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Wit..."

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This article is an extract from 

ETHNOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT INDIA 

BY 

ROBERT SHAFER 

With 2 maps 

1954 

OTTO HARRAS SOWITZ . WIESBADEN 
***** 
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We may here briefly review conditions in India before the Great
Rebellion. Map 1 will show that the Anavas had all but submerged the
Indo-Aryans in the Panjab, but they had themselves become partly
aryanized.

We find traces of the Yadavas on the fringe of a vast area in the
west : the Vatadhana and the Salva and the subdivisions of the latter
along the Satadru; then the Kukura, Andhaka, Surasena, Abhisaha,
Pataccara, and Usinara between the Drsadvati and the Ganges; below
there Mathura, and the former Yadava kingdom of Cedi along the south
bank of the Yamuna; and to the east Jathara, Kaukura, Bhoja, and
Dasarna ; then coming west along the Purna were Nisadha, and Vidarbha ;
and along the west coast, Dandaka, Surastra, Nairrta; and along the
lower Indus, Anarta and Anupa. Within this peripheral area were the
Haihayas, the younger branch of the Yadavas, along the Vindhyas.
There is little doubt that the Yadavas and Haihayas had once been the
chief power west and south of the Yamuna. *

But shortly before the Great Rebellion the Yadavas had conducted
a long struggle with the chief power in the east, Jarasandha, king of
the Magadhas, who had finally forced Krsna to flee from Mathura to
the west. And two of the principal kingdoms, Matsya and Cedi, had
become aryanized.

The Yadavas were probably already very weak before the Great
Rebellion, partly from the losses sustained in the long war with Jara-
sandha, partly from aryanization of some of the most important king-
doms, partly from the scattered position of the remaining Yadavas
and their lack of cohesion. To say that one was a Yadava still commanded
respect in an Aryan, because the Yadavas had been the chief force in
the west, and force always commanded respect in an Aryan. But the
Mahabharata seems to know little about the Yadavas. It is not clear
whether the Bhojas were Yadavas or Haihayas or both, whether Yuyu-
dhana Satyaki and Cekitana were Satvatas or Vrsnis, or just what Yadava
tribes fled to Anarta. 1 This confusion is perhaps in part because the

1 The Aitareya Brahmana seems to use Satvata for Yadava, or at least for
the Yadavas south of the Satpura range (viii. 14). And at a later period Andhakas,

Mahabharata is not the book of the Yadavas, l but in part because of
indifference about people who were no longer very important. 2

In the east the chief powers were the eastern Anava, to whom the
Saudyumna stock offered some support, and the eastern Manava.

The Aryan strength was along the Yamuna and the upper Ganges.
The Pandavas received very little aid from the Indo-Aryans of the
northwest. The Indo-Aryans supporting the Pandavas were so far in
the minority that they would have lost the war, according to their
own account in the Mahabharata, if it had not been for their superior
weapons which the rsis, of course, attributed to their gods 3 .

For the line-up of opposing forces, see Map 2. 4

The southern Dravidians are said to have been on the Pandava
side. Perhaps the Dravidians had been annoyed by encroachments
of the Yadavas further north and so favored the Pandavas. But of course
there is enormous exaggeration in the Great Epic, 5 and probably

Vrnis, Dvaivavrdhas, and Mahabhojas were thought to be four branches of
Satavatas (Law).

1 The confusion is perhaps worse in the Harivarhs'a, but that is later than
the Mahabharata.

2 They continued to play an important role south of the Vindhyas.

3 For a discussion of the "divine" weapons of the Aryans, see E. W. Hopkins,
"The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India ..." JAOS

13 (1887), 296ff., and "On Fire-Arms in Ancient India," ibid., p. cxciv ff., and
especially V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, War in Ancient India (Univ. Madras,
1944), pp. 93 ff.

In a study of one of the weapons in the Pandava army, M. B. Emeneau in-
ferred that the Sarriga, the bow of Kr^na, was probably a sinew-backed wooden
bow with a strip of horn on its belly, giving much greater force. This bow seems
to have originated in Siberia or Central Asia, and there is no evidence of it in the
Rgvoda. (From an address before the Western Branch of the American Oriental
Society, Nov. 24, 1951, with Prof. Emeneau's permission).

4 For the Kaurava supporters the writer has also used the list in Cr. Ed.
VIII. 4, Roy VIII. 5, which is quite orderless and hence has not been included in
the appendix. A few names have also been added from Pargiter's article on "The
Nations of India at the Battle between the Pandavas and Kauravas," JRAS
(1908), 309 336. Participants in the war, whose geographical location were too
uncertain to place on Map 2 were: Kaurava -AsVataka, Arecaka (?), Kanana (?),
Govasa, Cambupa ( ? ), Cicchila ( ? ), Dasamiya, Paribhadraka, Prasthala, Mavellaka,
Lalittha, Varmila (?), Vikarna, Venika, Sreni, Sarhsthana; Pandava Kum-
bharsa(?), Tittira, Nakula, Narayana, Prabhadraka (see Paribh- in Kuru army),
Madaka, Salveya, Somaka; on both sides Da6eraka, Pi&aca, Raksasa, Naga.

5 See p. 1, n. 2. An example closer to the subject under discussion is afforded
by a comparison of the digvijayas (list 2 below) with the dyuta list (no. 3 below).
The digvijayas show the Pandavas conquering all India. But the tribute list indi-
cates that the digvijayas were probably actually only punitive expeditions against
foreign peoples in the Panjab, the Himalayas, and the east. Some scattered refe-
rences to better-known kingdoms follow the list published hero; these perhaps
represent contributions to help carry out the expedition; and were put down by
later poets as tribute. The tribute list suggests that the Pandavas began their
career as military adventurers and semi -mercenaries.

some of this was in the earlier Kuru epic. It is difficult to see how some
of the widely scattered Kaurava forces could have rendered effective
aid. Since this is primarily a work on ethnography, the array of countries
in the Great Rebellion has been of primary interest to show the position
of the Aryans, not to make a critical analysis of the allied powers.

Situation before the Rebellion - Revision history

Pdewan: Created page with "{| class="wikitable" |- |colspan="0"| This article is an extract from ETHNOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT INDIA BY ROBERT SHAFER Wit..."

Pdewan: Created page with "{| class="wikitable" |- |colspan="0"|
This article is an extract from
ETHNOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT INDIA
BY
ROBERT SHAFER
Wit..."