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190 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA
enthusiasm in a cause in which they believed. These singers and chroniclers have left a legacy which is invaluable to the student of ancient history.
The rise of Magadha synchronised with, and may have been a contributory cause of an exodus of people from the Madhya-desa to the outlying parts of India, notably the west and the south. The displacement of the Yādavas in antiquity is vouched for by epic tradition. It is well-known that the Vộishộis and cognate clans of Dvārkā in Kāthiāwār and several peoples of the Deccan claimed Yadu lineage. It was in the period under review that the Far South of India comes definitely within the geographical horizon of the grammarians and foreign diplomats some of whom graced the Durbar of Magadhan Kings. SaptaSindhu had at last developed into Jambudvīpa. And the time was not distant when a notable attempt would be made to impress the stamp of unity on it in the domain of culture and politics.
In making their prowess felt throughout the vastsub-continent of India the great men of Magadha had at first to face three problems, viz., those presented by the republics mainly on their northern frontier, the monarchies that grew up on the Rāptī, the Jumna and the Chambal, and the foreign impact that made itself felt in the Punjab. We turn first to the republics.
