Chapter 4

=Ayodhya.=—Ayodhya[2.4.1] was the first city founded by the race of Surya. Like other capitals, its importance must have risen by slow degrees; yet making every allowance for exaggeration, it must have attained great splendour long anterior to Rama. Its site is well known at this day under the contracted name of Oudh, which also designates the country appertaining to the titular wazir of the Mogul empire; which country, twenty-five years ago, nearly marked the limits of Kosala, the pristine kingdom of the Surya race. Overgrown greatness characterized all the ancient Asiatic capitals, and that of Ayodhya was immense. Lucknow, the present capital, is traditionally asserted to have been one of the suburbs of ancient Oudh, and so named by Rama, in compliment to his brother Lakshman.

=Mithila.=—Nearly coeval in point of time with Ayodhya was Mithila,[2.4.2] the capital of a country of the same name, founded by Mithila, the grandson of Ikshwaku.

The name of Janaka,[2.4.3] son of Mithila, eclipsed that of the founder and became the patronymic of this branch of the Solar race.

=Other Kingdoms.=—These are the two chief capitals of the kingdoms of the Solar line described in [39] this early age; though there were others of a minor order, such as Rohtas, Champapura,[2.4.4] etc., all founded previously to Rama.

By the numerous dynasties of the Lunar race of Budha many kingdoms were founded. Much has been said of the antiquity of Prayag; yet the first capital of the Indu or Lunar race appears to have been founded by Sahasra Arjuna, of the Haihaya tribe. This was Mahishmati on the Nerbudda, still existing in Maheswar.[2.4.5] The rivalry between the Lunar race and that of the Suryas of Ayodhya, in whose aid the priesthood armed, and expelled Sahasra Arjuna from Mahishmati, has been mentioned. A small branch of these ancient Haihayas[2.4.6] yet exist in the line of the Nerbudda, near the very top of the valley at Sohagpur, in Baghelkhand, aware of their ancient lineage; and, though few in number, are still celebrated for their valour.[2.4.7]

=Dwarka.=—Kusasthali Dwarka, the capital of Krishna, was founded prior to Prayag, to Surpur, or Mathura. The Bhagavat attributes the foundation of the city to Anrita, the brother of Ikshwaku, of the Solar race, but states not how or when the Yadus became possessed thereof.

The ancient annals of the Jaisalmer family of the Yadu stock give the priority of foundation to Prayag, next to Mathura, and last to Dwarka. All these cities are too well known to require description; especially Prayag, at the confluence of the Yamuna and Ganges. The Prasioi were the descendants of Puru[2.4.8] of Prayag, visited by Megasthenes, ambassador of Seleucus, and the principal city of the Yadus, ere it sent forth the four branches from Satwata. At Prayag resided the celebrated Bharat, the son of Sakuntala.

In the Ramayana the Sasavindus[2.4.9] (another Yadu race) are inscribed as allied with the Haihayas in the wars with the race of Surya; and of this race was Sisupal[2.4.10] (the founder of Chedi[2.4.11]), one of the foes of Krishna [40].

=Surpur.=—We are assured by Alexander’s historians that the country and people round Mathura, when he invaded India, were termed Surasenoi. There are two princes of the name of Sursen in the immediate ancestry of Krishna; one his grandfather, the other eight generations anterior. Which of these founded the capital Surpur,[2.4.12] whence the country and inhabitants had their appellation, we cannot say. Mathura and Cleisobara are mentioned by the historians of Alexander as the chief cities of the Surasenoi. Though the Greeks sadly disfigure names, we cannot trace any affinity between Cleisobara and Surpur.

=Hastinapura.=—The city of Hastinapura was built by Hastin a name celebrated in the Lunar dynasties. The name of this city is still preserved on the Ganges, about forty miles south of Hardwar,[2.4.13] where the Ganges breaks through the Siwalik mountains and enters the plains of India. This mighty stream, rolling its masses of waters from the glaciers of the Himalaya, and joined by many auxiliary streams, frequently carries destruction before it. In one night a column of thirty feet in perpendicular height has been known to bear away all within its sweep, and to such an occurrence the capital of Hastin is said to have owed its ruin.[2.4.14] As it existed, however, long after the Mahabharata, it is surprising it is not mentioned by the historians of Alexander, who invaded India probably about eight centuries after that event. In this abode of the sons of Puru resided Porus, one of the two princes of that name, opponents of Alexander, and probably Bindusara the son of Chandragupta, surmised to be the Abisares[2.4.15] and Sandrakottos of Grecian authorities. Of the two princes named Porus mentioned by Alexander’s [41] historians, one resided in the very cradle of the Puru dynasties; the abode of the other bordered on the Panjab: warranting an assertion that the Pori of Alexander were of the Lunar race, and destroying all the claims various authors[2.4.16] have advanced on behalf of the princes of Mewar.[2.4.17]

