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 The Mahābhārata 1 and the Mārkandeya Purāna mention
a people called the Mūsikas as dwelling in the south;. The Mūşikas or Mūşakas
or the same people evidently were also called Müşakas
who are mentioned twice in the Mahābhārata.2 The Mārkandeya Purāna in another context refers to a people called Mrisikas 3 as dwelling in the south-east and still another called Risikas 4 in the south. The Mrisikas were apparently the same as the Musikas or the Musakas. The Risikas were also a well-known people; they are referred to as dwelling in the north in the Mahābhārata, in the Rāmāyaṇa 6 as well as in the Matsyapurāna.? Another section of the same people seems to have their location in the south.8 It is difficult to say whether the Rişikas were the same as the Mrişikas or the Mūşikas = Mūsakas.
Pargiter suggests that the Mūşikas = Mūşakas were probably settled on the banks of the river Musi on which stands modern Hyderabad. Dr. Ray Chaudhuri suggests 10 that it is not altogether improbable that the Mūchipa or Mūvīpa of the Sankhyāyana Srauta Sūtra are the same people as the Mūşikas. It is also reasonable to suggest that the Mūşikas = Mūsakas were a southern offshoot of the Punjab tribe known to Alexander's historians as the Mousikenos. 11 Patañjali mentions a people called Mauşikāra 12 which appears to have some connection with the Mūşikas. A Musikanagara is referred to in the Hāthigumphā Inscription of King Khāravela of Kalinga who in the second year of his reign is said to have struck terror into the heart of the people of that place.13 The Culikas and the Sūlikas are mentioned in Mārkandeya list 14
as two different peoples, but both in the north. For The Culikas and Sūlikas and Culikas, the Vāyupurāna reads Pīdikas 15 and the
Matsyapurāna Sainikas instead.16 The Mārkandeya Purāna in another context 17 places the Culikas in the Tortoise's tail at the westernmost part of India. For Sūlikas, the Vāyupurāna reads Culikas in the same context, and the Matsyapurāna says that they were a people through whose country flowed the river Caksu, one of the three large rivers which rising from the mid-Himalayan 1 Bhīşmaparvan, IX, 366.
2 Ibid., IX, 366 and 371. 3 LVIII, 16.
4 LVIII, 27. 5 Sabhāparvan, XXVI, 1033-6.
6 Kişkindhyā Kānda, XLIV, 13. 7 CXX, 53 8 Rāmāyana, Kiskindhyā Kānda, XLI, 16; Harivamsa, CXIX, 6724-6. 9 Mārkandeya Purāna, p. 366.
10 P.H.A.I., 4th Ed., p. 80. 11 Cf. Cambridge History of India, Vol. I, p. 377.
13 Epigraphia Indica, XX, 79, 87; Barua reads Aśvaka or Risika instead in his Old Brāhmi Inscriptions, p. 176; Thomas also finds no reference in the passage to any Musika city, J.R.A.S., 1922, 83. 14 LVII, 40, 41.
15 XLV, 119. 16 CXIII, 43.
17 LVIII, 37.
ka, CXIth Ed., 22 IV, This