The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c17.16

v1.c17.16

When we pass to the notices of tribes in the Rigveda, we leave comparative certainty for confusion and hypothesis. The one great historical event which reveals itself in the fragmentary allusions of the Saṃhitā is the contest known as the battle of the ten kings. The most probable version of that conflict is that it was a contest between the Bharatas, settled in the country later known as Brahmāvarta, and the tribes of the north-west. The Bharata king was Sudās, of the Tṛitsu family, and his domestic priest who celebrates, according to the tradition, the victory in three hymns (vii, 18; 33; 83) was Vasishṭha¹. This sage had superseded in that high office his predecessor Viçvāmitra, under whose guidance the Bharatas appear to have fought successfully against enemies on the Vipāç and Çutudrī; and in revenge, as it seems, Viçvāmitra had led against the Bharatas ten allied tribes, only to meet with destruction in the waters of the Parushṇī. Of the ten tribes five are of little note, the Alinas, perhaps from the north-east of Kāfiristān, the Pakthas, whose name recalls the Afghān Pakhthūn, the Bhalanases, possibly connected with the Bolān Pass, the Çivas from near the Indus, and the Vishāṇins. Better known in the Rigveda are the other five, the Anus who dwelt on Parushṇī and whose priests were perhaps the famous family of the Bhṛigus, the Druhyus who were closely associated with them, the Turvaças and Yadus, two allied tribes, and the Pūrus, dwellers on either side of the Sarasvatī, and therefore probably close neighbours of the Bharatas. These tribes are probably the five tribes which are referred to on several occasions in the Rigveda and which seem to have formed a loose alliance. Sudās's victory at the Parushṇī, in which the Anu and Druhyu kings fell, does not appear to have resulted in any attempt at conquest of the territory of the allied tribes. He seems at once to have been compelled to return to the east of his kingdom to meet the attacks of a king Bheda, under whom three tribes, the Ajas, Çigrus, and Yakshus, were united, and to have defeated his new assailants with great slaughter on the Jumna. It is probable enough that the attack on the eastern boundaries of the territory of the Bharatas was not unconnected with the onslaught of the five tribes and their still more northern and western allies; but the curious names of the Ajas, 'goats,' and the Çigrus, 'horse-radishes,' may be a sign that the tribes which bore them were totemistic non-Āryans.