Hastin sent forth three grand branches, Ajamidha, Dvimidha, and Purumidha. Of the two last we lose sight altogether; but Ajamidha’s progeny spread over all the northern parts of India, in the Panjab and across the Indus. The period, probably one thousand six hundred years before Christ.

From Ajamidha,[2.4.18] in the fourth generation, was Bajaswa, who obtained possessions towards the Indus, and whose five sons gave their name, Panchala, to the Panjab, or space watered by the five rivers. The capital founded by the younger brother, Kampila, was named Kampilnagara.[2.4.19]

The descendants of Ajamidha by his second wife, Kesini, founded another kingdom and dynasty, celebrated in the heroic history of Northern India. This is the Kausika dynasty.

=Kanauj.=—Kusa had four sons, two of whom, Kusanabha and Kusamba, are well known to traditional history, and by the still surviving cities founded by them. Kusanabha founded the city of Mahodaya on the Ganges, afterwards changed to Kanyakubja, or Kanauj, which maintained its celebrity until the Muhammadan invasion of Shihabu-d-din (A.D. 1193), when this overgrown city was laid prostrate for ever. It was not unfrequently called Gadhipura, or the ‘city of Gadhi.’ This practice of multiplying names of cities in the east is very destructive to history. Abu-l Fazl has taken from Hindu authorities an account of Kanauj; and could we admit the authority of a poet on such subjects, Chand, the bard of Prithwiraja,[2.4.20] would afford materials. Ferishta states it in the early ages to have been twenty-five coss [42] (thirty-five miles) in circumference, and that there were thirty thousand shops for the sale of the areca or beetle-nut only;[2.4.21] and this in the sixth century, at which period the Rathor dynasty, which terminated with Jaichand, in the twelfth, had been in possession from the end of the fifth century.

Kusamba also founded a city, called after his own name Kausambi.[2.4.22] The name was in existence in the eleventh century; and ruins might yet exist, if search were made on the shores of the Ganges, from Kanauj southward.

The other sons built two capitals, Dharmaranya and Vasumati; but of neither have we any correct knowledge.

Kuru had two sons, Sudhanush and Parikhshita. The descendants of the former terminated with Jarasandha, whose capital was Rajagriha (the modern Rajmahal) on the Ganges, in the province of Bihar.[2.4.23] From Parikhshita descended the monarchs Santanu and Balaka: the first producing the rivals of the Great War, Yudhishthira and Duryodhana; the other the Balakaputras.

Duryodhana, the successor to the throne of Kuru, resided at the ancient capital, Hastinapura; while the junior branch, Yudhishthira, founded Indraprastha, on the Yamuna or Jumna, which name in the eighth century was changed to Delhi.

The sons of Balaka founded two kingdoms: Palibothra, on the lower Ganges; and Aror,[2.4.24] on the eastern bank of the Indus, founded by Sahl [43].

One great arm of the tree of Yayati remains unnoticed, that of Uru or Urvasu, written by others Turvasu. Uru was the father of a line of kings who founded several empires. Virupa, the eighth prince from Uru, had eight sons, two of whom are particularly mentioned as sending forth two grand shoots, Druhyu and Bhabru. From Druhyu a dynasty was established in the north. Aradwat, with his son Gandhara, is stated to have founded a State: Prachetas is said to have become king of Mlecchhades, or the barbarous regions. This line terminated with Dushyanta, the husband of the celebrated Sakuntala, father of Bharat, and who, labouring under the displeasure of some offended deity, is said by the Hindus to have been the cause of all the woes which subsequently befell the race. The four grandsons of Dushyanta, Kalanjar, Keral, Pand, and Chaul, gave their names to countries.

