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TRIBES IN ANCIENT INDIA Mārkandeya Purāna. Mention is often made of this tribe in the Mahābhārata as Aparānta or Aparāntas. Generally the term is applied to all the tribes living in the western region of India. But the Mārkandeya and Bhīsmaparvan list must also be taken to signify a particular tribe. According to the astronomical list of the Mārkandeya (Chap. 58) the tribe seems to have been located north of the Sindhu-Sauvīra country. The word Aparānta in the narrowest sense or connotation of the term, that is, the kingdom of Aparānta is identified with northern Konkan with its capital at Sürpāraka (modern Sopara). It lay to the west of Mahārāştra. It is mentioned in the inscriptions of Asoka where we find that his empire included all the Aparāntas (Śūrpāraka, Nāsik, etc., according to the Mārkandeya Purāna (57, 49-52)). - The author of the Periplus mentions King Mambarus (identified by some with Nahapāna) whose capital was Minnagara in Ariake. According to D. R. Bhandarkar Minnagara is Mandasor and Ariake is Aparāntika. Ushavadāta's inscriptions show that Nahapāna's political influence extended from Poona and Śūrpāraka (N. Konkan) to Mandasor and Puskara (Ajmīr). From the Nāsik record of Queen Gautami Balasri we learn that her son extended his sway over Aparānta as well as over other western countries. Later on Aparānta was reconquered by the Saka Satrap Rudradāman of Western India, as we find from his Junāgadh Rock Inscription of the year 72, that is, 150 A.D. The Purāņas style the first dynasty of Māhismati as Haihaya.
This family is referred to in Kautilya's Arthaśāstra Haihayas
(p. 11). The Haihayas are said to have overthrown the Nāgas whose habitat was probably somewhere in the Narmadā region (cf. Nagpur). Five branches of the Haihayas are mentioned in the Matsyapurāna, namely, Vītihotras, Bhojas, Avantis, Kundikeras or Tundikeras and the Tālajanghas (43, 48-9). In the fourth century B.C. Avanti formed an integral part of the Magadhan empire. Thus Mahāpadma Nanda, the first Nanda king, is described in the Vāyu, Matsya and Brahmānda Purānas as 'ekarāt', or sole and undisputed monarch of the earth and 'sarva Ksatrāntaka', that is, the destroyer of all ksatriya families who ruled over the different parts of India along with the Saisunāgas, viz. the Ikşvākus, Kurus, Pañcālas, Kāśīs, Maithilas, Vītihotras, Haihayas, Kalingas, Asmakas, Sūrasenas and so on. It appears, therefore, that the Haihayas were one of the ruling Ksatriya dynasties of ancient India. In the Mahābhārata (XIII, 30) Pratardana, king of Kāśī, is said
i Bhīşmaparvan, IX, 355; Vanaparvan, CCXVII, 7885-6; śāntiparvan, XLIX, 1780-82.
2 Matsya, 43, 8-29; Vāyu, 94, 5-26. 3 Ray Chaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India, 4th Ed., p. 141.
