The Yadavas who ruled southern India till the 13th century were the Mauryas, Shalivahanas, Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas, Yadavas of Devagiri and Mankhed, Haihayas of Chedidesh (near Jabalpur), Kalachuris of Kalyan in Hyderabad, Bhattis of Jaisalmer and Shelars and Shilahars of Southern Maharashtra. The Rashtrakutas, too, were Yadavas. The Kailash Temple cut out of solid rock at Ellora, stands as a perpetual monument to the greatness of Krishna I (756-73). In their inscriptions from the ninth century onwards, the Rashtrakutas are spoken of as Yadavas. After the 14th century, Yadava power declined. Some of them linked themselves with the Suryavanshi Kshatriyas. The Yadavas are dynamic people with a capacity for assimilation and absorption, a quality to which their survival after the fratricidal Mahabharata war may well be attributed. This tribe has intermingled and has gradually separated from the main Yadava fold. Socially and economically they began to be classed as backward. High caste Hindus often call them Sudras but the Yadavas call themselves 'Somavanshi Kshatriyas.' The contribution of the Yadavas to the composite culture of India is immense: the nomadic art forms, the Abhira language (Apabhramsa), the Raslila and certain ragas like Ahir-Bhairav, Abhirika, Gopika and Kannadagula, and perhaps most of all, the Krishna cult. (Last Updated on : 08-04-2009) |
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