=Kalanjar.=—Kalanjar is the celebrated fortress in Bundelkhand, so well known for its antiquities, which have claimed considerable notice.

=Kerala.=—Of the second, Kerala, it is only known that in the list of the thirty-six royal races in the twelfth century, the Kerala makes one, but the capital is unknown.[2.4.25]

=Pandya.=—The kingdom founded by Pand may be that on the coast of Malabar, the Pandu-Mandal of the Hindus, the Regia Pandiona of the geographers of the west, and of which, probably, Tanjore is the modern capital.[2.4.26]

=Chaul.=—Chaul[2.4.27] is in the Saurashtra peninsula, and on the coast, towards Jagat Khunt, ‘the world’s end,’ and still retains its appellation.

=Anga.=—The other shoot from Bhabru became celebrated. The thirty-fourth prince, Anga, founded the kingdom of Angadesa, of which Champapuri[2.4.28] was the [44] capital, established about the same time with Kanauj, probably fifteen hundred years before Christ. With him the patronymic was changed, and the Anga race became famous in ancient Hindu history; and to this day Un-des still designates the Alpine regions of Tibet bordering on Chinese Tartary.

Prithusena terminates the line of Anga; and as he survived the disasters of the Great War, his race probably multiplied in those regions, where caste appears never to have been introduced.

=Recapitulation.=—Thus have we rapidly reviewed the dynasties of Surya and Chandra, from Manu and Budha to Rama, Krishna, Yudhishthira, and Jarasandha; establishing, it is hoped, some new points, and perhaps adding to the credibility of the whole.

The wrecks of almost all the vast cities founded by them are yet to be traced in ruins. The city of Ikshwaku and Rama, on the Sarju; Indraprastha, Mathura, Surpura, Prayag on the Yamuna; Hastinapura, Kanyakubja, Rajagriha on the Ganges; Maheswar on the Nerbudda; Aror on the Indus; and Kusasthali Dwarka on the shore of the Indian Ocean. Each has left some memorial of former grandeur: research may discover others.

There is yet an unexplored region in Panchala; Kampilanagara its capital, and those cities established west of the Indus by the sons of Bajaswa.

Traces of the early Indo-Scythic nations may possibly reward the search of some adventurous traveller who may penetrate into Transoxiana, on the sites of Cyropolis, and the most northern Alexandria; in Balkh, and amidst the caves of Bamian.

The plains of India retain yet many ancient cities, from whose ruins somewhat may be gleaned to add a mite to knowledge; and where inscriptions may be found in a character which, though yet unintelligible, will not always remain so in this age of discovery. For such let the search be general, and when once a key is obtained, they will enlighten each other. Wherever the races of Kuru, Uru, and Yadu have swayed, have been found ancient and yet undeciphered characters.

Much would reward him who would make a better digest of the historical and geographical matter in the Puranas. But we must discard the idea that the history of Rama, the Mahabharata of Krishna and the five Pandava[2.4.29] brothers, are [45] mere allegory: an idea supported by some, although their races, their cities, and their coins still exist. Let us master the characters on the columns of Indraprastha, of Prayag and Mewar, on the rocks of Junagarh,[2.4.30] at Bijolli, on the Aravalli, and in the Jain temples scattered over India, and then we shall be able to arrive at just and satisfactory conclusions.

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Footnote 2.4.1:

The picture drawn by Valmiki of the capital of the Solar race is so
highly coloured that Ayodhya might stand for Utopia, and it would be
difficult to find such a catalogue of metropolitan embellishments in
this, the iron age of Oudh. "On the banks of the Surayu is a large
country called Kosala, in which is Ayodhya, built by Manu, twelve
yojans (forty-eight miles) in extent, with streets regular and well
watered. It was filled with merchants, beautified by gardens,
ornamented with stately gates and high-arched porticoes, furnished
with arms, crowded with chariots, elephants, and horses, and with
ambassadors from foreign lands; embellished with palaces whose domes
resembled the mountain tops, dwellings of equal height, resounding
with the delightful music of the tabor, the flute, and the harp. It
was surrounded by an impassable moat, and guarded by archers.
Dasaratha was its king, a mighty charioteer. There were no atheists.
The affections of the men were in their consorts. The women were
chaste and obedient to their lords, endowed with beauty, wit,
sweetness, prudence, and industry, with bright ornaments and fair
apparel; the men devoted to truth and hospitality, regardful of their
superiors, their ancestors, and their gods.

