| MANDA Manda, Manda gotra Jats are found in Rajasthan as well as in Punjab in India and some of them Pakistan. Mandan / Mando / Manda clan is found in Afghanistan.
History
:
Ganges
- The Mandei (Manda), and the Malli (Malli), the Gangarides (Ghangs),
the Calingae (Kaling), the Prasii (Magadh), the Modogalingae - The
tribes called Calingae (Kaling) are nearest the sea, and higher
up are the Mandei (Manda), and the Malli in whose, country is Mount
Mallus, the boundary of all that district being the Ganges. ...The
royal city of the Calingae (Kaling) is called Parthalis. Over their
king 60,000 foot-soldiers, 1,000 horsemen, 700 elephants keep watch
and ward in "procinct of war. There is a very large island
in the Ganges which is inhabited by a single tribe Modogalingae.
From that place, Chalonitis, 21 schoeni; in which there are 5 villages,
in which there are stations, and a Greek city, Chala (the modern
Halvan), 15 schoeni beyond Apolloniatis. Then, after 5 schoeni,
a mountain which is called Zagrus (now Jebel Tak), which forms the
boundary between the district of Chalonitis and that of the Medes.
Thus
Deioces collected the Medes (Manda) into a nation, and ruled over
them alone. Now these are the tribes of which they consist: the
Busae, the Paretaceni, the Struchates, the Arizanti (Aryan Jats),
the Budii (Budhwar), and the Magi (Manju).
Sir H. M. Elliot quotes Ibn Haukal and writes that Makrán contains chiefly pasturages and fields, which cannot be irrigated on account of the deficiency of water. Between Mansúra and Makrán the waters from the Mihrán form lakes, and the inhabitants of the country are the Indian races called Zat. Those who are near the river dwell in houses formed of reeds, like the Berbers, and eat fish and aquatic birds. Another clan of them, who live remote from the banks, are like the Kurds, and feed on milk, cheese, and bread made of millet.
Local tradition reveals that some Manda Jats were martyred on way from Moleesar Bara to Sehla near Dhani Hanumanpur fighting with Rath Muslims while protecting cows.
Villages
founded by Manda clan :
Mandas
in Indian Epics :
Oh, Ram, this is an all-time lake built by the ascetic power of the sage Mandakarni, known as Five Apsara Lake. [4-11-11]
He that great saint Mandakarni practiced rigorous ascetics for ten thousand years staying in the waters of the lake, and consuming air alone. [4-11-12]
In Mahabharat - The Mahabharat - Bhisma Parv Book 6:SECTION IX, Kisari Mohan Ganguli, tr. 1883-1896 writes about the province of the Mandaks, along with Kuntis; the Avantis, the Gomants, the Shands, the Vidarbhs etc.
The Mandaks were one of the heroes of the Pandav army in Day Two in Mahabharat War (MBh 6.50)
Dhrishtadyumn when morning dawned, placed Arjun in the van of the whole army. King Drupad, surrounded by a large number of troops, became the head of the array. The two kings Kuntibhoj and Saivya became its two eyes. The ruler of the Dasarns, and the Prayags, with the Daseraks, and the Anupaks, and the Kirats were placed in its neck. Yudhishthir, with the Patachchars, the Huns, the Pauravaks and the Nishads, became its two wings, so also the Pisachs, with the Kundavishs, and the Mandaks, the Ladaks, the Tangans, and the Uddrs, and the Saravs, the Tumbhums, the Vats, and the Nakuls. Nakul and Sahdev placed themselves on the left wing. The rear was protected by Virat aided by the Kekayas, and the ruler of Kashi and the king of the Chedis (Dhristaketu), with thirty thousand cars.
The Mandas in Iran - The First Historical Empire of Jats :
The
Manda or Median Empire (about 600 BCE), Herat was recognized as
Aria and was an important part of several Persian Empires.
