Tribes In Ancient India

Author(s): Bimla Charn Law
Publisher: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute

Page 65

THE CEDIS
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who was named Satyavati, became the mother of Kṛṣṇadvaipayana and others, and was the queen of King Santanu. The son afterwards became a virtuous and powerful monarch named Matsya. We further read that Uparicara Vasu Caidya had a few other sons, namely, Bṛhadratha, Pratyagraha, Kuśamba and others, who founded kingdoms and cities which were named after them.1 The Vayupurana (Chap. 99) also confirms the story of the conquest of the Cedi country by Vasu the Paurava. We read there that Yayāti had a chariot which used to move according to his desire. This chariot came into the hands of Vasu, king of the Cedis. According to another account, Vasu, a descendant of Kuru, conquered the Yadava kingdom of Cedi, and established himself there, whence he was known as Caidya-Uparicara. His capital was Suktimati on the river of the same name. He extended his conquests eastwards as far as Magadha and apparently also north-west over Matsya. He divided his territories of Magadha, Cedi, Kauśambi, Karūṣa and apparently Matsya among his five sons. His eldest son Brhadratha took Magadha with Girivraja as his capital, and founded the famous Bārhadratha dynasty there.2
Another section of the Mahabharata 3 also speaks of the greatness of the Cedi monarch, Uparicara Vasu, and describes an Aśvamedha sacrifice which he performed.
In the Cetiya Jātaka, we find a dynastic list of the ancestors of Upacara or Apacara, who was the ruler of Sotthivatinagara 5 in the kingdom of Ceti. King Upacara had five sons one of whom went to the east, and founded Hatthipura; while the second son went to the south, and founded Assapura; the third to the west, and founded Sihapura; the fourth to the north, and founded Uttarapañcala; and the last son went to the north-west, and founded Daddarapura.
The next Cedi monarch who appears to have acquired considerable power in the Epic period is Sisupäla who is called Damaghoṣasuta (Mbh., I, 7029) or Damaghoṣātmaja (II, 1594; III, 516). He allied himself with the great Jarasandha and on account of his heroism was appointed generalissimo of the Magadhan emperor. His conduct appears to have roused the displeasure of many of the Ksatriya tribes of his time, but he was looked upon with such fear that he was considered as an incarnation of the great Daitya Hiranya-Kaśipu," and the Epic tells us that he bore a charmed
1 M. N. Dutt, Mbh., p. 84; Mbh. Adiparvan, Chap. 63, pp. 69-71.
2 Pargiter, Ancient Indian Historical Tradition, p. 282.
3 Mbh., Santiparvan, Chaps. 136 and 137, pp. 1802-4.
4 Jātaka (Fausböll), Vol. III, pp. 454-461. See also Pañcala chapter. 5 Evidently identical with Suktimati.
6 Mbh., II, 14, 10-II.
7 Adiparvan, 67, 5.