early Mathura legends of Krishna make no mention of the Ahirs may be that the deity Krishna is probably compounded of at least two if not more distinct personalities. One is the hero chief of the Yadavas, who fought in the battle of the Pandavas and Kauravas, migrated to Gujarat and was killed there. As he was chief of the Yadavas this Krishna must stand for the actual or mythical personality of some leader of the immigrant nomad tribes. The other Krishna, the boy cowherd, who grazed cattle and sported with the milkmaids of Brindaban, may very probably be some hero of the indigenous non-Aryan tribes, who, then as now, lived in the forests and were shepherds and herdsmen. His lowly birth from a labouring cowherd, and the fact that his name means black and he is represented in sculpture as being of a dark colour, lend support to this view. The cult of Krishna, Mr. Crooke points out, was comparatively late, and probably connected with the development of the worship of the cow after the decay of Buddhism. This latter Krishna, who is worshipped with his mother as a child-god, was especially attractive to women, both actual and prospective mothers. It is quite probable therefore that as his worship became very popular in Hindustan in connection with that of the cow, he was given a more illustrious origin by identification with the Yadava hero, whose first home was apparently in Gujarat. In this connection it may also be noted that the episodes connected with Krishna in the Mahabharata have been considered late interpolations.

5. The modern Ahirs an occupational caste.

But though the Ahir caste takes its name and is perhaps partly descended from the Abhira tribe, there is no doubt that it is now and has been for centuries a purely occupational caste, largely recruited from the indigenous tribes. Thus in Bengal Colonel Dalton remarks that the features of the Mathuravasi Goalas are high, sharp and delicate, and they are of light-brown complexion. Those of the Magadha subcaste, on the other hand, are undefined and coarse. They are dark-complexioned, and have large hands and feet. "Seeing the latter standing in a group with some Singhbhum Kols, there is no distinguishing one from the other. There has doubtless been much mixture of blood." [24] Similarly in the Central Provinces the Ahirs are largely recruited from the Gonds and other tribes. In Chanda the Gowaris are admittedly descended from the unions of Gonds and Ahirs, and one of their subcastes, the Gond-Gowaris, are often classed as Gonds. Again, the Kaonra Ahirs of Mandla are descended from the unions of Ahirs either with the Gonds or Kawars, and many of them are probably pure Gonds. They have Gond sept-names and eat pork. Members of one of their subdivisions, the Gond-Kaonra, will take water from Gonds, and rank below the other Kaonras, from whom they will accept food and water. As cattle have to go into the thick jungles to graze in the hot weather, the graziers attending them become intimate with the forest tribes who live there, and these latter are also often employed to graze the cattle, and are perhaps after a time admitted to the Ahir caste. Many Ahirs in Mandla are scarcely considered to be Hindus, living as they do in Gond villages in sole company with the Gonds.

6. Subcastes.

The principal subcastes of the Ahirs in northern India are the Jaduvansi, Nandvansi and Gowalvansi. The Jaduvansi claimed to be descended from the Yadavas, who now form the Yadu and Jadon-Bhatti clans of Rajputs. The probability of a historical connection between the Abhiras and Yadavas has already been noticed. The Nandvansi consider their first ancestor to have been Nand, the cowherd, the foster-father of Krishna; while the name of the Gowalvansi is simply Goala or Gauli, a milkman, a common synonym for the caste. The Kaonra Ahirs of Mandla and the Kamarias of Jubbulpore are considered to belong to the Nandvansi group. Other subcastes in the northern Districts are the Jijhotia, who, like the Jijhotia Brahmans, take their name from Jajhoti, the classical term for Bundelkhand; the Bharotia; and the Narwaria from Narwar. The Rawats of Chhattisgarh are divided into the Jhadia, Kosaria and Kanaujia groups. Of these the Jhadia or 'jungly,' and Kosaria from Kosala, the ancient name of the Chhattisgarh country, are the oldest settlers, while the Kanaujia are largely employed as personal servants in Chhattisgarh, and all castes will take water from their hands. The superior class of them, however, refuse to clean household cooking vessels, and are hence known as Thethwar, or exact or pure, as distinguished from the other Rawats, who will perform this somewhat derogatory work.

7. The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ahirs. Fosterage.

The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ahirs are descended from the illegitimate offspring of Bundela Rajput fathers by Ahir mothers who were employed in this capacity in their families. An Ahir woman kept by a Bundela was known as Pardwarin, or one coming from another house. This is not considered a disgraceful origin; though the Dauwa Ahirs are not recognised by the Ahirs proper, they form a separate section of the caste, and Brahmans will take water from them. The children of such mothers stood in the relation of foster-brothers to the Rajputs, whom their mothers had nursed. The giving of milk, in accordance with the common primitive belief in the virtue attaching to an action in itself, was held to constitute a relation of quasi-maternity between the nurse and infant, and hence of fraternity between her own children and her foster-children. The former were called Dhai-bhais or foster-brothers by the Rajputs; they were often given permanent grants of land and employed on confidential missions, as for the arrangement of marriages. The minister of a Raja of Karauli was his Dauwa or foster-father, the husband of his nurse. Similarly, Colonel Tod says that the Dhai-bhai or foster-brother of the Raja of Boondi, commandant of the fortress of Tanagarh, was, like all his class, devotion personified. [25] A parallel instance of the tie of foster-kinship occurs in the case of the foster-brothers of Conachar or Hector in The Fair Maid of Perth. Thus the position of foster-brother of a Rajput was an honourable one, even though the child might be illegitimate. Ahir women were often employed as wet-nurses, because domestic service was a profession in which they commonly engaged. Owing to the comparatively humble origin of a large proportion of them they did not object to menial service, while the purity of their caste made it possible to use them for the supply of water and food. In Bengal the Uriya Ahirs were a common class of servants in European houses.