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 :

Described by Megasthenes - It is one of the Jat clans as described by Megasthenes. He writes them as Mandei along with Malli Jats in the region of Ganges :

 

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.

Parthian Stations by Isidore of Charax, is an account of the overland trade route between the Levant and India, in the 1st century BCE, The Greek text with a translation and commentary by Wilfred H. Schoff. Transcribed from the Original London Edition, 1914. The Parthian Stations of Isidore of Charax, fragmentary as it is, is one of the very few records of the overland trade-route in the period of struggle between Parthia and Rome. As the title indicates, it gives an itinerary of the caravan trail from Antioch to the borders of India, naming the supply stations. He writes about Medes (Manda) at station 3 as under :

 

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.

Mandas mentioned by Herodotus - It is one of Six Mede (Manda) tribes by Herodotus. Herodotus, i. 101, lists the names of six Mede (Manda) tribes as under :

 

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).

Mandas in Punjab - Mandas in the later period are found settled in Punjab and Sindh in sixth/seventh centuries AD. Ibn Haukal says that “the infidels who inhabited Sindh, are called Budha and Mand.” “The Mands dwell on the banks of Mihran (Sindhu) river. From the boundary of Multan to the sea… They form a large population.

 

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 :

Chundasariya - Village in Ladnu tehsil of Nagaur district in Rajasthan.

Dheerasar - Village in Jhunjhunu tahsil & district in Rajasthan.

Mandawas Barmer - Village in Pachpadra Tahsil of Barmer district in Rajasthan.

Manda Basni - Village in Didwana tehsil of Nagaur district in Rajasthan.

Manda Pali - Village in Marwar Junction Tahsil of Pali district in Rajasthan.

Mandapura - Village in Pachpadra Tahsil of Barmer district in Rajasthan.

Mandasar - Village in Chohtan Tahsil of Barmer district in Rajasthan.

Mandawala - Village in Gudha Malani Tahsil of Barmer district in Rajasthan.

Mandalgarh - City in Bhilwara district in Rajasthan. Other source tells us that it gets name from Manda Rao, the ancestor of Bagarawats. It was probably founded by Manda gotra Jats.

Mandesar - Village in Vallabhnagar tahsil of Udaipur District in Rajasthan.

Mandawas Ajmer - Village in Beawar Tahsil of Ajmer district in Rajasthan.

Mandawas Pali - Village in Rohat Pali Tahsil of Pali district in Rajasthan.

Mandeta or Mandota - Village in Sikar tehsil in Sikar district in Rajasthan.

Mandeli - Village in Nagaur tehsil & district of Rajasthan

Manda Aliyari - Village in Todaraisingh tahsil in Tonk district in Rajasthan.

Mandawar - Village in Tonk tahsil in Tonk district in Rajasthan.

Mandawara - Village in Hindaun tahsil of District Karauli in Rajasthan.

Mandli - Village in Pachpadra Tahsil of Barmer district in Rajasthan.

Mandolai - Village in Todaraisingh tahsil in Tonk district in Rajasthan.

Mandoli Danta Ramgarh - Village in Danta Ramgarh tahsil in Sikar district of Rajasthan.

Mando Ka Tala - Village in Barmer tahsil of Barmer district in Rajasthan.

Mandon Ki Beri - Village in Chohtan Tahsil of Barmer district in Rajasthan.

Manda Bhimsingh - Village is in Phulera tahsil of Jaipur district in Rajasthan.

Mandaliya - Village in Fagi tahsil in Jaipur district in Rajasthan.

Mandawari - Village in Phagi tahsil in Jaipur district in Rajasthan.

Mandawli - Also called Mandawali Saidu village in Bijnor tahsil and district in Uttar Pradesh.

Mandawar Bijnor - Town in tahsil and district Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh.

Mandora Jat - Village in Bijnor tahsil in district Bijnor of Uttar Pradesh.

Mandsaur - The name of city Mandsaur, in Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh, is probably originated from combination of Manda and Asura. The Manda Jats after the fall of their kingdom at Iran as result of wars that the first migration of the Jats took place and from the Manda Empire and from other parts of Central Asia they came to India.

Mandu - The historical Mandu Fort in Madhya Pradesh seems to have been founded by Manda Jats. This point needs more research.

Mandavadi is a village in Dindigul municipality, Tamil Nadu, India.

Mention by Panini :

Mandan is mentioned by Panini in Ashtadhyayi.

 

Mandas in Indian Epics :

In Ramyan - Ramyan - Aranya Kand Sarga 11 mentions about a rishi Mandakarni. Ram comes across lake from which divine music is heard. Surprised at the musical notes from beneath the waters of the lake he enquires with the sage who is following, and that sage narrates the episode of Sage Mandakarni.

 

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.

The ancient Mandas are even now a clan of the Jats in India. It is they who gave the first Historical Empire of the Jats in the western Plateau of Iran. They are named in the Purans also. Tee Vishnu Puran mentions them as Mandaks. By removing the Suffix “ka” the name appears in its old and present form. A country called Mandavya is mentioned in the Agni Puran. Sankhyan Aranyak, too mentions these people and so does Varahamihir, who, in his Samhita, locates them in the north, as well as the northwest of India. Madaiya is their Persian name.

