Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c3.s20.587

v1.c3.s20.587

Ni-ṣāda is found in the later Saṃhitās and the Brāhmaṇas.¹ The word seems to denote not so much a particular tribe, but to be the general term for the non-Āryan tribes who were not under Āryan control, as the Śūdras were, for Aupamanyava² took the five peoples (pañca janāḥ) to be the four castes (catvāro varṇāḥ) and the Niṣādas, and the commentator Mahīdhara explains the word where it occurs in the Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā³ as meaning a Bhilla, or Bhil. A village of Niṣādas is mentioned in the Lāṭyāyana Śrauta Sūtra,⁴ and a Niṣāda Sthapati, a leader of some kind, is referred to in the Kātyāyana Śrauta Sūtra⁵ and in a Brāhmaṇa cited by the scholiast on that passage. Weber⁶ thinks that the Niṣādas were the settled aborigines (from ni, ‘down,’ and sad, ‘settle’), a view supported by the fact that the ritual of the Viśvajit sacrifice⁷ requires a temporary residence with Niṣādas; for the Niṣādas who would permit an Āryan to reside temporarily amongst them must have been partially amenable to Āryan influence. But the name might easily be applied to the whole body of aborigines outside the Āryan organization. Von Schroeder⁸ thinks that the Niṣādas were most probably identical with the Nysæans, who, according to the Greek account, sent an embassy to Alexander when he was in the territory of the Aśvakas, but this identification is doubtful.