Abhira people

History

Sunil Kumar Bhattacharya says that the Abhiras are mentioned in the first-century work of classical antiquity, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. He considers them to be a race rather than a tribe. Scholars such as Ramaprasad Chanda believe that they were Indo-Aryan peoples. But others, such as Romila Thapar, believe them to have been indigenous. The Puranic Abhiras occupied the territories of Herat; they are invariably juxtaposed with the Kalatoyakas and Haritas, the peoples of Afghanistan.

There is no certainty regarding the occupational status of the Abhiras, with ancient texts sometimes referring to them as pastoral cowherders, but at other times as plundering tribes. Along with the Vrishnis, the Satvatas, and the Yadavas, the Abhiras were followers of the Vedas, and worshipped Krishna, the head and preceptor of these tribes. In the Padma-puranas and certain literary works, these herds were known as ayars in Tamil, as they were known as Ahirs and Abhiras in North India.

Rule of the Konkan

From 203 to 270 the Abhiras ruled over the whole of the Deccan Plateau as a paramount power. The Abhiras could also be the successors of the Satvahanas.

Connection to modern Ahirs

According to Ganga Ram Garg, the modern-day Ahir caste are descendants of Abhira people and the term Ahir is the Prakrit form of the Sanskrit term Abhira. Bhattacharya says that the terms Ahir, Ahar and Gaoli are current forms of the word Abhira.

M. S. A. Rao and historians such as P. M. Chandorkar and T. Padmaja have explained that epigraphical and historical evidence exists for equating the Ahirs with the ancient Abhiras.