 

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 :

Up to the nineteenth century, this brilliant empire was called the “Empire of the Medes”. It was so called by the Greek writers as well as in the Old Testament. The country of the Medes, called Media was the northwestern neighbour of the Mandas - the actual name of the empire builders. Even Media was eventually annexed to the empire of Manda. This was perhaps the reason of the serious mistake of history where the Mandas and the Medes were confused with each other. The Medes were traders of Greek stock and were living in small principalities. They never had any empire. Confounding the brave Mandas with the effete Medes was the most unfortunate event in history. The mistake became so prevalent that even a proverb was invented in English equal to the effect that a certain thing is as unchangeable as the laws of Medes and Persians. The mistake was detected when the monuments of Nabonodus and Cyrus were unearthed. It was then discovered that the whole history was based upon a philological mistake. It was found that the name of the empire and its people, was not Medes but Manda.

 

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 :

It was a result of these wars that the first migration of the Jats took place and from the Manda Empire and from other parts of Central Asia they came to India. That is why Panini mentioned many cities of theirs in the heart of Punjab in the fifth century B.C. But memories die hard. Even today, we have our villages named after the cities lost in Iran. The names like Elam, Bhatona, Susana, Baga, Kharkhoda (Manda Kurukada), etc, are still the names of Jat villages. It is these Jats whom Buddha Prakash Calls, “exotic and outlandish people” who came to Indian at the time of successors of Cyrus, and whom Jean Przyluski calls the Bahlikas from Iran and Central Asia.

 

Mandas in Sixth century :

Mandas in the later period are found settled in Punjab and Sindh in sixth/seventh centuries AD. Ibn Haukal says that “the infidels who inhabited Sindh, are called Budha and Mand.” “The Mands dwell on the banks of Mihran (Sindhu) river. From the boundary of Multan to the sea… They form a large population.

 

Mother of Cyrus was Manda :

About a century prior to the destruction of the Persian Empire of Darius Codomannus by the Make donians under Alexander the Great, Herodotus had written a very full history of that country down to his own day. But little of his most interesting records relate immediately to that portion of the ancient Persia with which we are just now concerned. That little, however, is of especial interest and great value to us in our present inquiry. At that period, about 450 B.C., Ariana, the Khorasan, or Afghanistan, we speak of, formed the eastern portion of the Empire of Darius Hystaspes — Dara son of Gushtasp. This Darius belonged to a Persian family or tribe, whose seat was in the north-eastern part of the country we are discussing — in the Bakhtar province, the capital of which was the city of Balkh, called by the Arabs Um-al-bilad or "Mother of Cities," on account of its great antiquity. He succeeded, about 521 B.C., to the empire founded by Cyrus (Kurush), and enlarged and consolidated by his son and successor Cambyses (Kamhojia, Kamhohji), Cyrus — whose mother was called Mandane (Mandana ; perhaps a princess of the Mandan tribe), and said to be a Mede, and whose father was called Cambyses (Kamhohji ; probably a chieftain of the Kamboh tribe) — having reduced the Medes and conquered the kingdom of Crcesus the Lydian (Ludi) thereby became master of all the territory extending from the Indus to the Hellespont.

 

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, Visal, Kassap - Mahavansh / Chapter 15 tells ...Third in our age of the world was the Conqueror of the Kassapa clan, the all-knowing Teacher, compassionate toward the whole world. `The Mahamegh-grove was called (at that time) Mahasagar; the capital, named Visãl, lay toward the West. Jayant was the name of the king of that region then, and this isle bore then the name of Mandadipa. At that time a hideous and life-destroying war had broken out between king Jayant and his younger royal brother. When Kassap, gifted with the ten powers, the Sage, full of compassion, knew how great was the wretchedness caused to beings by this war, then, to bring it to an end and afterwards to achieve the converting of beings and progress of the doctrine in this island, he, urged on by the might of his compassion, came through the air surrounded by twenty thousand (disciples) like to himself, and he stood on the Subhakuta-mountain.

 

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 :

At the time of the arrival of the Rathodas in Marwar, the present Mandor village and Mandar Gardan, situated to the north of Jodhpur, had a fortification of the Jats of the Manda gotra and the large tract of Marwar had a republic of Manda Jats. Historians believe that the Manda gotra has developed from Ravan's powerful king Mand. Mandodari, the daughter of Raja Mand, was the character wife of Ravan. The Jats of Manda gotra were once powerful rulers in Sindh - Baloch region and colonized western Asia and Europe. There is also a belief that the George dynasty of Britain is related to Manda. Rathod in Marwar first shift in PaliwalonHad come as a refugee and attacked the Manda Jats of Mordor who were already out of order, and evicted them from there. The villages of Manda Vasani, Chundasariya, Dhirasar, Mandet, etc. were settled by the Jats of Manda gotra at that time. Near Sujangarh there is a village named Mandeta which had a khejade tree in their place. The elephants of the Jats of Manda gotra were tied to this tree. For this reason, this tree was called Elephant Khejda whose diameter was five cubits thick and fifteen cubits was the thickness of 25 feet long rope wrap.

 

Source :

 

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