The History of Indian Literature c8.198

c8.198

∗ In the Ṛik-Saṃhitá, where the Kíkaṭas—the ancient name of the people of Magadha—and their king Pramaganda are mentioned as hostile, we have probably to think of the aborigines of the country, and not of hostile Áryas (?). It seems not impossible that the native inhabitants, being particularly vigorous, retained more influence in Magadha than elsewhere, even after the country had been brahmanised,—a process which perhaps was never completely effected;—that they joined the community of the Brahmans as Kshatriyas, as happened elsewhere also; and that this is how we have to account for the special sympathy and success which Buddhism met with in Magadha, these native inhabitants regarding it as a means of recovering their old position though under a new form.