Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c17.s2.6

c17.s2.6

This gives us grammatical support for our suggestion that *Ṛkṣavin* was the original name, formed from *ṛkṣa*. By changing an ‘in’ ending into a lengthened vowel in the nominative singular, we get *Ṛkṣavī* (meaning “people of the bear-abounding region”) from *Ṛkṣavin*. In the Pāli canon, the *Arthaśāstra*, the *Mānavadharma Śāstra* and the Gupta Inscriptions it is represented as *Licchavi*, by the substitution of ‘Li’ for ‘Ṛ’, and ‘ccha’ for ‘kṣa’, according to the regular rules of Eastern Prākrit, but retaining the ending of the nominative singular.