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TRIBES IN ANCIENT INDIA
Jaina sources that one-half of the Kekaya kingdom was Aryan, and the Kekaya city was known as Seyaviya.1
The Kekayas fought on Duryodhana's side in the Kuruksetra war. They seem from the Purāņas 2 to have been intimately related to the Uśīnaras and the Sivis, for they were traditionally descended from one of the four sons of Sivi Uśīnara. The latter is said to have originated the Sivis in Sivapura and extending his conquests westwards, to have founded through his four sons the kingdoms of the Vrsadarbhas, Madras, Kekayas or Kaikeyas, and Suvīras or Sauviras. In the Vişnupurāna mention is made of a king of Kekaya or Kaikeya named Dhrstaketu (Bk., IV, Chap. XIV).
A branch of the Kekayas seems in later times to have migrated as far south as the Mysore country, where they established a settlement. They were probably an ancient ruling family of Mysore, and were connected by marriage with the Ikşvākus, a famous royal dynasty, known from inscriptions discovered from the ruins of the Jagayyapeta stūpa in the Krsņā district, as well as from Nāgārjunikonda.
1 Ind. Ant., 1891, 375.
2 Vāyu P., Chap. 99; Matsya P., Chap. 48; Vișnu P., IV, Chap. 18; Agni P., Chap. 276, etc.
*3 Pargiter, A.I.H.T., p. 264. See also Chap. on Yaudheyas, for further information about Sivi and his father Usinara.
4 Dubreuil, A.H.D., pp. 88, 101; see also Archaeological Survey of South India, Vol. I, pp. 110-III.
5 Ed. Vogel, Ep. Indica, Vols. XX, XXI; Annual Report of South Indian Epigraphy, 1926, p. 92; 1927, pp. 71-74.