“There were eight councillors; two chosen priests profound in the law,
besides another inferior council of six. Of subdued appetites,
disinterested, forbearing, pleasant, patient; not avaricious; well
acquainted with their duties and popular customs; attentive to the
army, the treasury; impartially awarding punishment even on their own
sons; never oppressing even an enemy; not arrogant; comely in dress;
never confident about doubtful matters; devoted to the sovereign.”

Footnote 2.4.2:

Mithila, the modern Tirhut in Bengal [including the modern districts
of Darbhanga, Champāran, and Muzaffarpur].

Footnote 2.4.3:

Kusadhwaja, father of Sita (spouse of Rama), is also called Janaka; a
name common in this line, and borne by the third prince in succession
after Suvarna Roma, the ‘golden-haired’ chief Mithila.

Footnote 2.4.4:

[Rohtās in the modern Shāhābād district; Champapura in Bhāgalpur.]

Footnote 2.4.5:

Familiarly designated as Sahasra Bahu ki Basti, or ‘the town of the
thousand-armed.’ [In Indore State (_IGI_, xvii. 8).]

Footnote 2.4.6:

The Haihaya race, of the line of Budha, may claim affinity with the
Chinese race which first gave monarchs to China [?].

Footnote 2.4.7:

Of this I have heard the most romantic proofs in very recent times.

Footnote 2.4.8:

Puru became the patronymic of this branch of the Lunar race. Of this
Alexander’s historians made Porus. The Suraseni of Methoras
(descendants of the Sursen of Mathura) were all Purus, the Prasioi of
Megasthenes [see p. 37, n.]. Allahabad yet retains its Hindu name of
Prayag, pronounced Prag.

Footnote 2.4.9:

The Hares. Sesodia is said to have the same derivation. [From Sesoda
in Mewār.]

Footnote 2.4.10:

The princes of Ranthambhor, expelled by Prithwiraja of Delhi, were of
this race.

Footnote 2.4.11:

The modern Chanderi [in the Gwalior State, _IGI_, x. 163 f.] is said
to be this capital, and one of the few to which no Englishman has
obtained entrance, though I tried hard in 1807. Doubtless it would
afford food for curiosity; for, being out of the path of armies in the
days of conquest and revolution, it may, and I believe does, retain
much worthy of research. [The capital of the Chedi or Kalachuri
dynasty was Tripura or Karanbel, near Jabalpur (_IGI_, x. 12).]

Footnote 2.4.12:

I had the pleasure, in 1814, of discovering a remnant of this city,
which the Yamuna has overwhelmed. [The ancient Sūryapura was near
Batesar, 40 miles south-east of Agra city. Sir H. Elliot
(_Supplemental Glossary_, 187) remarks that it is strange that the
Author so often claims the credit of discovery when its position is
fixed in a set of familiar verses. For Sūryapura see A. Führer,
_Monumental Antiquities and Inscriptions_, 69.] The sacred place of
pilgrimage, Batesar, stands on part of it. My discovery of it was
doubly gratifying, for while I found out the Surasenoi of the Greeks,
I obtained a medal of the little known Apollodotus, who carried his
arms to the mouths of the Indus, and possibly to the centre of the
land of the Yadus. He is not included by Bayer in his lists of the
kings of Bactria, but we have only an imperfect knowledge of the
extent of that dynasty. The Bhagavat Purana asserts thirteen Yavan or
Ionian princes to have ruled in Balichdes [?] or Bactria, in which
they mention Pushpamitra Dvimitra. We are justified in asserting this
to be Demetrius, the son of Euthydemus, but who did not succeed his
father, as Menander intervened. Of this last conqueror I also possess
a medal, obtained amongst the Surasenoi, and struck in commemoration
of victory, as the winged messenger of heavenly peace extends the palm
branch from her hand. These two will fill up a chasm in the Bactrian
annals, for Menander is well known to them. Apollodotus would have
perished but for Arrian, who wrote the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea
in the second century, while commercial agent at Broach, or
classically Brigukachchha, the Barugaza of the Greeks. [The Periplus
of the Erythraean Sea was written by an unknown Greek merchant of
first century A.D. (McCrindle, _Commerce and Navigation_, Introd. p.
1).]

