Tribes in Ancient India c54.22

c54.22

i.e. the Vaṅgas and the Magadhas, who were neighbouring peoples. The amendment is doubtful; but if it be correct, the Vaṅgas along with the Magadhas must have been branded by the Aryans as an impure people, probably a pre-Aryan tribe; for the two tribes are described as ‘pakṣī-viśeṣāḥ’, or like certain species of birds. Baudhāyana too brands Vaṅga as an impure country, along with Puṇḍra, Kaliṅga and Sauvīra. An Aryan who had been to any of these countries was required to perform a certain sacrificial rite to become free from the impurities attaching to residence there. Even in the time of Patañjali (second century B.C.) the Vaṅgas and their country were excluded from Āryāvarta. The country was, however, Aryanised before Manu wrote his Dharmaśāstra (between 200 B.C. and 200 A.D., acc. to Bühler), for the *Manusaṃhitā* extends the eastern boundary of Āryāvarta to the sea.¹ In the early Buddhist literature where detailed lists appear of many countries and peoples, the Vaṅgas and their country are conspicuous by their absence. They are, however, mentioned in the *Jain Prajñāpanā*,² which ranks Aṅga and Vaṅga in the first group of Aryan peoples, and in the *Milinda-Pañho*,³ where Vaṅga is described as a trading-place to be reached by sea. The mother of Sīhabāhu and Sīhasīvalī, of *Mahāvaṃsa* and *Dīpavaṃsa* fame, was a Vaṅga princess, the daughter of a king of Vaṅga who had married the daughter of the king of Kaliṅga.⁴