Tribes in Ancient India c70.27

c70.27

The *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa* contains a reference to a Matsya king, Dhvasan Dvaitavana, who appears to have given his name to a lake, Dvaitavana. In the *Mahābhārata*, we find mention of an extensive forest named Dvaitavana where the Pāṇḍavas passed a large portion of their exile. In the *Virāṭaparvan* (IV, 5, 4-5), we are told that the Pāṇḍavas went to the Matsya capital (Virāṭa) from lake Dvaitavana, leaving the Daśārṇas to the South and the Pañcālas to the North, passing through the country of the Yakṛllomas and Śūrasenas, and entering the Matsya dominion from the forest. Elsewhere in the same *Parvan* (III, 24), a lake Dvaitavana is mentioned as existing in the Dvaitavana forest (which was supposed to be situated around the Sarasvatī), and this lake appears to have been close to the Sarasvatī (III, 177). Evidently both the lake and the forest were named after Dhvasan Dvaitavana, and were included in the Matsya dominions in early times. From the *Mahābhārata* account, it appears that the forest was outside the Matsya country, though not very far from it.