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Tribes in Ancient India c58: Chapter LV. The Kirātas

Tribes in Ancient India c58

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Chapter LV. The Kirātas

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The Kirātas were a non-Aryan mountain tribe, possessing a rude culture. They are referred to in the *Mahābhārata* (XII, 207, 43) together with the Yaunas or Yavanas, Kāmbojas, Gāndhāras, and Barbaras, who all dwelt in the northern region or Uttarāpatha; while the *Rāmāyaṇa* mentions them along with the Mlecchas, or ‘barbarians’, another non-Aryan tribe. That the Kirātas were outside the Aryan fold is evident from a passage in the *Śrīmad-bhāgavatam* (II, 4, 18) which states that the Kirātas along with the Hūṇas, Andhras, Pulindas, Pulkasas, Ābhīras, Suhmas, Yavanas, Khasas, and other impure tribes purified themselves by offering their allegiance to Śrī-Kṛṣṇa. The Kirātas are mentioned in the *Viṣṇupurāṇa* (Wilson’s Ed., II, pp. 156–90), in a long list of Indian peoples and countries, where they also seem to have been located in the northern region.

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That the Kirātas were located in the Uttarāpatha seems also to have been attested to by Ptolemy who includes the Kirrhadai (or Kirrhodoeis) among the tribes of Sogdiana (present-day Soghd), which was divided from Baktriana by the river Oxus (see McCrindle, *Ancient India*, p. 277). Kirrhadia, the country of the Kirrhadai, is mentioned in the *Periplus of the Erythraean Sea* as lying west from the mouth of the Ganges. This reference seems to suggest that the Kirātas had settlements in the eastern region as well. Ptolemy’s Kirrhadoi or Airrhadoi spread widely not only over Gangetic India, but also over countries farther east. The *Mahābhārata*, too, seems to point to a settlement of the Kirātas in Kāmarūpa; we are told that Bhagadatta, the powerful ruler of Prāgjyotiṣa (= Kāmarūpa), led a mighty *Mleccha* army of Kirātas and Cīnas in the battle of Kurukṣetra. For further remarks on the location of the Kirātas or Kirrhadoi, see Lassen’s *Indisches Alterthum*, Vol. III, pp. 235–7. L. Pliny and Megasthenes also mention the tribe under the name Skyrites. According to Megasthenes, they were a nomadic people ‘who instead of nostrils have merely orifices’. They were probaly a flat-nosed people of primitive origin dwelling in forests and mountains and living by hunting.

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Long assures us¹ that there is still a tradition in Tripurā, precisely where Ptolemy places his Kirrhadia, that the first name of the country was Kirāt. The Kirātas had an influential settlement in Nepal, and a Kirāta dynasty of kings held the valley in sway in succession to the Ābhīras. Sylvain Levi has pointed out that the Nepalese usage still gives the name Kirāta to the country between the Dudh-kosi and the Arun, and that there is evidence that the Kirātas once occupied a much more extensive area in Nepal.¹

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¹ J.A.S.B., XIX, ‘Chronicles of Tripurā’, p. 536.

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¹ *Lé Nepal*, II, pp. 72-8.

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