Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c9.s1.27

c9.s1.27

We suggest¹⁰ that the name Licchavi is an Indo-Aryan one, the Sanskrit equivalent of which would be *Ṛkṣavin*. *Ṛkṣa* means “bear”,¹¹ and in Māgadhī Prākrit might take the form *liccha*. The form *Licchavi* which we find in the sources, is consistent with Prākrit of the eastern variety.¹ We suggest that the Licchavis were a people who came down to the plains from the mountainous region north of the Ganges. The region abounded in *licchas* or bears (Hindi *rīch*), and hence the inhabitants took up or were given the name of Licchavis. We have no reference to them in the Vedic literature prior to the Buddhist period. If they were, as we believe, an Aryan tribe, they must have changed their name when they migrated to the Himālayan foothills. There is ground to suppose from their well-developed republican institutions and their refined system of judicial administration at the time of the Buddha, as well as their equal status with the Kurus, the Pāñcālas, etc., in the *Arthaśāstra*,² that they had a long previous history.