India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c7.s4.33

c7.s4.33

The Sālva is mentioned as a pair *janapada* with Matsya as early as the *Gopatha Brāhmaṇa* (I.2.9) and also in the same group in the *Mahābhārata* (Bhīshmaparva, 10.3) where the Śālvas, the Mādreyas and the Jāṅgalas are juxtaposed. Matsya with its capital at Virāṭa (Bairāṭ in Jaipur) provides a fixed point and Sālva should be located near that region. Making allowance for the position of the other known *janapadas*, the only place left for Sālva coincides with the territory extending from Alwar to north Bikaner. It may be mentioned that the Sālvas were an ancient people who seem to have migrated from the west through Baluchistan and Sindh where they left traces of their name in Śālvakā-giri (mentioned by Pāṇini in the *Gaṇa-pāṭha* to VI.3. 117), the present Hālā mountain, and then advancing towards north Sauvīra and along the Sarasvatī finally settled in north Rajasthan. Of their intrusion towards the Yamunā some dim intimation is preserved in an old Vedic verse.¹