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 302

CHAPTER LV THE KIRĀTAS
The Kirātas were a non-Aryan mountain tribe, possessing a rude culture. They are referred to in the Mahābhārata (XII, 207, 43) together with the Yaunas or Yavanas, Kāmbojas, Gāndhāras, and Barbaras, who all dwelt in the northern region or Uttarāpatha; while the Rāmāyana mentions them along with the Mlecchas, or 'barbarians', another non-Aryan tribe. That the Kirātas were outside the Aryan fold is evident from a passage in the Śrīmadbhāgavatam (II, 4, 18) which states that the Kirātas along with the Hūnas, Andhras, Pulindas, Pulkasas, Abhiras, Suhmas, Yavanas, Khasas, and other impure tribes purified themselves by offering their allegiance to Sri-Krsna. The Kirātas are mentioned in the Visnupurāna (Wilson's Ed., II, pp. 156–90), in a long list of Indian peoples and countries, where they also seem to have been located in the northern region.
That the Kirātas were located in the Uttarāpatha seems also to have been attested to by Ptolemy who includes the Kirrhadai (or Kirrhodoeis) among the tribes of Sogdiana (present-day Soghd), which was divided from Baktriana by the river Oxus (see McCrindle, Ancient India, p. 277). Kirrhadia, the country of the Kirrhadai, is mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea as lying west from the mouth of the Ganges. This reference seems to suggest that the Kirātas had settlements in the eastern region as well. Ptolemy's Kirrhadoi or Airrhadoi spread widely not only over Gangetic India, but also over countries farther east. The Mahābhārata, too, seems to point to a settlement of the Kirātas in Kāmarūpa; we are told that Bhagadatta, the powerful ruler of Prāgjyotisa (= Kāmarūpa), led a mighty Mleccha army of Kirātas and Cīnas in the battle of Kuruksetra. For further remarks on the location of the Kirātas or Kirrhadoi, see Lassen's Indisches Alterthum, Vol. III, pp. 235-7. L. Pliny and Megasthenes also mention the tribe under the name Skyrites. According to Megasthenes, they were a nomadic people'who instead of nostrils have merely orifices'. They were probaly a flat-nosed people of primitive origin dwelling in forests and mountains and living by hunting.
Long assures us 1 that there is still a tradition in Tripurā, precisely where Ptolemy places his Kirrhadia, that the first name
1 J.A.S.B., XIX, Chronicles of Tripurā', p. 536.