Tribes in Ancient India c26.2

c26.2

The Muruṇḍas were probably a foreign tribe. They are mentioned for the first time by Ptolemy (second century A.D.), under the name Moroundai. Ptolemy’s description would place them on the western border of the ‘Gangaridai’. They seem to have occupied an extensive territory, probably the whole of N. Bihar on the east of the Ganges, as far as the head of the delta. They had six important cities, all to the east of the Ganges: Boraita, Koryagaza, Kondota, Kelydna, Aganagora and Talarga. These places are difficult to identify, but to Saint-Martin Kelydna appeared to have some relation with the Kālinadī or Kālindī river, and Aganagora with Aghadīp (Agradvīpa) on the eastern bank of the Ganges, a little below Kātwā (Ptolemy’s *Ancient India* by McCrindle, pp. 215-6). According to Cunningham, the name of the Marundai is still preserved in the country of the Muṇḍās, a hill-tribe scattered over Chota-Nagpur and Central India. He says: ‘The name of Muṇḍa is found in the *Viṣṇupurāṇa* as the appellation of a dynasty of eleven princes who succeeded the Tushāras or Tokhari. In the *Vāyupurāṇa*, however, the name is omitted, and we have only Maruṇḍa’ ¹ (= Muruṇḍa, the Sanskrit name for Ptolemy’s Marundai). Cunningham also suggests that the Moroundai of Ptolemy are identical with the Moredes of Pliny who are mentioned in conjunction with the Surari or Śavaras. It may, however, be mentioned that the Maruṇḍas are referred to in the *Vāyupurāṇa* as one of the Mleccha tribes.