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 word