Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c9.s1.47

c9.s1.47

Oldenberg says that “a series of the most important race-names given in the *Ṛik-Saṁhitā* have vanished wholly, or as good as wholly, in the *Brāhmaṇa*: e.g., the Pūrus, Turvaṣas, Yadus, Tritsus, and so on. Vice-versa, of the names of Kurus and Pāñcālas, which stand in the front in the *Brāhmaṇa*, not one is named directly at least, in the *Saṁhitā*. There arose apparently, on the one side new names instead of the old (note the well-known change of Krivi and Pāñcāla), and on the other, in the many migrations and struggles in numerous places, the countless small stocks of the older days cohered into few greater peoples; naturally such events might easily necessitate a change in the names.”² It is by no means impossible that the Licchavis were a branch of some well known Vedic tribe which changed its name as a result of migration. Furthermore, a passage in the *Mahāparinibbāna Sutta* refers to the earlier customs and institutions of the Licchavis, thus making them an older people. The Buddha says that they will prosper “so long as they enact nothing already established, abrogate nothing that has been already enacted, and act in accordance with the ancient institutions of the Vajjians, as established in former days”.³