Shakandhu

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Author: Laxman Burdak IFS (R)

Shakandhu (शकन्धु) is place name mentioned by Panini in Ashtadhyayi.

Origin

Jat clans

Mention by Panini

Shakandhu (शकन्धु) is place name mentioned by Panini in Ashtadhyayi.[1]

History

V. S. Agrawala[2] writes that Panini mentions village name in category ending Kanthā (IV.2.142). .... Panini must also have known Shakas, not in Seistan but in their original home in Central Asia.


[p.69]: How a string of kanthā-ending place names was found in Ushinara country in the heart of Punjab, is an unexplained problem. It points to an event associated with Shaka history even before Panini, possibly an intrusion which left its relics in place names before the Saka contact with India in the second century BC. Katyayana mentions Shakandhu and Karkandhu, two kinds of wells of the Shakas and Karkas (Karkians), which may be identified as the stepped well (vāpī) and the Persian wheel (arghaṭṭa) well respectively.


Tej Ram Sharma[3] writes that the place-names ending in kantha existing in the


Personal and geographical names in the Gupta inscriptions 165


whole of the Punjab from the Bannu valley to the Kankhala region and even beyond suggest an intrusion of the Sakas long before the time of Panini, [4] who is known to have flourished one century before the invasion of Alexander the Great. Kantha is a Saka word for city [5] and is akin to kadhavara or kanthavara of Kharosthi inscriptions, Kand of Persian, Kantha of Khotanese, Kandh of Sogdian, Kandai of Pushto, Kanda or Koent of the dialect of the Rsikas. It is significant that the land beyond the Oxus, the Urheimat of the Sakas, abounds in Kantha-ending place names, such as Samarkand, Khokand, Chimkand, Tashkand, Panjkand, and Yarkand.

The reference to the stepped-well, called Sakandhu after the Sakas, together with that worked by Persian Wheel, known as Karkandhu after the Karkians, in a varttika of Katyayana [6] also leads to the same conclusion.

External links

See also

References

  1. V. S. Agrawala: India as Known to Panini, 1953, p.69
  2. V. S. Agrawala: India as Known to Panini, 1953, p.68-69
  3. Personal and geographical names in the Gupta inscriptions/Tribes,p.165-166
  4. VI.2.125 mentions Kantha-ending place-names ; V.S. Agrawala, pp. 70-1.
  5. Sten Konow, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. II, Kharosthi Incsriptions. Intro, p. 43 ; Saka Studies by Sten Konow. pp. 42, 149 ; Panini, IV.2.100 ; IV.2.103; II.4.20; VI.2.124 ; VI.2.125. Also see for details Indian Historical Quarterly, Calcutta . XXVII, Calcutta, March 1951: Some foreign words in ancient Sanskrit literature, pp. 7-13.
  6. Katyayana's Varttika on Panini, 1.1.64 : शकंध्वादिषु पररूपं वाच्यम् ।