ASHVAK

The Ashvak, also known as the Ashvakan, Ashvakyan, or Asvayan and sometimes Latinised as Assacenii, Assacani, or Aspasioi, were a people who lived in what is now eastern Afghanistan and the Peshawar Valley in present-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The region in which they lived was also called Ashvak.

According to some scholars, the name Ashvakn or Aspasioi is preserved in the modern ethnonym Afghan (historically used for Pashtuns; also used in Afghanistan), and the tribal name Esapzai (whose Arabized form is Yusufzai).

Etymology :

The Sanskrit term ashva, Avestan aspa, and Prakrit assa means horse. The name Ashvak/Ashvakn or Assak is derived from the Sanskrit Ashva or Prakrit Assa and it denotes someone connected with the horses, hence a horseman, or a cavalryman or horse breeder. The Ashvaks were especially engaged in the occupation of breeding, raising and training war horses, as also in providing expert cavalry services.[citation needed]

The name of the Ashvakn or Assakan has been preserved in that of the modern Afghan.

According to philologist J.W. McCrindle, the name Ashvak is also "distinctly preserved" in the name of the Esapzai (or Yusufzai) tribe of Pashtuns. McCrindle noted: "The name of the Ashvak indicates that their country was renowned in primitive times, as it is at the present day, for its superior breed of horses. The fact that the Greeks translated their name into "Hippasioi" shows that they must have been aware of its etymological signification."

Ethnology :

Ancient Greek historians who documented the exploits of Alexander the Great refer to the Aspasioi and Assakenoi tribes among his opponents. The historian Ramesh Chandra Majumdar has said that these words are probably corruptions of Ashvak. It is possible that the corruption of the names occurred due to regional differences in pronunciation. Ram Shankar Tripathi thinks it possible that the Assakenoi were either allied to or a branch of the Aspasioi. The Greeks recorded the two groups as inhabiting different areas, with the Aspasioi in either the Alishang or Kunar Valley and the Assakenoi in the Swat Valley.

The Ashvak may have been a sub-group of the Kamboj tribe that is referenced in ancient Sanskrit and Pali literature, such as the Mahabharat and Purans, and which were partitioned into eastern and western Ashvaks. Barbara West treats the ethnonyms Kamboj, Ashvak, Aspasioi, Assakenoi and Ashvakyan as synonyms.

History :

The Assakenoi fielded 2,000 cavalry, 30 elephants and 30,000 infantry against Alexander during his campaign in India, which began in 327 BCE, but they eventually had to surrender after losses at places such as Beira, Massaga and Ora. The Aspasioi chose to flee into the hills but destroyed their city of Arigaion before doing so; 40,000 of them were captured, along with 230,000 oxen. Diodorus recorded the strength of the Ashvak opposition, noting that the women took up arms along with the men, preferring "a glorious death to a life of dishonour".

The Asvayans have been attested to be good cattle breeders and agriculturists by classical writers. Arrian said that, during the time of Alexander, there were a large number of bullocks - 230,000 - of a size and shape superior to what the Macedonians had known, which Alexander captured from them and decided to send to Macedonia for agriculture.

Source :

https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/A%C5%9Bvaka