Tribes in Ancient India c73.8

c73.8

In the *Mahābhārata*, the Bhojas are declared to have been descended from Druhyu, the third son of Yayāti, the great ancestor of the Kuru-Pāṇḍavas. When King Yayāti proposed to have Druhyu’s youth transferred to himself, and was unceremoniously refused, he cursed his son, saying that he would be a king only in name. ‘You shall rule over a region where there will be no roads, no passages for either horses or horse-drawn excellent chariots, nor for elephants, asses, goats, bullocks, palanquins and other good vehicles, where the only means of locomotion will be rafts and floats. In such a place will you have to live, and with all your family you will get the designation of Bhoja,—and there will not be a Rājā amongst you.’⁵ Druhyu’s children were the Bhojas.⁶