Tribes in Ancient India c14.11

c14.11

The story of Uśīnara’s offering to sacrifice himself for a pigeon, and his subsequently being granted a boon by Indra, is one of the favourites of Indian mythology, and is too well-known to repeat here.¹ In the *Śāntiparvan* of the *Mahābhārata*,² we read that Nārada said to Sañjaya: ‘Uśīnara Śivi was dead. He encircled the whole world like a skin’. Elsewhere in the same *parvan*³ it is stated that Uśīnara became the sole emperor of the world, a patent exaggeration.