Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c15.s3.t1.18

c15.s3.t1.18

On the authority of the epic and the *Apadāna*, Raychaudhuri located the Bhaggas in the Vindhyan region between the Yamunā and the Śoṇa rivers.¹ But Malalasekera proposed a more reasonable, though still vague, location of their territory, somewhere between Vesāli and Sāvatthi.² Their connection with the kingdom of the Vaṁsas (Vatsas), and the fact of their having a republican constitution, would suggest that the Bhaggan territory lay to the north of the Vaṁsan capital, Kosāmbī, and to the west of Banaras. The kingdom of Kosala lay to the north of the Bhaggan land.³ Thus, they should be located somewhere north of the river Yamunā and south of the Ganges, not far north of Kosāmbī or west of Prayāga. As they seem to have been under the control and influence of the kingdom of Vatsa, they probably inhabited some part of that kingdom. We suggest that their location between the two great rivers seems to be most appropriate, despite the objection that it is separated by Kāsi and the Kosalan kingdom on the east, and north from the other republican peoples—the Licchavis, Mallas, Moriyas Koliyas, and Sakyas.⁴