Tribes in Ancient India c22.2

c22.2

The Kārūṣas or Karūṣas were a well-known tribe of ancient India, who are often referred to in the Epics, particularly in the *Mahābhārata* and the Purāṇas. Throughout the whole range of early and later Vedic literature they are scarcely mentioned, and their sudden emergence in the period of the Epics and Purāṇas suggests that they had been an insignificant tribe inhabiting a region included in or continuous with the *janapada* of the Cedis, with whom they are constantly associated in the *Mahābhārata*.¹ The *Padmapurāṇa* (IV, Chap. 274, 16-17) moreover, tells us that Dantavakra, King of Karūṣa, was of Caidya lineage. The evidence as recorded in the *Mahābhārata* and the Purāṇas seems to point to the fact that Dantavakra and his father Vṛddhaśarman had been reigning in the time of the Pāṇḍavas.² According to the *Viṣṇupurāṇa* (Bk., IV, Chap. XIV) Vṛddhaśarman married Śrutadevī, who bore him the fierce Asura Dantavakra. The *Vāyupurāṇa*, however, does not call him an Asura, but King of the Karūṣas. According to the *Padmapurāṇa* (*Pātala*, Chap. 35) Dantavakra was killed by Kṛṣṇa in Mathurā (vide also N. L. Dey, *G.D.A.M.I.*, p. 2). King Dantavakra is said to have had a foster-daughter named Pṛthā, who was married to Pāṇḍu.³ Their contemporaries in the contiguous territories were Dāmaghoṣa, his son Śiśupāla Sunītha, and grandson Dhṛṣṭaketu, kings of Cedi; and Virāṭa, king of Matsya.⁴ The Karūṣa royal family was connected by marriage not only with that of the Cedis but also with those of the Yādavas (i.e. Vāsudeva, Kṛṣṇa and all his relations, and the Pauravas).⁵