Without the notice this writer has afforded us, my Apollodotus would
have lost half its value. Since my arrival in Europe I have also been
made acquainted with the existence of a medal of Demetrius, discovered
in Bokhara, and on which an essay has been written by a _savant_ at
St. Petersburg.

Footnote 2.4.13:

The portal of Hari or Hara, whose trisula or trident is there.

Footnote 2.4.14:

Wilford says this event is mentioned in two Puranas as occurring in
the sixth or eighth generation of the Great War. Those who have
travelled in the Duab must have remarked where both the Ganges and
Jumna have shifted their beds.

Footnote 2.4.15:

[Abisares is Abhisāra in the modern Kashmīr State (Smith, _EHI_, 59).]

Footnote 2.4.16:

Sir Thomas Roe; Sir Thomas Herbert; the Holstein ambassador (by
Olearius); Della Valle; Churchill, in his collection: and borrowing
from these, D’Anville, Bayer, Orme, Rennell, etc.

Footnote 2.4.17:

The ignorance of the family of Mewar of the fact would by no means be
a conclusive argument against it, could it be otherwise substantiated;
but the race of Surya was completely eclipsed at that period by the
Lunar and new races which soon poured in from the west of the Indus,
and in time displaced them all.

Footnote 2.4.18:

Ajamidha, by his wife Nila, had five sons, who spread their branches
(Sakha) on both sides the Indus. Regarding three the Puranas are
silent, which implies their migration to distant regions. Is it
possible they might be the origin of the Medes? These Medes are
descendants of Yayati, third son of the patriarch Manu; and Madai,
founder of the Medes, was of Japhet’s line. Ajamidha, the patronymic
of the branch of Bajaswa, is from _Aja_, ‘a goat.’ The Assyrian Mede,
in Scripture, is typified by the goat. [These speculations are
worthless.]

Footnote 2.4.19:

Of this house was Draupadi, the wife, in common, of the five Pandava
brothers: manners peculiar to Scythia.

Footnote 2.4.20:

King of Delhi.

Footnote 2.4.21:

[Briggs i. 57. The accounts of the size of the city are extravagant
(Elphinstone, _HI_, 332 note; Cunningham, _ASR_, i. 279 ff.).]

Footnote 2.4.22:

An inscription was discovered at Kara on the Ganges, in which Yaspal
is mentioned as prince of the realm of Kausambi (_As. Res._ vol. ix.
p. 440). Wilford, in his Essay on the Geography of the Purans, says
“Causambi, near Alluhabad” (_As. Res._ vol. xiv.). [The site is
uncertain (Smith, _EHI_, 293, note).]

Footnote 2.4.23:

[Rājgīr in Patna District.]

Footnote 2.4.24:

