Sindhu-Sauvīra (
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
: ;
Pāli
Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or ''Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravāda'' Buddhism ...
: ) was an ancient
Indo-Aryan kingdom
Kingdom commonly refers to:
* A monarchy ruled by a king or queen
* Kingdom (biology), a category in biological taxonomy
Kingdom may also refer to:
Arts and media Television
* ''Kingdom'' (British TV series), a 2007 British television drama s ...
in the western region of
the subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India ...
whose existence is attested during the
Iron Age in India
In the prehistory of the Indian subcontinent, the Iron Age succeeded Bronze Age India and partly corresponds with the megalithic cultures of India. Other Iron Age archaeological cultures of India were the Painted Grey Ware culture (1300–300 ...
. The inhabitants of Sindhu were called the Saindhavas, and the inhabitants of Sauvīra were called Sauvīrakas.
Location
The territory of Sindhu-Sauvīra covered the lower
Indus
The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmir, ...
Valley,
with its southern border being the
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...
and its northern border being the
Pañjāb around
Multān.
Sindhu was the name of the inland area between the Indus River and the
Sulaiman Mountains
The Sulaiman Mountains, also known as Kōh-e Sulaymān ( Balochi/Urdu/ fa, ; "Mountains of Solomon") or Da Kasē Ghrūna ( ps, د كسې غرونه; "Mountains of Kasi"), are a north–south extension of the southern Hindu Kush mountain system i ...
, while Sauvīra was the name for the coastal part of the kingdom as well as the inland area to the east of the Indus river as far north as the area of modern-day Multan.
The capital of Sindhu-Sauvīra was named Roruka and Vītabhaya or Vītībhaya, and corresponds to the mediaeval
Arohṛ and the modern-day
Rohṛī.
History
Kingdom
During the 6th to 5th centuries BCE, the Sindhu-Sauvīra was ruled by a powerful king named
Udāyana or Udrāyaṇa or Rudrāyaṇa by various sources.
Udāyana was married to the princess
Prabhāvatī, who was the daughter of
Ceṭaka, the consul of the powerful
Vajjika League
The Vajjika (Pali, Pāli: ) or Vrijika (Sanskrit: ) League, Confederacy, or Sangha, also called simply Vajji (Pali, Pāli: ) or Vriji (Sanskrit: ), was an ancient Indo-Aryan peoples, Indo-Aryan tribal league which existed during the later Iron ...
in north-east South Asia, and was herself thus the cousin of the 24th
Jain
Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle being ...
Tīrthaṅkara
In Jainism, a ''Tirthankara'' (Sanskrit: '; English: literally a 'ford-maker') is a saviour and spiritual teacher of the ''dharma'' (righteous path). The word ''tirthankara'' signifies the founder of a '' tirtha'', which is a fordable passag ...
Mahāvīra
Mahavira (Sanskrit: महावीर) also known as Vardhaman, was the 24th ''tirthankara'' (supreme preacher) of Jainism. He was the spiritual successor of the 23rd ''tirthankara'' Parshvanatha. Mahavira was born in the early part of the 6 ...
, himself the son of Chetaka's sister
Trisalā. Ceṭaka had become an adept of the teachings of his nephew Mahāvīra and adopted Jainism, thus making the Licchavika and Vajjika capital of
Vesālī a bastion of Jainism, and the marriages of his daughters to various leaders, in turn, contributed to the spreading of Jainism across northern South Asia.
Therefore, according to Jain sources, Udāyana converted to
Jainism
Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religions, Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current ...
after hearing Mahāvīra preach at Vītabhya, and he abdicated his throne and became a Jain monk after installing his nephew by his sister, Keśīkumāra, as king of Sindhu-Sauvira, instead of his own son, Abhijitkumāra, who found asylum at the court of
Kūṇika, the governor of the
Āṅgeya city of Campā for the count of the king of
Magadha
Magadha was a region and one of the sixteen sa, script=Latn, Mahajanapadas, label=none, lit=Great Kingdoms of the Second Urbanization (600–200 BCE) in what is now south Bihar (before expansion) at the eastern Ganges Plain. Magadha was ruled ...
. However, Buddhist sources instead claim that Udrāyaṇa embraced Buddhism and was ordained by the
Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...
.
Persian conquest
In 518 BCE, Sindhu-Sauvīra was
conquered by the
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
's ("King of Kings"),
Darius I
Darius I ( peo, 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 ; grc-gre, Δαρεῖος ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his ...
, after which it was organised into the satrapy (province) of
.
Later history
The Sauvīra people or country were mentioned in the
Junâgaḍh inscription of Rudradáman.
See also
*
Sindhis
Sindhis ( sd, سنڌي Perso-Arabic: सिन्धी Devanagari; ) are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group who speak the Sindhi language and are native to the province of Sindh in Pakistan. After the partition of British Indian empire in 1947, man ...
*
History of India
According to consensus in modern genetics, anatomically modern humans first arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago. Quote: "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by m ...
*
History of Pakistan
The history of preceding the country's independence in 1947 is shared with that of Afghanistan, India, and Iran. Spanning the western expanse of the Indian subcontinent and the eastern borderlands of the Iranian plateau, the region of prese ...
*
Gandhāra (kingdom)
Gandhāra (Sanskrit: ; Pāli: ) was an ancient Indo-Aryan kingdom of western South Asia whose existence is attested during the Iron Age. The inhabitants of Gandhāra were called the Gāndhārīs.
Location
The Gandhāra kingdom of the l ...
References
External links
Further reading
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{{refend
History of Pakistan
History of Sindh
Ancient peoples of Pakistan