In the last quarter of the eighth century B.C., the area of Azerbaijan to the south of Lake Urmia was inhabited by various Jat clans. The two clans whose names had come down in history are called the Mannai and the Mandas. These two clans are nowadays called in India as the Manns and the Mandas. In 720 B.C. or so, the Assyrian King, Sargon II, attacked these people and the Assyrians captured their chief called Dayaukku. He was a Manda chief and perhaps nature took a hand in saving his life, because contrary to the Assyrian custom, his life was not only spared but he was sent, along with his family to Hamath. Thus it seems that before the last decade of the eighth century B.C. they were acknowledging the suzerainty of Assyria and it is mentioned that 22 of their chiefs swore the oath of allegiance before Sargon II. The name of their chief if given as Deiokes, son of Phraortes by Herodotus and other Greek writers. As per History of Persia, he was the same as the chief named by the Assyrians as Dayaukku. His name may well be Devaka because the suffix ‘s’ or ‘us’ is generally added to personal names by the Greeks. It was Devaka, who established the first empire of the Manda Jats in about 700 B.C. The later Achaemenian empire was an offshoot of Manda empire, because Cyrus the great, was an offshoot of Manda empire, because Cyrus the great , was son of Mandani, a daughter of the last Manda emperor. Cyrus the Great was an Achaemenid Persian, son of the local Persian king Cambyses I of Anshan and the Manda princess Mandane of Manda clan, who was the daughter of Astyages, the last Manda emperor. Before he united the Persians and Mandas under a single empire, he was the ruler of Anshan, then a vassal kingdom of the Median Empire, in what is now part of Fars Province in southern Iran. The name of the queen was Aryenis (skt. Aryani).
The
Manda Empire :
The founder of the empire, Deiokes, hereinafter mentioned as Devak, immediately formed a powerful army. When the country was secure, he decided to build his capital for which the mighty granite range of mount Alvanda was selected and at a height of 6,000 ft. above sea level the capital of Ecbatana was built. Its present site is the eastern part of modern Hamadan.
After this preparations Devak started expansion of his empire. The Assyrians could never have dreamt that this mountain shepherd at no distant date, would sack the great Nineveh and cause the name of Assyria to disappear from amongst the nations of the world. The adjoining areas were annexed to the Manda Empire and after consolidating it for 50 years, Devaka was succeeded by his son Fravarti, the Phraortes of the Greeks in 655 B.C. The Persians were the first to be conquered. Gaining more than self-confidence from their successes, the Mandas attacked the Assyrian empire but were defeated and Fravarti himself was killed.
Assurbanipal died in 626 B.C. and his successors were disputing the throne. Such an opportunity was not to be lost and second attack of Nineveh began. The Assyrian Emperor burnt himself in his palace and perished with his family. Thus in 606 B.C. Nineveh fell and so utter was its ruin that the Assyrian name was forgotten and the history of their empire soon melted into fable.
Armenia and Cappadocia were including in the Manda Empire. Lydia was emerging as a powerful nation in the west and it was inevitable that the two powers should collide. The war began but in 585 B.C. when there was a total eclipse of the sun, it was stopped after six years of fighting, under a peace treaty. A daughter of the Lydian emperor was marred to the heir apparent of Manda, and the kingdom Urartu was annexed to Manda empire. Next year, i.e. 584 B.C. this great emperor died. Thus from a beaten nation he raised the Mandas into the most powerful and virile empire of that time. It is aptly stated that the east was Semitic when he began to rule but it was Aryan when he stopped. This leader in one of the great moments in history was succeeded by Ishtuvegu, Astyages of the Greeks. He was an unworthy son of a worthy father and he deviated from the basic policy of the Mandas,.i.e. to keep fit and ready for war. He had no son and his daughter named Mandani (after the clan name) was married to a small vassal prince of Elam.
The first issued of princess Mandani was Cyrus who became the emperor, after putting in prison his maternal grandfather, Ishtuvegu. Three battles were fought, as per traditions preserved by the classical writers, before Ecbatana itself fell in 550 B.C. Cyrus was emperor of persia and had inherited the empire of the Mandas., which was further extended by him. But this does not mean that efforts were not made to recover the lost empire. We hear that Cyrus himself fought wars against the Jats in Balakh and the Caspian sea. At both the places he was unsuccessful. Balakh remained under the Kangs, and the small kingdom of the Massagate ruled over by the Dahias, remained free and independent. The king of the Massagate kingdom was Armogha and his queen was simply called Tomyris which is a Scythian word, Tomuri, meaning queen. The king had died and the queen had taken the administration in her hands when Cyrus the Great asked her to marry him.
