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TRIBES IN ANCIENT INDIA
The Satapatha Brāhmaṇa contains a reference to a Matsya king, Dhvasan Dvaitavana, who appears to have given his name to a lake, Dvaitavana. In the Mahābhārata, we find mention of an extensive forest named Dvaitavana where the Pāņdavas passed a large portion of their exile. In the Virāțaparvan (IV, 5, 4-5), we are told that the Pāņdavas went to the Matsya capital (Virāța) from lake Dvaitavana, leaving the Daśārnas to the South and the Pañcālas to the North, passing through the country of the Yakrllomas and Sūrasenas, and entering the Matsya dominion from the forest. Elsewhere in the same Parvan (III, 24), a lake Dvaitavana is mentioned as existing in the Dvaitavana forest (which was supposed to be situated around the Sarasvati), and this lake appears to have been close to the Sarasvati (III, 177). Evidently both the lake and the forest were named after Dhyasan Dvaitavana, and were included in the Matsya dominions in early times. From the Mahābhārata account, it appears that the forest was outside the Matsya country, though not very far from it.
We have seen that according to Manu the Matsya country formed a part of the Brahmarsi-deśa, the country of the holy sages which, as Rapson 1 points out, included the eastern half of the State of Patiala and of the Delhi division of the Punjab, the Alwar State and adjacent territory in Rajputana, the region which lies between the Ganges and the Jumna, and the Muttra District in the United Provinces. In this land of the Brahmarşis, as Cunningham shows, 'In ancient times the whole of the country lying between the Arabali hills of Alwar and the river Jumna was divided between Matsya on the W. and Sūrasena on the E., with Daśārņa on the S. and S.E. border. Matsya then included the whole of the present Alwar territory, with portions of Jaypur and Bharatpur. Vairāț and Machări were both in Matsyadeśa ... To the E. were the Pañcālas ...'
In later times the Matsya country appears to have been known also as Virāța or Vairāța. Hsüan Tsang speaks of it as Vairāta, and Cunningham points out on his authority that in the seventh century A.D. the kingdom of Vairāța was 3,000 li or 500 miles in circuit. It was famous for its sheep and oxen, but produced few fruits or flowers. This is still the case with Jaypur to the S. of Vairāța, which furnishes most of the sheep required for the cities of Delhi and Agra, and their English garrisons. Vairāta, therefore, may have included the greater part of the present State of Jaypur. Its precise boundaries cannot be determined; but they may be fixed approximately as extending on the north from Jhunjun to Kot Kāsim, 70 miles; on the west from Jhunjun to' Ajmer, 120 miles;
1 Ancient India, pp. 50-1. 2 Cunningham's Report, Archaeological Survey of India, Vol. 20, p. 2.
