Tribes in Ancient India c24: Chapter XX. The Kulindas
Tribes in Ancient India c24
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Chapter XX. The Kulindas
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The Kulindas were a small N. Indian tribe, sometimes confounded with the Pulindas. They are mentioned in the *Mahābhārata*¹ along with the Paiśācas, Ambaṣṭhas and Barbaras, who are all described as mountainous people. McCrindle informs us that in another passage of the *Mahābhārata* they are mentioned in a long list of tribes ‘dwelling between Meru and Mandāra and upon the Śailodā river, under the shadow of the Bambu forests, whose kings presented lumps of ant-gold at the solemnity of the inauguration of Yudhiṣṭhira as universal emperor’.²
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¹ *Droṇaparvan*, Chap. 119, 14.
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² McCrindle’s *Ptolemy*, p. 110.
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The country of the Kulindas is referred to by Ptolemy as Kulindrine. He locates it near the mountainous region where the Vipāśā, Śatadru, Yamunā and Gaṅgā have their sources. Cunningham identifies Kulindrine with the kingdom of Jālandhara (Jullundur),³ but this is not accepted by Saint-Martin. A territory of the name of Kuluta, which was formed by the upper part of the Vipāśā basin, and which may be included in Ptolemy’s Kulindrine, is mentioned in a *Varāha Saṃhitā* list. It was visited by the Chinese pilgrim Hsüan Tsang, who calls it K’in-lu-to. The name still exists under the slightly modified form of Koluta.⁴
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³ *C.A.G.I.*, p. 157.
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⁴ McCrindle, *Ptolemy*, p. 110.
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The Kulindas were probably identical with the Kunindas, a tribe known from coins,⁵ and located in the W. Punjab along with the Mālavas, Yaudheyas, Ārjunāyanas, Udumbaras, Kulūtas and Uttamabhadras.
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⁵ *Cambridge History of Ancient India*, I, pp. 528-9.
Linked texts (2)
- Bṛhatsaṃhitā — Varāhamihira, Sanskrit
- Mahābhārata — Vyāsa, Sanskrit