Tribes in Ancient India c52.3

c52.3

The Jñātṛkas, or Kṣatriyas of the Jñātri (or Nāya) clan, used to dwell in Vaiśālī (Basāṛh), Kuṇḍagrāma and its suburb Koḷāga, and Vāṇijyagrāma.¹ The *Cambridge History of India*² states that Kuṇḍagrāma was a suburb just outside Vaiśālī, probably surviving in the modern village of Basukuṇḍ. Mrs. Sinclair Stevenson (*Heart of Jainism*, pp. 21-2) says that some 2,000 years ago, in Basāṛh, the same divisions existed as would be found today, and there, in fact, the priestly (Brāhmaṇa), warrior (Kṣatriya) and commercial (Vāṇiyā or Vāṇijyā) communities lived so separately that their quarters were sometimes spoken of as though they had been distinct villages, as Vaiśālī, Kuṇḍagrāma and Vāṇijyagrāma. Strangely enough, she adds, it was not in their own but in the Kṣatriya ward that Mahāvīra was to be the great hero of the commercial class. We are not prepared to accept Mrs. Stevenson’s statement that Vaiśālī was exclusively a Brahmin settlement, in the absence of positive evidence.