THE GREAT ANCIENT EMPIRESurbanisation as early as about 700 BC. But groups of Vedic Aryans also
moved north. A Brahmana text says: ‘Whenever a father resettles a son,
he settles him in the north.’^2 Probably those who went north did not stop
at the foot of the Himalayas but moved east along the foothills. Indian
historians maintain that this route was perhaps one of the earliest
passages to the east because there was less jungle there and the many
tributaries of the Yamuna and the Ganga could be more easily crossed
upstream than down in the plains.
The penetration of the eastThe movement east was certainly the most important one. In a text it is
clearly stated: ‘The people move from the west to the east and conquer
land.’^3 It is essential to note that the term for land in this quote is kshetra
which refers to fields fit for cultivation. There is also a highly instructive
text in the Shatapatha Brahmana, the ‘Brahmana of the Hundred Paths’
which throws light on the extension of the late Vedic civilisation into the
eastern Gangetic plains. This text reports the founding of a realm called
Videha to the northeast of Patna by a prince, Videgha-Mathava. This
prince is said to have started from the river Saraswati in the company of
the fire god, Agni-Vaishvanara, of whose fame as a great coloniser we have
heard already. Videgha followed him until they came to the river Sadanira
(this is now the river Gandak). Here Agni stopped and did not proceed.
The text^4 describes this episode very vividly:
Mathava, the Videgha, was at that time on the [river] Sarasvati.
He [Agni] thence went burning along this earth towards the East...
and the Videgha Mathava followed after him as he was burning
along. He burnt over [dried up] all these rivers. Now that [river],
which is called Sadanira, flows from the northern [Himalaya]
mountains: that one he did not burn over. That one the Brahmins
did not cross in former times, thinking, ‘it has not been burnt over
by Agni Vaishvanara’.Nowadays, however, there are many Brahmins in the East of it. At
that time it [the land east of the Sadanira] was very uncultivated,
very marshy, because it had not been tasted by Agni Vaishvanara.
Nowadays, however, it is very cultivated, for the Brahmins have
caused [Agni] to taste it through sacrifices. Even in late summer
that [river]...rages along...Mathava the Videgha then said [to Agni] ‘Where am I to abide?’
‘To the East of this [river] be thy abode!’ said he. Even now this
[river] forms the boundary of the Koshalas and Videhas.