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THE PULINDAS
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Pulindakas--and are mentioned together with the Kārūsas, Bhojas, Daśārņas, Mekalas, Utkalas and other tribes. The compound Sindhu-Pulindaka also occurs in the Mahābhārata (6, 346ff.) and Padmapurāna (III, 6, 4ff.). The Pulindas are alluded to in the Raghuvamsa as well (XVI, 32), but there is hardly any clue to their geographical location.
The capital of the (southern) Pulindas was Pulindanagara which lay to the south-east of Daśārņa, i.e. in the Vidiśā or Bhilsa region, and may have been identical with Rupnāth, the find-spot of one recension of Minor Rock Edict I of Asoka.1
At the time of Asoka, the Pulindas, together with the Andhras, Bhojas and Rāstrikas, formed a group of vassal tribes within the Emperor's dominions, which extended as far south as the Pennar river in the Nellore district, just stopping short of the Tamil kingdoms, which are referred to as Pracamta or frontier states.
Some interesting information about the Pulindas is supplied by Ptolemy. According to him, the Pulindas seem to have been located along the banks of the Narmadā, to the frontiers of Lārike or Lāța = Gujarat; for he describes them as occupying a region northward of Nasik, Ozene (= Ujjain), Minnagara, Lărika or Lātadeśa (= Gujarat), Barygaza (= Bharukaccha = Broach), etc. His epithet for the tribe is ‘Agriophagoi',-a Greek word indicating that they were a tribe that subsisted on raw flesh and wild roots and fruits.
Yule in his map locates the Pulindas to the north-east of the Gulf of Cutch.
1 P.H.A.I., 4th Ed., pp. 79, 258. 2 Rock Edict, V and XIII.
