Historical Geography of Ancient India c9.163

c9.163

Mūṣika.—The Mūṣikas or Mūṣakas (*Mahābhārata*, Bhīṣmaparva, IX, 366, 371) were an offshoot of the northern tribe known to Alexander’s historians as Mausikanos. The principality of Mausikanos comprised a large portion of modern Sind. Its capital has been identified with Alor in the Sikhur district. According to Arrian (Chinnock, *Arrian*, p. 319), the Brāhmaṇas seemed to have been very influential in this region. They are said to have been the main agents in bringing about an uprising of the people against the Macedonian invader. But Alexander took them by surprise and they had to submit to him (C.H.I., I, 377). Strabo gives an interesting account of the inhabitants of this territory (H. and F. Tr. III, p. 96). In Indian literature we find frequent references to the people of Mūṣika. The Mriṣikas mentioned in the *Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa* (LVIII, 16) were probably the same as the Mūṣikas or Mūṣakas who, as Pargiter (*Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa*, p. 366) suggests, probably settled on the banks of the river Mūṣi on which stands modern Hyderabad. The Mūṣikas were probably so called because their territory lay in that portion of the northwestern trade-route which was known as Mūṣikapatha or red tract (Barua, *Aśoka and His Inscriptions*, Ch. III). The people called Mauṣikāra mentioned by Patañjali in his *Mahābhāṣya* (IV, 1. 4) were probably connected with the Mūṣikas.