The History and Culture of the Indian People v1.c19.s3.t2.17

v1.c19.s3.t2.17

Still farther off from the old centre of Vedic culture were the Magadhas who make their appearance only in later Vedic literature, and are regarded throughout as of little importance. Magadha corresponds roughly to southern Bihār. The name occurs for the first time in the *Atharvaveda* (V. 22.14), where a wish is expressed that the fever may visit the Gandhāris, the Mūjavants, the Aṅgas and the Magadhas, the first two being northern people and the latter, people of the east. In the Vrātya hymn (*AV*, XV. 2. 1-4) the Māgadhas are associated with the Vrātyas. The Yajurveda includes Māgadha in the list of victims at Purushamedha. Zimmer regards Māgadha referred to in the *Atharvaveda* and *Yajurveda* as a member of the mixed caste born of a Vaiśya and Kshatriya. But the fact that the Sūtras and the *Aitareya Āraṇyaka* mention Magadha as a country shows that in the period of the *Yajurveda* and *Atharvaveda*, Māgadha meant a resident of the country and not a member of the mixed caste—an outcaste born of Pratiloma marriage. The authors of the *Vedic Index* account for the fact of Māgadha being a minstrel in later days by assuming Magadha as the home of minstrelsy, bards from which visited more western lands.³⁰ This class has been taken by later Smṛiti texts as belonging to a separate caste, inventing a story of the inter-marriage of castes for their origin. The dislike of the Magadhas, which may go back to the times of the *Ṛigveda*, was probably due to their not being wholly Brahmanized.