Historical Geography of Ancient India c6.571

c6.571

Muruṇḍa country.—The Muruṇḍas are mentioned for the first time by Ptolemy in the 2nd century A.D. under the name of Moroundai. They seem to have occupied an extensive territory, probably the whole of North Bihar on the east of the Ganges as far as the head of the delta. They had six important cities, all to the east of the Ganges: Boraita, Koryagaza, Kondota, Kelydna, Aganagora and Talarga. According to St. Martin Kelydna had some relation with the Kālinadī or Kālindī river, and Aganagora with Aghadip (Agradvīpa) on the eastern bank of the Ganges a little below Katwā (Ptolemy’s *Ancient India*, pp. 215-16). According to Cunningham, the Moroundai of Ptolemy were the same as the Moredes of Pliny. The *Vāyupurāṇa* speaks of the Muruṇḍas as a *mleccha* tribe. Hemacandra’s *Abhidhānacintāmaṇi* (IV. 26—*Lampākāstu Maruṇḍāḥ syuḥ*) identifies the Muruṇḍas with the Lampākas, the Lambatai of Ptolemy, who were located near the source of the modern Kabul river in the region around Laghmān and it, therefore, follows that the Muruṇḍas had a settlement in this region as well. For further details, vide B. C. Law, *Tribes in Ancient India*, pp. 93-94.