Political History Of Ancient India

SR No.: 032292
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hemchandra Raychaudhari
Publisher: University of Calcutta
Publication Year: 1950
Total Pages: 714
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 91

62 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA
Setaketu Jātakal says that Svetaketu, son of Uddalaka, went to Takshasilā and learned all the arts. The satapatha Brāhmana mentions the fact that Uddalaka Āruni used to drive about amongst the people of the northern country. It is stated in the Kaushitaki Brūlimana 3 that Brāhmaṇas used to go to the north for purposes of study. The Jātaka tales are full of references to the fame of Taksbasilā as a university town. Pāṇini, bimself a native of Gandhāra, refers to the city in one of his Sūtras.* An early celebrity of Takshasilā was perhaps Kautilya.
The Kekayas were settled in the Western Pañjab between Gandhāra and the Beas. From the Rāmāyanao we learn that the Kekaya territory lay beyond the Vipāśā or Beas and abutted on the Gandharva or Gandhāra Vishaya. The Mahābhārata? associates them with the Madras (Madrāścha saha Kekayaih). Arrian8 places the "Kekians" on the river Saranges, apparently a tributary of the Hydraotes or the Rāvi.
The Vedic texts do not mention the name of its capital city, but the Rāmāyana informs us that the metropolis was Rājagriba or Girivraja :
“Ubhau Bharata-Šatrughnau Kekayeshu parantapau
pure Rājagrihe ramye mātāmaha-nivasane."9 “Both Bharata and Satrughna, repressers of enemies, are staying in Kekaya in the charming city of Rājagrila, the abode of (the) maternal grandfather (of the former)."
1 No. 377. . . 2 Sat. Br. XI. 4. 1. 1, et seq. Udichyānvrito dhāvayām chakāra. 3 VII. 6. Vedic Index II. 279. 4 Sūtra iv. 3, 93 ; AGI (1924), 67. 5 Turnour, Mahawanso, vol. I (1837), p. xxxix.
5 Tue 19-22 ; VII. 113-14... Kekayah.
7 VI. 61. 12 ; VII. 19. 7. Madra-Kekayāḥ.
8 Indika, iv ; Ind. Ant. V. 332 : Mc Crindle, Megasthenes and Arrian. 1926, pp. 163, 196.
9 Rām., II. 67. 7.