Tribes In Ancient India

SR No.: 007311
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Bimla Charn Law
Publisher: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute
Publication Year: 1943
Total Pages: 449
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 132 MB

Page 135

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE KOSALAS
In the earliest Vedic literature, no mention is made of Kośala as the name of a people. It is only in some of the later Vedic works, like the Satapatha Brāhmana and the Kalpasūtras, that we find Kośala referred to as a country. Kośala is also mentioned in the Pāli Buddhist literature as one of the sixteen great countries (Mahājanapadas) of Jambudīpa or India.1 Pāṇini, too, mentions Kośala in one of his Sūtras. In the Atthasālini, mention is made of Kośala as one of the great Ksatriya tribes in Buddha's time. 4
Kośala lay to the east of the Kurus and Pañcālas, and to the west of the Videhas, from whom it was separated by the river Sadānīrā, probably the great Gandak. In the Cambridge History of India, we read that the northern frontier of Kośala must have been in the hills in what is now Nepal; its southern boundary was the Ganges; and its eastern boundary was the eastern limit of the Sākya territory. According to Macdonell and Keith, Košala lay to the north-east of the Ganges, and corresponds roughly to the modern Oudh.? Rhys Davids states that the Košalas were the ruling clan in the kingdom whose capital was Sāvatthi (Srāvasti), in what is now Nepal, seventy miles north-west of the modern Gorakhpur. He thinks that it included Benares and Sāketa, and probably had the Ganges for its southern, the Gandak for its eastern, and the mountains for its northern boundary.8
In the Cambridge History of India,' we read that the Kośalans were almost certainly of the Aryan race, in the main at least. They belonged to the solar family, and were supposed to have derived directly from Manu through Ikşvāku. A family of princes bearing this name is known from Vedic literature, and it is quite possible
1 Anguttara Nikaya, Vol. I, p. 243; IV, pp. 255, 255, 26; cf. Visa patrăma, Chap. IV, Amía 4.
2 VI, 1, 17.
3 Khuddakapātha Comm., pp. 110-II; cf. Papañcasüdani (P.T.S.), Vol. I, pp. 59-60. Košala is mentioned as a beautiful place, attractive, pleasant, full of good things, and prosperous as the home of the gods.
4 Atthasālini (P.T.S.), p. 305.
5 Cambridge History of India, Vol. I, p. 308; cf. ibid., p. 117, and Rapson, Ancient India, p. 164; also Satapatha Brāhmana, 1, 4, 11. 6 Vol. I, p. 178.
7 Vedic Index, Vol. I, p. 190. 8 Buddhist India, p. 25.
9 Vol. I, p. 190.