________________
SECTION III. The Minor PRINCIPALITIES
AND THE GREAT MONARCHIES.
An important feature of Indian history throughout the ages is the presence of numerous petty Rājās holding their courts either in some forest region, mountain fastness, or desert tract away from the main currents of political life, or in a riparian or maritime district, each separated from his neighbour by a range of hills, a stream, a forest or an expanse of sandy waste. It is impossible to enumerate all such tiny states that flourished and decayed in the days of Bimbisāra. But a few deserve notice. Among these were Gandhāra ruled by Paushkarasārin or Pukkusāti, a remote predecessor of Āmbhi, Madra governed by the father of Khemā, a queen of Bimbisāra, Roruka (in Sauvīra or the Lower Indus Valley) under the domination of Rudrāyana,' Surasena ruled by Avantiputta (either a successor of, or identical with, Subāhu), and Anga under the sway of Dridhavarman and Brahmadatta.
It is difficult to say anything about the ethnic affiliation of these rulers. The form of the names indicates that they were either Aryans themselves or had come under the influence of Aryan culture. But there were certain principalities which were definitely styled Nishāda in the epic, and Ālavaka, (forest-folk, of Yaksha-infested land) in the Pāli texts and were doubtless of non-Aryan origin.
One of these, the realm of Alavaka, demands some notice as the relic of a past that was fast disappearing. This little state wag situated near the Ganges and was probably identical with the Chanchu territory visited by Yuan
i
1 Divyāvadāna, p. 545. 2 Sutta Nipata, S.B.E., X, II. 29-30.
