Gopāla and Mahiṣapāla: Peoples, Dynasties, or Retrospective Categories?

Whether the Gopālas and Mahiṣapālas were actual dynasty or ethnic groups from the Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman or Indo-European language families is still uncertain. However, the material that is now available suggests a more intriguing possibility: “Gopāla” and “Mahiṣapāla” may be Sanskrit occupational classifications imposed retrospectively upon memories of early pastoral communities. They need not have been the original ethnic names of those communities. It is most likely that a multilingual and a multicultural historical context was the most plausible. Indo Aryan-speaking ritual and political specialists may have interacted with a local population who were also Tibeto-Burman speakers, possibly absorbed by, or ruled over, by them. The chronicle subsequently expressed this complex past as a simple succession of dynasties.