Page:Ancient India Krishnaswami.pdf/25

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KINGDOMS AND TRIBES
7

by this admiral and the foundation of the satrapy are placed at about 510 B.C. Not far from this period India, then known to the Aryans, was divided into sixteen kingdoms and a number of autonomous tribes. For besides the accepted line of advance of the Aryans, there appear to have been two other streams of migration—one skirting the lower Himalayas and the other moving down the valley of the Indus. The tribes are found along the mountain borders east of the Ganges, some of them also along the upper reaches of the Punjab rivers. Several of them were governed by their own tribal meetings, held in the hall of the tribe—Santhāgāra.

I mention only one of them, because it was a kingdom previously. I mean the Vidēhas of modern Tirhut whose King Janaka has already been mentioned. These were a section of the great Vajjian clan and were during this period under the government of a republic, whose headman, as in the case of other republics as well, was called a Rajah, answering to the Roman consul or Athenian archon. It is from one of these clans of northern Bihar that the Buddha himself was born.

The kingdoms were, proceeding from the west in geographical order, Kāmbhōja with capital Dvāraka, answering to modern Sindh and Gujarat; Gāndhara, eastern Afghanistan between the Afghan mountains and a little way to the east of the Indus with its capital Taxila (near Shah Deri): Avanti, the modern Mālva with its capital Ujjain; the Assaka (Asmaka or Asvaka) with its capital Pōtali or Pōtana on the banks of the Godavari (modern Paitan): the Sūrasēnas with their capital Madhura, the modern Muttra; the Matsyas west of the Jumna answering to the cis-Sutlej Sikh States or Phulkian States; the two Pānchālas round about Kanouj and Kampilla; the Kurus occupying the country round about Delhi; Vamśa, the country of the Vatsas with ils capital Kōśambi; Chēdi, one at least