Tribes in Ancient India c7.26

c7.26

The Southern Kurus are mentioned in the *Papañcasūdanī* (P.T.S. edition, p. 225), while the *Aṅguttara Nikāya* tells us that Kuru was one of the sixteen *mahājanapadas* or prominent countries of Jambudīpa (= India), having abundant food and wealth, and the ‘seven kinds of gems’.¹ In Buddhist literature, as in the Brāhmaṇa literature, the Kurus are comparatively seldom mentioned alone, their name being usually coupled with that of the Pañcālas. We read in the *Papañcasūdanī* that there was no *vihāra* for the Buddha’s habitation in the Kuru kingdom, but that there was a beautiful forest outside the town of Kammāsadhamma where he used to dwell. We are told further that the inhabitants of the Kuru kingdom enjoyed good health, and their mind was always ready to receive instruction in profound religious truths, because the climate was bracing at all seasons, and the food was good. The Buddha delivered some profound and learned discourses to the Kurus, e.g. the Mahānidāna and Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Suttantas of the *Dīgha Nikāya*. (For fanciful stories of the Kurus’ meditation on Satipaṭṭhāna, see further *Papañcasūdanī*, P.T.S., pp. 227–9.)