Tribes in Ancient India c77.39

c77.39

The Culikas and the Śūlikas are mentioned in *Mārkaṇḍeya* list¹⁴ as two different peoples, but both in the north. For Culikas, the *Vāyupurāṇa* reads Pīḍikas¹⁵ and the *Matsyapurāṇa* Sainikas instead.¹⁶ The *Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa* in another context¹⁷ places the Culikas in the Tortoise’s tail at the westernmost part of India. For Śūlikas, the *Vāyupurāṇa* reads Culikas in the same context, and the *Matsyapurāṇa* says that they were a people through whose country flowed the river Cakṣu, one of the three large rivers which rising from the mid-Himalayan region flows westward.¹ Pargiter suggests that Cakṣu may perhaps be meant for Vakṣu (= Vamkṣu) which is the Oxus, and says that in that case the Śūlikas would be a people on the Oxus in Turkistan.² He also points to the resemblance of the name Śūlikas with that of the Śūlakaras mentioned in the same canto of the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa.³