Tribes in Ancient India c16.11

c16.11

The Trigarttas, as described in the *Mahābhārata*, seem to have been a Punjab tribe. This is borne out not only by Hemachandra’s *Abhidhānacintāmani*,¹ which speaks of Trigartta and Jālandhara (modern Jullundur) as synonymous, but also by a reference in the *Rājataranginī* (V, 144), which implies that the tribe inhabited a region not far from Kashmir. Epigraphic evidence² as well points to the fact that modern Jullundur was the ancient Trigartta country. In the Purāṇas,³ the Trigarttas are reckoned among the mountain tribes. Cunningham identifies the Trigartta country with Kangra, which is situated in Jullundur between the mountains of Chamba and the upper course of the Beas.⁴ ‘Trigartta’ is interpreted to be the land watered by the three rivers,—the Ravi, the Beas, and the Sutlej.⁵ It is also explained as the country of the three strongholds, and is identified by some scholars with the modern hill-state of Kotoch, which is still called ‘Trigartaka Mulk’, or the region of the Trigarttas (Prof. Johnson’s *Selections from the Mahābhārata*, p. 64, f.n. 8).⁶