________________
130 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA
The Chedi people are mentioned as early as the ĶigVeda. Their king Kasu Chaidya is praised in a Dānastuti (praise of gift) occurring at the end of one hymn. Rapson proposes to identify him with ‘Vasu' of the Epics. -
The Chetiya Jātaka gives a legendary genealogy of Chaidya kings, taking their descent from Mabāsammata and Māndhātā. Upachara, a King of the line, had five sons who are said to have founded the cities of Hatthipura, Assapura, Sihapura, Uttara pañchala and Daddarapura.? This monarch is probably identical with Uparichara Vasu, the Paurava king of Chedi, mentioned in the Mahābhārata, whose five sons also founded five lines of kings. But epic tradition associates the scions of Vasu's family with the cities of Kaušāmbi, Mahodaya (Kanauj) and Girivraja.
The Mahābhārata speaks also of other Chedi kings like Damaghosha, his son śiśupāla Sunitha, and his sons Dhộishțaketu and Sarabha who reigned about the time of the Bharata war. But the Jātaka and epic accounts of the early kings of Chedi are essentially legendary and, in the absence of more reliable evidence, cannot be accepted as genuine history.
We learn from the Vedabbha Jātaka that the road from Kāśi to Chedi was. unsafe being infested with roving bands of marauders.
. 1 VIII. 5. 37-39.
2 Hatthipura may be identified with Hatthinipura or Hastinapura in the Kuru country, Assapura with the city of that name in Anga, and Sihapura with the town of Lāla from which Vijaya went to Ceylon. There was another Simhapura in the Western Punjab (Wattets I. 248). Uttarapañchāla s Ahichchhatra in Rohilkhand. Daddarapura was apparently in the Himalayan region. (DPPN, I. 1054). -
3 1. 63. 1-2. 4 I. 63. 30. 5 Rāmāyana, I. 32. 6-9; Mahābhārata, I. 63. 30-33. 6 No. 48.
