Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c15.s1.t2.1

c15.s1.t2.1

We have suggested above that the Moriyas were probably an ethnic group which had moved with the eastward march of the Aryans. We have also shown that the story of the *Mahāvamsa Ṭīkā* has no historical truth in representing the Moriyas as an offshoot of the Sakyas. Moreover, the geographical location of the former also strengthens the evidence against the Sakya-Moriyan relationship. The Moriyas inhabited a land southeast of that of the Sakyas, while north of the Moriyas lay the Mallian territory, bordering on the Himālayan mountains. This shows that the Moriyas, as compared with the Sakyas, were by no means in the Himālayan region as the *Ṭīkā* would have us believe.¹ Moreover, the Koliyan territory, to the west of the Moriyas, lay between the Sakyas and the Moriyas, separating the two.