Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c11.s1.2

c11.s1.2

THOSE of the Indian peoples, among whom Buddhism has its home,* especially the people of Magadha, dwell far to the east of the territories, to which the poetry of the *Rigveda* introduces us. Were they then already residing in the east, or were they at least in the act of penetrating to the east, when the hymns of the Veda were being sung in the west, in the Panjâb and on the Sarasvati? Or were they then within the circle of the Vedic world, and have they not moved eastward until a later period? The question may also be expressed thus: If in the epic-Buddhist age there was an Aryan culture in India, as partakers in which we find the Kurus and Pañcâlas, the people of Magadha and Kosala and so on, did all these peoples at one time participate in the ancient Vedic culture, or did the Vedic culture in the Vedic age within the Indian Aryandom cover a narrower field, which, for example, included the Kurus and Pañcâlas, and on the other hand did not comprise the people of Videha and Magadha?