Tribes in Ancient India c5.70

c5.70

Drupada advised Yudhiṣṭhira to ask the Kāmbojas and other tribes on the western frontiers for their assistance,² but the Pāṇḍavas were not able to obtain their alliance. Duryodhana was more successful, perhaps through his kinship with the neighbouring Gāndhāras, and later boasted to the Pāṇḍavas of his alliance with the Kāmbojas and other northern peoples.³ He gives an important place to the Kāmbojas by mentioning them together with the greatest heroes on his side (see *Mbh.*, Chap. 160, 40). Bhīṣma too extols the prowess of the Kāmboja king, Sudakṣiṇa, of whom he says, ‘In my opinion Sudakṣiṇa of Kāmboja is equal to one Ratha. The best of the chariot-warriors under him are strikers with fierce force. The Kāmbojas, O great king, will cover the land like a swarm of locusts’ (*Mbh.*, *Udyogaparvan*, Chap. 165, 1–3).