The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c35.s1.12

c35.s1.12

In addition to the three principal kingdoms, which will be described presently, about a hundred and twenty more or less independent chieftains shared the government of the country, and indulged in unceasing internecine wars, waged with exceptional ferocity by the agency of the aboriginal tribesmen, whose representatives, the Maravar, Kallar, and others, still form an important and turbulent element in the population. ‘These desolating wars’, Dr. Pope observes, ‘account for the multitudes of deserted strongholds whose ruins are yet to be seen, and for the comparative sparseness of the population at the period when authentic history begins.’