Janapada of Kamboja: Map & History
The Kambojas were a southeastern Iranian people who inhabited the northeastern most part of the territory populated by Iranian tribes, which bordered the Indian lands.
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The Kambojas were a southeastern Iranian people who inhabited the northeastern most part of the territory populated by Iranian tribes, which bordered the Indian lands. They only appear in Indo-Aryan inscriptions and literature, being first attested during the later part of the Vedic period.
Modern Countries Once Part of Janapada of Kamboja
At its mapped extent, Janapada of Kamboja covered territory in 1 present-day country. The period shown is when the mapped borders include that country, and the note says how much of it.
Largest Present-Day Cities in Its Territory
Each opens on the live map inside Janapada of Kamboja's borders of that time.
Derived by testing mapped cities against this polity's dated territorial polygons, so the list is indicative and follows the borders in the source dataset.
Janapada of Kamboja in Depth
History
The Kambojas only appear in Indo-Aryan inscriptions and literature, being first attested during the later part of the Vedic period. The Naighaṇṭukas, a glossary and oldest surviving writing about Indian lexicography, is the first source to mention them. In his book about etymology—the Nirukta—the ancient Indian author Yaska comments on that part of the Naighaṇṭukas, in which he mentions that "the word śavati as a verb of motion is used only by the Kambojas", a statement that is more or less repeated in the exact same way by later authors, such as the grammarian Patanjali (2nd-century BCE) in his Mahabhashya. The word śavati is equivalent to š́iiauua- in Younger Avestan, which demonstrates that the Kambojas spoke an Iranian tongue with close ties to it.
Language and location
The Kambojas inhabited the northeastern most part of the territory populated by Iranian tribes, which bordered the Indian lands. In 1918, Lévi suggested it to be Kafiristan, but later retracted it in 1923; B. Liebich suggested they lived in the Kabul Valley; J. Bloch suggested that they lived to the north-east of Kabul; Lamotte considered them to live them from Kafiristan to the southwestern part of Kashmir.
In 1958, a new suggestion was put forward by the French linguist Émile Benveniste. He drew a comparison between the Kambojas and Greeks described in Ashoka's edicts in Kandahar and the two languages it was written in; Greek and "Aramao-Iranian", which refers to the Iranian language hidden in the text of the Aramaic alphabet.
Sections adapted from Wikipedia: Kambojas (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Janapada of Kamboja: Key Facts
| Founded | 3rd century BCE |
|---|
Facts from Wikidata Q2586782 (CC0).
Janapada of Kamboja Timeline
Key historical inflections from foundation to peak territorial expansion
Expansion to peak recorded area of 5,087 km² in 516 BCE.
Janapada of Kamboja: Frequently Asked Questions
When did Janapada of Kamboja exist?
Janapada of Kamboja is dated to 600 BCE – 501 BCE, in the Bronze & Iron Age Civilizations era.
How large was Janapada of Kamboja at its peak?
At its peak in 516 BC Janapada of Kamboja covered about 5,087 km².
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