Tribes in Ancient India c73.44

c73.44

We have already seen that the kings among the Sātvatas or Sātvats were called Bhojas: Bhoja was the designation of the royal family of the Sātvatas in the days of the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa*, and afterwards the name Bhoja must have been extended to the whole Sātvat tribe. In the *Mahābhārata* we find the names Bhoja and Sātvata used indiscriminately to designate the same individual, e.g. in the case of Kṛtavarman, the Hārdikya or son of Hṛdika. He was one of the greatest of the Bhojas, and was in the very front rank of the warriors of that warlike age. He led a complete Akṣauhiṇī or division of forces to the great Kurukṣetra war⁴ (on the Kuru side), and appears to have been the leader of the allied army of the Bhoja-Andhaka-Kukura-Vṛṣṇi confederacy, as we learn from the *Udyogaparvan*.⁵ Kṛtavarman appears to have been the official commander of the allied forces even before they came to the field of battle.⁶ He seems to have belonged to the city of Mṛttikāvatī, as we may gather from the *Droṇaparvan*. When the young son of Subhadrā was making terrible slaughter in the Kuru army, and the Kuru heroes could not match him fighting singly according to the laws of honourable warfare, six of the leaders, Kṛtavarman amongst them, simultaneously made an onslaught against him.⁷ Abhimanyu aimed a number of arrows at Bhoja Mārttikāvata, that is, the Bhoja from Mṛttikāvatī, who must have been Kṛtavarman.⁸