Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c9.s6.6

c9.s6.6

Whatever may have been the exact denotation of the terms discussed above in the earliest times it is certain that already in the age of the later Vaidehas, Nimi and Karāla, the Aryans had crossed the Vindhyas and established several kingdoms in the territory that stretched from the Revā or the Narmadā to the Godāvarī. One of these realms was **Vidarbha.** It comprised modern Berar, the Varadātaṭa of the *Āīn-i-Akbarī*, and a considerable portion of the Central Provinces lying between the Wardhā (Varadā) and the Waingaṅgā. In the north it reached the Payoshṇī, a tributary of the Tāptī.¹ Vidarbha was certainly a famous kingdom in the time of Nimi. We have already seen that the *Kumbhakāra Jātaka* and the *Uttar-ādhyayana* make him a contemporary of Nagnajit, king of Gandhāra, who is known from the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa*² to have flourished about the same time as Bhīma , king of Vidarbha :