Tribes in Ancient India c18.2

c18.2

The Kekayas were a well-known tribe of Ancient India, and played an important part not only in the events recorded in the *Rāmāyaṇa*, but also in the great Kurukṣetra war of the *Mahābhārata*. They were known as early as the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa* and the *Chāndogya Upaniṣad*, and continued for some considerable time to be one of the important tribes of the Punjab. The territory of the Kekayas, according to the *Rāmāyaṇa*,¹ lay beyond the river Vipāśā (Beas) and extended up to the borders of the ancient Gandhāra kingdom. According to the Puranic tradition,² the Kekayas were descended from the (non-Aryan) Anu tribe or the family known as the Anavas, who appear from the Rigveda (8, 74) to have dwelt in the same territory of the Punjab as that later occupied by the Kekayas (according to the *Rāmāyaṇa*). Rājaśekhara in his *Kāvyamīmāṃsā* places the Kekaya country in the northern division (Uttarāpatha) of India, along with the Śakas, Hūnas, Kāmbojas, Vāhlikas, etc. In the *Mahābhārata* they are associated with the Vāhlikas, while in the Purāṇas more emphasis seems to be laid on their association with the Madras.