Geographical and Economic Studies in the Mahabharata: Upayana Parva c6.168

c6.168

Ekapāda (M.B., II, 47, 16). Again the information is meagre. Some indication about their provenance is found in the *Digvijayaparva*. In Sahadeva’s expedition to the south the Ekapādas are mentioned (M.B., II, 28, 47) just after the Tāmradvīpa and Rāmaka mountains (M.B., II, 28, 46). Now this Tāmradvīpa could be located somewhere in Cambay on the strength of a reference in the *Pañca-daṇḍachatra-Prabandha*.¹⁶¹ The cities which Sahadeva conquered in association with the country of the Ekapādas are Śūrpāraka (M.B., II, 28, 43—45) the modern Soparā and Sañjayantī (M.B., II, 47) the modern Sanjān also point to the direction of the home of the Ekapādas as Gujarāt, Kach and Kāthiāwār. They are specified as living in the forest (*keralānvanarāsinah*) (M.B., II, 28, 47), which proves that they were probably the ancestors of the Bhīls of Gujarāt. Megasthenes tells us an interesting story about them.¹⁶² The Indian philosophers told him of the Okupedes, who in running could leave a horse behind. The Ekapādas, which literally means ‘one legged’ of which the exact Greek transcription is Okupedes, have been relegated to the realm of fiction, but there is nothing to suggest in the information available from the Mahābhārata that they were not a real people.