Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c3.s11.515

v1.c3.s11.515

Kuru.—The Kurus appear as by far the most important people in the Brāhmaṇa literature. There is clear evidence that it was in the country of the Kurus, or the allied Kuru-Pañcālas, that the great Brāhmaṇas were composed.¹ The Kurus are comparatively seldom mentioned alone, their name being usually coupled with that of the Pañcālas on account of the intimate connexion of the two peoples. The Kuru-Pañcālas are often expressly referred to as a united nation.² In the land of the Kuru-Pañcālas speech is said to have its particular home;³ the mode of sacrifice among the Kuru-Pañcālas is proclaimed to be the best;⁴ the Kuru-Pañcāla kings perform the Rājasūya or royal sacrifice;⁵ their princes march forth on raids in the dewy season, and return in the hot season.⁶ Later on the Kuru-Pañcāla Brahmins are famous in the Upaniṣads.⁷ Weber⁸ and Grierson⁹ have sought to find traces in Vedic literature of a breach between the two tribes, the latter scholar seeing therein a confirmation of the theory that the Kurus belonged to the later stream of immigrants into India, who were specially Brahminical, as opposed to the Pañcālas, who were anti-Brahminical. In support of this view, Weber refers to the story in the Kāṭhaka Saṃhitā¹⁰ of a dispute between Vaka Dālbhya and Dhṛtarāṣṭra Vaicitravīrya, the former being held to be by origin a Pañcāla, while the latter is held to be a Kuru. But there is no trace of a quarrel between Kurus and Pañcālas in the passage in question, which merely preserves the record of a dispute on a ritual matter between a priest and a prince: the same passage refers to the Naimiṣīya sacrifice among the Kuru-Pañcālas, and emphasizes the close connexion of the two peoples.¹¹ Secondly, Weber conjectures in the Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā¹² that Subhadrikā of Kāmpīla was the chief queen of the king of a tribe living in the neighbourhood of the clan, for whose king the horse sacrifice described in the Saṃhitā was performed. But the interpretation of this passage by Weber is open to grave doubt;¹³ and in the Kāṇva recension of the Saṃhitā¹⁴ a passage used at the Rājasūya shows that the Kuru-Pañcālas had actually one king. Moreover, there is the evidence of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa¹⁵ that the old name of the Pañcālas was Krivi. This word looks very like a variant of Kuru, and Zimmer¹⁶ plausibly conjectures that the Kurus and Krivis formed the Vaikarṇa¹⁷ of the Rigveda, especially as both peoples are found about the Sindhu and the Asiknī.¹⁸