Geographical and Economic Studies in the Mahabharata: Upayana Parva c6.4

c6.4

Pargiter in his commentary on the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa (LVII, 38) places the country of the Vāṭadhānas on the east side of Satlaj southward from Firozpur.⁶⁸ But the probability is that they had more than one state under them, and we may, if the Brahmin republics of the Alexandar's campaign were also Vāṭadhānas, place them in southern Panjāb, lower Sind, and Southern Rajputānā. Manu's (X, 21) condemnation of the Vāṭadhānas is understandable as they were following the duties of a Kṣatriya in-so-much so as they owned states and the Śūdras as they tended cattles—the duties directly in contravention to the mode of life laid down for the Brāhmaṇas in Hindu religion.