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ASOKA'S EMPIRE IN THE WEST 313 Pulindas? who are invariably associated with the Nerbudda (Revā) and the Vindhyan region :
Pulinda-rāja sundarī nābhimandala nipita salilā (Revā).
Pulinda Vindhya Pushikā(?) Vaidarbha Dandakaih saha 3 Pulindā Vindhya Mālikā Vaidarbhā Dandakaih saha*
Their capital Pulinda-nagara lay not far from Bhilsā and may have been identical with Rūpnāth, the find-spot of one recension of Minor Rock Edict 1.5
Hultzsch, however, doubts the identification of the “Palidas” of Shahbazgarhi with the Pulindas, for the Kālsi and Girnār texts have the variants Pālada and Pārimda-names that remind us of the Pāradas of the Vayu Purāna, 6 the Harivamsa? and the Brihat Samhita. In those texts the people in question are mentioned in a list of barbarous tribes along with the Śakas, Yavanas, Kambojas, Pahlavas, Khasas, Māhishikas, Cholas, Keralas, etc. They are described as muktakeśā (“having dishevelled hair”). Some of the tribes mentioned in the list belong to the north, others to the south. The association with the Andhras in Asokan inscriptions suggests that in the Maurya period they may have been in the Deccan. But the matter must be regarded as not definitely settled. It is interesting to note in this connection that a river Pāradā (identified
1 Hultzsch, Asoka, 48 (n. 14). 2 Subhandu's Vāsavadattā. 3 Matsya P. 114, 48. 4 Vayu, 55, 126.
5 The Navagrāma grant of the Mahārāja Hastin of the year 198 (A. D. 517) refers to a Pulinda-rāja-rāshtra which lay in the territory of the Parivrājaka kings, i.e., in the Dabhālā region in the northern part of the present Central Provinces (Ep. Ind., xxi, 126).
6 Ch.88, 7 I, 14.
8 XIII, 9. O. P. 90–40.
