Dialects Although the Abhiras constituted a distinct ethnic group, they spoke diverse regional dialects. The language of the Ahirs was known as Ahirani in Khandesh, resembling Marathi. While the Ahirs of Kathiawad and Kachh have a dialect which resembles Gujarathi (Bhandarkar, 1911:17). Abhira bhasha is in fact considered to be Apabhransha. In the ninth century B.C., it had become the language of the people, and was spoken from Saurashtra, and Shastri (1967) proves that poetry was composed in the language around the sixth century B.C. Suryavamsi (1962:14-15) mentions the following two dialects in addition to the ones above--Gaddi, which is currently the dialect spoken in Gadderan, on the outskirts of the Chamba and Kangra hills, and Gandi, spoken in some parts of Madhya Pradesh. Abhiri as a dialect has been recorded by Sanskrit poets such as Bharata and Dandin. Yadav (1916:15), notes that the dialect the people of Ahirwal in Haryana speak, has a resemblance to Rajasthani, and Grierson (1916:9), considers Ahirwati a branch of eastern Rajasthani and western Hindi. Legends of the cowherd Krishna and his dances with cowherdesses are mentioned in the Sangam classics. The term Ayarpati (cowherd settlement) is found in Cilappatikaram (Iyer, 1950). It is argued that the term Ayar has been used for the Abhiras in ancient Tamil literature, and V. Kanakasabha Pillai (1904) derives Abhira from the Tamil wordAyir which also means cow. He equates the Ayars with Abhiras, and Suryavanshi (1962:17-18) treats this as evidence of migration of the Abhiras to the south in the first century A.D. Thus, linguistic evidence is used to support the argument that the Abhiras spread to different parts of India, and that they retained different but related cultural traditions. The most common denominator, as was pointed out earlier, was a descent from the Yadu dynasty and their association with cattle.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 09:28:59 +0000
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