The queen gathered her force and the battle which followed was most ferocious. On both sides there were Jats, and they fought to the finish. Herodotus says that of all the wars of antiquity, this was the most bloody. The Jats gained complete and final victory. Cyrus himself was killed. His body was searched and recovered from the battlefield.
Thus we see that many Jat kingdoms in the north and east were free of the Persian empire which was an offshoot of the earlier Manda Jat empire. The defeat of Cyrus the Great and his death was a signal for the Jats under Persian Empire to take up the throne of Ecbatana. This was done by the Jats under their leader Gaumata. In the meantime Darius came and this second empire lasted for only six months because conspirators in the pay of Darius killed Gaumata in the Sokhyavati palace of Ecbatana. Darius wrote in his inscriptions; “Ahurmazda made myself emperor. Our dynasty had lost the empire but I restored it to its original position. I re-established sacred places destroyed by Magas. These Magas were the Magian priests of the Jat emperors who came to India along with them, as a result of war. They were called in India the Magas. The Taga Brahmans on the Yamuna river are their descendants. They are the Tagazgez of Masoudi.
But the efforts did not cease there. In 519 BC Phravarti, another Manda follower of the Sun god of the Magi priests, fought for the lost empire. The Virks revolted in Hyrcania. But Darius, aptly called great, suppressed them and except lands on the frontiers of the empire. The Kangs remained free in north of Oxus river; and the Scythian Jats on the Danube were free. Infact, Darius, too attacked these invincible people with very large army and huge preparations of every short. At last Darius ordered on immediate withdrawal and returned to Persia.
Mandas
and other Jats came to India :
Mandas
in Sixth century :
Mother
of Cyrus was Manda :
At this period, the principal Persian tribes, as named by Herodotus (bk. i. 126), were the Pasargadai (Pisar-kada) "Sons of the House", the tribe of the Royal Family; the Maraphoi and the Maspoi tribes apparently connected with the civil and military administration of the Empire; the Panthialai, the Derusiai, and the Germanoi, who were all husbandmen; and the Daai, the Mardoi, the Dropikoi, and the Sagartoi, who were all nomads.
The mother tongue of all these tribes would be the Persian. We find most of them represented amongst the existing population of Afghanistan by tribes bearing precisely the same names, and speaking the Persian language. The Panthialai, it would seem, formerly had an occupancy on the extreme eastern or Indus frontier ; for there is a district in the Mahmand hills, on the Peshawar frontier, north of the Khybar Pass and between the Kabul and Swat rivers, called Pandiali, after which a division of the Mahmand, or " Great Mand," tribe is named.
Reference - H. W. Bellew (1891): An Inquiry Into the Ethnography of Afghanistan, p.6
In
Mahavansh :
Manda - Mahavansh / Chapter 34 (The Eleven Kings) mentions ....Mahaculi Maha Tissa reigned fourteen years with piety and justice. ...The same king built the Mandavapi-vihar, the Abhayagallak (vihar), the (vihärs) Vankavattakagalla and Dighabahugallak and the Jalagam-vihar. When the king (inspired) by faith had done works of merit in many ways he passed into heaven, at the end of the fourteen years.
Note - Mandavadi is a village in Dindigul municipality, Tamil Nadu, India.
Mahavansh / Chapter 35 tells ....After Maha Dathik's death Amanda Gamani, his son, reigned nine years and eight months. ....Amanda Gamani's younger brother, the prince Kanirajanu Tissa, reigned three years in the city, when he had slain his brother. He decided the lawsuit concerning the uposath-house in the (vihar) named after the cetiya, but sixty bhikkhus who were involved in the crime of high treason did the king order to be taken captive, with all that was theirs, upon the Cetiyapabbat, and he commanded these evildoers to be flung into the caves called Kanir.
History
of Manda gotra :
Source :
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