Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c30.95

c30.95

The north-west frontier never had any ancient sacred memories, and was never regarded with reverence. All ancient Indian belief and veneration were directed to the mid-Himalayan region, the only original sacred outside land;⁴ and it was thither that rishis and kings turned their steps in devotion, never to the north-west. The list of rivers in Rigveda x, 75 is in regular order from the east to the north-west⁵—not the order of entrance from the north-west, but the reverse. If the Aryans entered India from the north-west, and had advanced eastward through the Panjab only as far as the Sarasvatī or Jumna when the Rigvedic hymns were composed, it is very surprising that the hymn arranges the rivers, not according to their progress, but reversely from the Ganges which they had hardly reached.⁶ This agrees better with the course of the Aila expansion and its outflow beyond the north-west.⁷ It was, however, a route for any one travelling from the Ganges to the north-west, as the author of the hymn perhaps did.¹ Again, Sudās’s battle with the ten kings had (as shown in the last chapter) nothing to do with the progress of the Aryans from the north-west into India, for he was an Aila king of North Pañcāla, and the Ailas (or Aryans) had entered and dominated North India long before his time. It was part of his conquests westward into the Panjab (p. 2). Further remarks that go to corroborate these conclusions will be found in the next chapter.