Aror, or Alor, was the capital of Sind in remote antiquity: a bridge
over the stream which branched from the Indus, near Dara, is almost
the sole vestige of this capital of the Sogdoi of Alexander. On its
site the shepherds of the desert have established an extensive hamlet;
it is placed on a ridge of siliceous rock, seven miles east of the
insular Bakhar, and free from the inundations of the Indus. The Sodha
tribe, a powerful branch of the Pramara race, has ruled in these
countries from remote antiquity, and to a very late period they were
lords of Umarkot and Umrasumra, in which divisions was Aror. Sahl and
his capital were known to Abu-l Fazl, though he was ignorant of its
position, which he transferred to Debal, or Dewal, the modern Tatta.
This indefatigable historian thus describes it: “In ancient times
there lived a raja named Siharas (Sahl), whose capital was Alor, and
his dominions extended north to Kashmīr and south to the ocean”
[_Āīn_, ii. 343]. Sahl, or Sahr, became a titular appellation of the
country, its princes, and its inhabitants, the Sehraes. [See p. 21
above.] Alor appears to have been the capital of the kingdom of
Sigerdis, conquered by Menander of Bactria. Ibn Haukal, the Arabian
geographer, mentions it; but a superfluous point in writing has
changed Aror into Azor, or Azour, as translated by Sir W. Ouseley. The
illustrious D’Anville mentions it; but, in ignorance of its position,
quoting Abulfeda. says, in grandeur “Azour est presque comparable à
Mooltan.” I have to claim the discovery of several ancient capital
cities in the north of India: Surpur, on the Jumna, the capital of the
Yadus; Alor, on the Indus, the capital of the Sodhas; Mandodri,
capital of the Pariharas; Chandravati, at the foot of the Aravalli
mountains; and Valabhipura, in Gujarat, capital of the Balaka-raes,
the Balharas of Arab travellers. The Bala Rajput of Saurashtra may
have given the name to Valabhipura, as descendants of Balaka, from
Sahl of Aror. The blessing of the bard to them is yet, Tatta Multān ka
Rāo (‘lord of Tatta and Multan,’ the seats of the Balaka-putras): nor
is it improbable that a branch of these under the Indian Hercules,
Balaram, who left India after the Great War, may have founded Balich,
or Balkh, emphatically called the ‘mother of cities.’ The Jaisalmer
annals assert that the Yadu and Balaka branches of the Indu race ruled
Khorasan after the Great War, the Indo-Scythic races of Grecian
authors. Besides the Balakas, and the numerous branches of the
Indo-Medes, many of the sons of Kuru dispersed over these regions:
amongst whom we may place Uttara Kuru (_Northern Kurus_) of the
Puranas, the Ottorokorrhai of the Greek authors. Both the Indu and
Surya races were eternally sending their superfluous population to
those distant regions, when probably the same primeval religion
governed the races east and west of the Indus. [Much of this is
incorrect.]

Footnote 2.4.25:

[The Chera or Kerala kingdom comprised the Southern Konkans or Malabar
coast, the present Malabar district with Travancore and Cochin, the
dynasty being in existence early in the Christian era (Smith, _EHI_,
447; _IGI_, x. 192 f.).]

Footnote 2.4.26:

[The Pāndya kingdom included the Madura and Tinnevelly districts, with
parts of Trichinopoly, and sometimes Travancore, its capitals being
Madura, or Kūdal, and Korkai (Smith, _op. cit._ 449 f.; _IGI_, xix.
394 f.).]

Footnote 2.4.27:

From Chaul on the coast, in journeying towards Junagarh, and about
seven miles from the former, are the remains of an ancient city.

Footnote 2.4.28:

From the description in the Ramayana of King Dasaratha proceeding to
Champamalina, the capital of Lomapada, king of Anga (sixth in descent
from the founder), it is evident that it was a very mountainous
region, and the deep forests and large rivers presented serious
obstructions to his journey. From this I should imagine it impossible
that Angadesa should apply to a portion of Bengal, in which there is a
Champamalina, described by Colonel Francklin in his Essay on
Palibothra. [The Anga kingdom, with its capital at Champapuri, near
Bhāgalpur, corresponded to the modern districts of North Monghyr,
North Bhāgalpur, and Purnea west of the Mahananda river (_IGI_, v.
373).]

Footnote 2.4.29:

The history and exploits of the Pandavas and Harikulas are best known
in the most remote parts of India: amidst the forest-covered mountains
of Saurashtra, the deep woods and caves of Hidimba and Virat (still
the shelter of the savage Bhil and Koli), or on the craggy banks of
the Charmanvati (Chambal). In each, tradition has localized the
shelter of these heroes when exiled from the Yamuna; and colossal
figures cut from the mountain, ancient temples and caves inscribed
with characters yet unknown, attributed to the Pandavas, confirm the
legendary tale.

Footnote 2.4.30:

The ‘ancient city,’ _par eminence_, is the only name this old capital,
at the foot of, and guarding, the sacred mount Girnar, is known by.
Abu-l Fazl says it had long remained desolate and unknown, and was
discovered by mere accident. [_Āīn_, ii. 245. For a description of the
place see _BG_, viii. 487; E. C. Bayley, _Local Muhammadan Dynasties,
Gujarāt_, 182 ff.] Tradition even being silent, they gave it the
emphatic appellation of Juna (old) Garh (fortress). I have little
doubt that it is the Asaldurga, or Asalgarh, of the Guhilot annals;
where it is said that prince Asal raised a fortress, called after him,
near to Girnar, by the consent of the Dabhi prince, his uncle.

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