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THE PRĀGJYOTIŞAS
285 According to the Mahābhārata, Prāgjyotisa was situated in the northern region of India; but the Mārkandeya Purāna places it in the eastern region, together with the Brahmottaras (or Suhmottaras), Pravijayas (perhaps Prāvệseyas), Bhārgavas, Jñeyamallakas, Madras, Videhas, Tāmraliptakas, Mallas and Magadhas; or together with the Candreśvaras, Khaśas, Magadhas, and Lauhityas.2 The mountainous regions called Antar-giri, Vahirgiri, and Upa-giri in the Mahābhārata 3 appear to comprise the lower slopes of the Himalayas and the Nepalese Terai; and it is not unlikely that the Prāgjyotişas lived contiguously, as Bhagadatta is called Sailālaya ('one whose abode is in the mountains ').4 According to the Abhidhānacintāmani, Prāgjyotisa was the same as Kāmarūpa, though in the Raghuvamśa the Prāgjyotisas and Kāmarūpas are described as two different peoples. Generally speaking, the two countries came in later times to be regarded as one and the same. In the Kālikāpurāna, for example, the capital of Kāmarūpa is called Prāgjyotişapura, which has been identified with Kāmākhyā or Gauhāti. The Raghuvamśa seems to locate Prāgjyotisa beyond the Brahmaputra,? but Kālidāsa's knowledge of distant geographical locations is not always satisfactory. For all practical purposes, Prāgjyotişa may, therefore, be identified with the whole of Assam proper, along with Northern Bengal as far as Rungpur and Cooch Behar, which is the territory comprised by Kāmarūpa, according to the Yoginītantra.
King Bhagadatta, as we have seen, was a Mleccha, and his people also Mlecchas or Yavanas, i.e. non-Aryans, but the Rāmāyana ascribes the foundation of the kingdom to Amūrtarājas, one of the four great sons of King Kuśa-a significant Aryan name.
According to the Brahmāndapurāna and the Rāmāyaṇa, there seems to have been another Prāgjyotişapura on the river Vetravati or Betwa.
The later kings of Kāmarūpa, who claimed to have been descended from the line of Narakāsura and Bhagadatta, figured prominently in Indian history. Most important of them was Kumāra Bhāskaravarman, an ally of Harsavardhana Silāditya, and referred to both by Bāņa (in his Harşacarita) and by Hsuan Tsang, the celebrated Chinese pilgrim.
1 Sabhāparvan, XXV, 1000; Vanaparvan, CCLII, 15240-2. 2 Pargiter's Ed., pp. 327-30, 357. 3 Sabhāparvan, XXV, 1000—XXVI, 1012.
4 Striparvan, XXIII, 644. 5 Prāgjyotişah Kāmarūpah, IV, 22. The name Kāmarūpa seems to have come into use later. 8 Chap. 38.
7 IV, 81.
8 Imp. Gaz. India, XIV, p. 331. o Brahmāndapurāņa, Chap. 27; Rāmāyaṇa, Kişkindhyā Kānda, Chap. 42.
