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Tribes in Ancient India c56: Chapter LIII. The Suhmas

Tribes in Ancient India c56

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Chapter LIII. The Suhmas

c56.2

The land of the Suhmas is mentioned for the first time probably in the *Āyāraṅga-sutta*, one of the oldest sacred books of the Jainas. It is stated therein that Mahāvīra ‘travelled in the pathless countries of the Lāḍhas, in Vajjabhūmi and Subbhabhūmi’, where he was very rudely treated by the people. This Lāḍha¹ is doubtless identical with what later came to be known as Rāḍha, and Subbhabhūmi with the country of the Suhma people. The Suhma country was thus a portion of the more comprehensive region which was later known as Rāḍha. According to the Epics and the Purāṇas, the Suhma country is distinguished from Vaṅga and Puṇḍra, the two other important divisions of Bengal. The Epic account of Bhīma’s eastern conquests makes the country of the Suhmas distinct from Vaṅga and Tāmralipta. In the *Daśakumāracaritam* (Chap. VI), Damalipti or Tāmralipti (mod. Tamluk in Midnapur) is described as having been a city of the Suhmas, while according to the *Matsyapurāṇa* (Chap. 114) Suhma and Tāmralipti were different countries. The Jain *Prajñāpāṇā* includes Tāmalitti in Vaṅga (see chapter on the Vaṅgas).

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¹ *J.A.S.B.* (New Series), Vol. XVIII, 1922, No. 7.

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The distinction between Suhma and Vaṅga (and Puṇḍra) is supported by the Epic and Pauranic tradition, which distinguishes Suhma, one of the eponymous ‘Bāleya Kṣatras’, from his brothers Aṅga, Vaṅga, Kaliṅga and Puṇḍra.² In the *Sabhāparvan* (Chap. 30, 16) of the *Mahābhārata*, the Pāṇḍavas are described as having subdued the Puṇḍras and Vaṅgas, and led their victorious army to Suhma. In Kālidāsa’s *Raghuvaṃśa* also, Suhma is distinguished from the sea coast and the country of the Vaṅgas (Canto IV, 35-6). According to the *Pavanadūta* of Dhoyīka, the Suhma country seems to have been situated on the Ganges (verse 27). In Rājaśekhara’s *Kāvyamīmāṃsā*, the Suhma country along with Brahma to the north, Vaṅga and Puṇḍra, was included in a list of the *Janapadas* of the east. In the *Bṛhatsaṃhitā* it is located between Vaṅga and Kaliṅga.

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² See *chapter on the Vaṅgas*.

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According to Epic tradition, Suhma was once conquered by Pāṇḍu (*Mbh.*, *Ādiparvan*, Chap. 113), and at another time by Karṇa (*Mbh.*, *Karṇaparvan*, Chap. 8, 19). It was in Sumbha or Suhma that the Buddha delivered the *Janapada-kalyāṇī Sutta*, while dwelling in a forest near the town of Desaka¹ (*Telapatta Jātaka*, Jātaka No. 96, Vol. I, p. 393).

c56.7

¹ Sedaka, acc. to *Saṃyutta Nikāya*, V, 89.

c56.8

According to Nīlakaṇṭha’s commentary on the *Mahābhārata*, the Suhmas and the Rāḍhas were one and the same people (see Vaṅga Chap.); but from the *Āyāraṅga-sutta*, one may gather that the Suhma country formed a part of the Rāḍha (Lāḍha) country, the other important part having been called Brahma (cf. Brahmottara of the Purāṇas and Brahma of the *Kāvyamīmāṃsā*).

c56.9

In the fourth Jain Upāṅga, called the *Prajñāpanā* (or *Pannavaṇā*), as well as in the fifth Jain Aṅga, called the *Bhagavatī*, Lāḍha is described as having been one of the 16 great *Janapadas*, and one of the Ariya *Janapadas* of India. But the name Rāḍha is not traceable in the Epics or any other Sanskrit record before the tenth century A.D. ‘The reason for this fact seems to be that in all Sanskrit records of the period including the Great Epic, the names Suhma and Brahma have always been used to denote the Rāḍha country which was almost fully covered by these two *Janapadas*.’² By the end of the tenth century A.D. Rāḍha which seems to have comprised the whole of Western Bengal, bounded on the north and east by the Ganges and the Bhāgīrathī, had come to be divided into two parts: Uttara Rāḍha and Dakṣiṇa Rāḍha: for Śrīdhara Bhaṭṭa, the author of the philosophical work, *Nyāyakaṇḍali*, composed in 991 A.D., is said to have been born in a village called Bhūriṣṛṣṭi in Dakṣiṇa Rāḍha. Moreover, the Tirumalai Rock Inscription of Rājendra Cola (1025 A.D.) mentions Uttara Rāḍha and Dakṣiṇa Rāḍha as two distinct *Janapadas* (see Vaṅga Chap.); and Uttara Rāḍha is also mentioned in the Belava copperplate of Bhojavarman as well as in the Naihati copperplate of Vallālasena, as a *maṇḍala* (district) included in the *bhukti* (limit) of Vardhamāna. It is highly probable that the two *Janapadas*, Brahma and Suhma, of the Epics, the Purāṇas, the *Kāvyamīmāṃsā*, and other Sanskrit sources are identical with the two divisions of Rāḍha (Uttara and Dakṣiṇa) alluded to in the *Nyāyakaṇḍali*, the Tirumalai Inscription, the *Prabodhacandrodaya* (Canto II), and finally in the Sena records. The Rāḍha country seems to have comprised the modern districts of Hooghly, Howrah, Burdwan, Bankura, and the major portions of Midnapur; Uttara and Dakṣiṇa Rāḍha being separated by the river Ajaya.

c56.10

² For a most interesting and original discussion of this subject, see Sen, *Some Janapadas of Ancient Rāḍha* (I.H.Q., Vol. VIII, No. 3, pp. 521ff.).

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