The History of Antiquity, Vol. 4 (of 6)Duncker, Max
History
The History of Antiquity, Vol. 4 (of 6)
Duncker, Max
History, Ancient
The extension of the Aryas in the rich plains of the Yamuna and the
Ganges must in the first place have followed the course of the former
river towards the south, and then reached over the land between the two
rivers, until the immigrants arrived further and further to the east on
the banks of the Ganges. We have no historical information about the
facts of these migrations and conquests, of the occupation of the
valleys of the Yamuna, the upper and middle Ganges; we can only
ascertain that the valley of the Yamuna, and the doab of the two rivers
were first occupied and most thickly colonised. It is not till we come
lower down the course of the Ganges, that we find a large number of the
old population in a position of subjection to the Arian settlers.
Lastly, as we learn from the Indian Epos, the Aryas had not merely to
contend against the old population at the time of their settlement; nor
did they merely press upon one another, while those who came last sought
to push forward the early immigrants, as we concluded to be the case
from the hymns quoted from the Rigveda; they also engaged in conflicts
among themselves for the possession of the best land between the Yamuna
and the Ganges. In these struggles the tribes of the immigrants became
amalgamated into large communities or nations, and the successful
leaders found themselves at the head of important states. The conquest
and colonisation of such large regions, the limitation and arrangement
of the new states founded in them, could only be accomplished in a long
space of time. According to the Epos and the Puranas, _i.e._ the very
late and untrustworthy collections of Indian legends and traditions, it
was after a great war among the Aryas in the doab of the Yamuna and
Ganges, in which the family of Pandu obtained the crown of the Bharatas
on the upper Ganges, that the commotion ceased, and the newly founded
states enjoyed a state of peace. In the Rigveda, the Bharatas are to the
west of the Vipaça, in the Epos we find them dwelling on the upper
Ganges; on the Yamuna are settled the nations of the Matsyas, and the
Yadavas; between the upper Yamuna and the Ganges are the Panchalas,
_i.e._ the five tribes; eastward of the Bharatas on the Sarayu, down to
the Ganges, are the Koçalas. Still further to the east and north of the
Ganges are the Videhas; on the Ganges itself are the Kaçis and the
Angas, and to the south of the Ganges the Magadhas.
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