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

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TRIBES IN ANCIENT INDIA
or Suhma that the Buddha delivered the Janapada-kalyānī Sutta, while dwelling in a forest near the town of Desaka 1 (Telapatta Jataka, Jataka No. 96, Vol. I, p. 393).
According to Nīlakantha's commentary on the Mahābhārata, the Suhmas and the Rādhas were one and the same people (see Vanga Chap.); but from the Ayāranga-sutta, one may gather that the Suhma country formed a part of the Rādha (Lādha) country, the other important part having been called Brahma (cf. Brahmottara of the Purāṇas and Brahma of the Kāvyamīmāmsā).
In the fourth Jain Upānga, called the Prājñāpāņā (or Pannavanā), as well as in the fifth Jain Anga, called the Bhagavatī, Lādha is described as having been one of the 16 great Janapadas, and one of the Ariya Janapadas of India. But the name Rādha is not traceable in the Epics or any other Sanskrit record before the tenth century A.D. The reason for this fact seems to be that in all Sanskrit records of the period including the Great Epic, the names Suhma and Brahma have always been used to denote the Rādha country which was almost fully covered by these two Janapadas.'2 By the end of the tenth century A.D. Rādha which seems to have comprised the whole of Western Bengal, bounded on the north and east by the Ganges and the Bhāgirathi, had come to be divided into two parts: Uttara Rādha and Daksina Rādha: for Sridhara Bhatta, the author of the philosophical work, Nyāyakandali, composed in 991 A.D., is said to have been born in a village called Bhūrisrsti in Daksina Radha. Moreover, the Tirumalai Rock Inscription of Rājendra Cola (1025 A.D.) mentions Uttara Rādha and Dakşiņa Rādha as two distinct Janapadas (see Vanga Chap.); and Uttara Rādha is also mentioned in the Belava copperplate of Bhojavarman as well as in the Naihati copperplate of Vallālasena, as a mandala (district) included in the bhukti (limit) of Vardhamāna. It is highly probable that the two Janapadas, Brahma and Suhma, of the Epics, the Purāņas, the Kāvyamīmāmsā, and other Sanskrit sources are identical with the two divisions of Rādha (Uttara and Daksiņa) alluded to in the Nyāyakandali, the Tirumalai Inscription, the Prabodhacandrodava (Canto II), and finally in the Sena records. The Rādha country seems to have comprised the modern districts of Hooghly, Howrah, Burdwan, Bankura, and the major portions of Midnapur; Uttara and Dakșiņa Rādha being separated by the river Ajaya.
1 Sedaka, acc. to Samyutta Nikāya, V, 89.
2 For a most interesting and original discussion of this subject, see Sen, Some Janapadas of Ancient Rādha (I.H.Q., Vol. VIII, No. 3, pp. 521ff.).