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KINGS AND PEOPLES
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the Anuvindakas, the Apadāna (ii, p. 369) mentions the Bhagga-Kārūsas, Okkalas and Mekalas. The Dasaņņas find mention in the Jātakas 1 and Petavatthu. They were evidently a people who settled along the banks of the river named Dasaņņā (modern Dasan, a tributary of the Yamunā), and founded a territory with their capital at Vedisa (modern Bhilsa) on the river Vetravati. Erakaccha was a well-known city of the Dasannas. The Dasaņņa country is counted among the sixteen mahājanapadas in the Mahābhārata (ii, 5.10) and Mahāvastu (i, p. 34). The name of the Mekalas is to be met with only in a nominal list. The Okkalas were evidently the inhabitants of Ukkala (Sk. Utkala) which lay, according to the Mahāvastu (ü, p. 303), in Uttarāpatha. It is not impossible that the Okkalas who belonged at first to the north-western region of India, founded a colony afterwards in the Vindhya region. That there was an Ukkala janapada in Uttarăpatha is borne out by the Theragātha-Commentary, according to which, the two caravan-merchants, Tapassu and Bhalluka, referred in the Mahāvastu to Utkala in Uttafāpatha, were citizens of Pokkharavati, a well-known city in Gandhāra.
1 Jataka, iü, p. 338. 2 Petavatthi, ii, 7. 8 Theragatha-atthakathā, i, p. 48f.
