Tribes in Ancient India c17.2

c17.2

The Yaudheyas were a republican tribe of the Punjab known as early as the time of Pāṇini, the celebrated grammarian (c. sixth century B.C.), whose Sūtras contain what are probably the earliest reference to this people. In ‘na prācya Bhargādi Yaudheyādibhyaḥ’ (IV, 1, 178) the term Yaudheya-ādi includes the two tribes, Yaudheyas and Trigarttas (according to Scholiast). Elsewhere in the Sūtras (V, 3, 117) the Yaudheyas (counting the Trigarttas with them) are referred to as forming an ‘Āyudha-jīvī Saṃgha’, or a tribal republican organisation depending mainly on arms (cf. the name ‘Yaudheya’ = warrior).