Tribes in Ancient India c15.3

c15.3

According to the *Vāyupurāṇa* as well as the *Kāvya Mīmāṃsā* of Rājasekhara, the Vāhlīka country¹ is placed in the northern division. In the Bengal recension of the *Rāmāyaṇa* (see, e.g. *Kiṣkindhyā Kāṇḍa*, 44, verse 13) the Vāhlīkas are associated with the people of the north, and sometimes (e.g. *ibid.*, 43, verse 5) with those of the west. We may conclude, then, that the Vāhlīka country should be identified with some region beyond the Punjab. A reference in the *Udyogaparvan* to its having been famous for its horses seems to connect the Vāhlīka country with Kāmboja; this, together with the difficulty of approach to the country which is referred to in the account of Arjuna’s *digvijaya*² may perhaps justify us in assuming that the tribe had its habitat somewhere in the neighbourhood of Gandhāra and Kāmboja. That the Vāhlīkas were settled beyond the Indus is definitely proved by the Meharauli Iron Pillar Inscription of Chandra, where the mighty King Chandra³ is described as ‘one . . . by whom having crossed in warfare the seven mouths of the Indus the Vāhlīkas were conquered’. Accordingly, the country of the Vāhlīkas may perhaps be identified with the region now known as Balkh; in other words, the Vāhlīkas should be identified with the ‘Baktrioi’ occupying the country near Arachosia in the time of the geographer Ptolemy.¹