Historical Geography of Ancient India c9.178

c9.178

Niṣāda.—The first epigraphic mention of the tribal state of Niṣāda is found in the Junāgaḍh Rock Inscription of Rudradāman who is credited to have conquered it along with east and west Malwa, the ancient Mahiṣmatī region, the district round Dwarkā in Gujarat, Surāṣṭra, Aparānta, Sindhu-Sauvīra, and other countries. This country also occurs in Luders’ List (No. 965). The Citorgaḍh Inscription of Mokala of the Vikrama year 1485 states that Mokala subdued the tribal state of Niṣāda along with the Aṅgas, Kāmarūpas, Vaṅgas, Cinas and Turuṣkas (E.I., II, 416ff.). The Niṣādas are referred to for the first time in the later Saṃhitās and the Brāhmaṇas (Taittirīya Saṃhitā, IV, 5. 4. 2; Kāthaka Saṃhitā, XVII, 13; Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā, II, 9, 5; Vājasaneyī Saṃhitā, XVI, 27; Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, VIII, 11; Pañcavimsa Brāhmaṇa, XVI, 6. 8 etc.). The Lāṭyāyana Śrautasūtra (VIII, 2. 8) and Kātyāyana Śrautasūtra (I, 1. 12) refer to a village of the Niṣādas and a Niṣādasthapati, a leader of some kind of craft, respectively. The social duty enjoined on the Niṣādas was to kill and provide fish for human consumption (Manu, X, 48). According to the Pali texts they were wild hunters and fishermen (Fick, Die Sociale Gliederung, 12, 160, 206, etc.). Pargiter points out that they were a people of rude culture or aboriginal stock (A.I.H.T., p. 290), and that they lived outside the Aryan organization. This is attested to by the Rāmāyaṇa story of Gūha, the king of the Niṣādas, who are described as a wild tribe (Ādikāṇḍa, Canto I; Ayodhyākāṇḍa, Canto 51). Manu explains the origin of the Niṣādas as the offspring of a Brāhmaṇa father and a Śudra mother (Manusamhitā, X, 8). At the time of the Epics and Purāṇas the Niṣādas seem to have had their dwelling among the mountains that form the boundary of Jhalwar and Khandesh in the Vindhya and Satpura ranges (Malcolm, *Memoirs of Central India*, Vol. I, p. 452). This is proved by the *Mahābhārata* (III, 130, 4), which refers to a Niṣādarāṣṭra in the region of the Sarasvatī and the Western Vindhyas, not very far from Pāripātra or Pāriyātra (*Mahābhārata*, XII, 135, 3-5). The same epic seems to connect the Niṣādas with the Vatsas and the Bhargas (II, 30, 10-11). They had their settlement in the east also (*Bṛhatsaṃhitā*, XIV, 10). According to the *Rāmāyaṇa* (II, 50, 33; 52, 11) Śṛṅgaverapura on the north side of the Ganges opposite Prayāga was the capital of a Niṣāda kingdom. It was a large town ruled by king Gūha of the Niṣādas, who was Rāma’s friend. He received Rāma hospitably (Ayodhyākāṇḍa, XLVI, 20; XLVII, 9-12; cf. *J.R.A.S.*, 1894, p. 237; F. E. Pargiter, *The Geography of Rāma’s Exile*). In the middle of the second century A.D. the Niṣāda country was under the suzerainty of the western Kṣatrapas (B. C. Law, *Tribes in Ancient India*, Ch. XXV). For further details, vide B. C. Law, *Indological Studies*, Pt. I, pp. 42-43.