Historical Geography of Ancient India c8.13

c8.13

*Aṅga*.—Aṅga was one of the sixteen *Mahājanapadas* of ancient India and was very rich and prosperous (*Aṅg.*, I, 213; B. C. Law, *India as described in early texts of Buddhism and Jainism*, p. 19; cf. *Mahābhārata*, 822, 46; *Mahāvastu*, II, 2; *Vinaya Texts*, S.B.E., II, 146 note). It is mentioned in the *Yoginītantra* (2. 2. 119). The *Atharvaveda* refers to the Aṅgas as a distinct people along with the Magadhas, Mūjavants and Gandhāris without specifying their territories (V. 22. 14). They were despised as *Vrātyas* or peoples who lived outside the pale of orthodox Brahmanism (*J.R.A.S.*, 1913, 155ff.; *J.A.S.B.*, 1914, 317ff.). In the *Gopatha-Brāhmaṇa* they are mentioned as Aṅga-Magadha (11. 9). Pāṇini groups together Aṅga, Vaṅga, Kaliṅga, Puṇḍra, etc., all placed in the Midland (VI, 1. 170; II, 4, 62). The *Mahābhārata* makes the races of Aṅga, Vaṅga, Kaliṅga, etc. to be the descendants of the saint Dīrghatamas by Sudeṣṇā, wife of Bāli (I. 104). According to Zimmer and Bloomfield the Aṅgas were settled on the rivers Son and Ganges in later times but their early seat was presumably there also (*Altindisches Leben*, 35; *Hymns of the Atharvaveda*, 446, 449). Pargiter regards them as a non-Aryan people that came over-sea to eastern India (*J.R.A.S.*, 1908, p. 852). Ethnographically they were connected with the Kaliṅgas and other peoples of the plains of Bengal (*Cambridge History of India*, I, p. 534). According to the Belāva Copperplate of Bhojavarman, the Varman kings extended their power over this country (N. G. Majumdar, *Inscriptions of Bengal*, Vol. III, pp. 15ff.). The Rewal Stone Inscription of Karṇa refers to Aṅga along with Kīra in the Kangra valley, Lāṭa Kuntala and Kulāñca. Aṅga comprised the country round the modern Bhagalpur (E.I., XXIV, Pt. 3, July, 1937). According to the Sarnath Inscription of Kumāradevī, Queen of Kanauj, Aṅga was governed by a viceroy named Mohana under king Rāmapāla who was the maternal grandfather of Kumāradevī (E.I., IX, p. 311). The Nilgund Stone Inscription of Amoghavarṣa of the 9th century A.D. states that the rulers of Aṅga, Vaṅga and Magadha worshipped him (E.I., VI, 103). In the Deoli Grant of Kṛṣṇa III, Kṛṣṇa II is said to have been worshipped by the Aṅgas, Magadhas and others (E.I., V, 193).