30
PARVATI, WIFE OF SHIVA (see page [150])
From a South Indian temple
Among the tribes which opposed the advance of the conquering King Sudas, who appears to have been a late comer, was the Puru people on the banks of the Saraswati river. We find that the early authors suddenly cease to refer to them, and the problem is presented: What fate had befallen the Purus? Professor Oldenberg, whose view is accepted by Professor Macdonell, Oxford, explains that the Purus merged in the Kuru coalition. The Kurus gave their name to Kuru-kshetra, the famous battlefield of the epic Mahábhárata; they had already fused with the Panchala tribe and formed the Kuru-Panchala nation in Madhyadesa, the “Middle Country”, the home of Brahmanic culture, the birthplace of the famous old Upanishads.
The Bharatas, and their priestly aristocracy of Tritsus, the Vasishthas, appear to have joined the Kuru-Panchala confederacy about the time that the Brahmanas were being composed, and these were probably influenced by the ritualistic practices of the Vasishthas. There are references to Agni of the Bharatas, and a goddess Bharati is mentioned in connection with the Saraswati river.
It appears highly probable that the Bharatas and the Kuru-Panchalas represent late invasions of peoples who displaced the earlier Aryan settlers in Hindustan. Among the enemies of the invaders were the Kasis, a tribe which became associated with Benares. It is not possible to prove the theory that this people had any connection with the Kassites who established a Dynasty at Babylon. The Kassites are believed to be identical with the Cossæi of later times, who were settled between Babylon and the Median highlands. Some think the Kassites came from Asia Minor after the Hittite raid on Babylon, if the Kassites, as Hittite allies, were not the actual raiders. The fact that the Maltese cross, which is found on Elamite neolithic pottery, first appears on Babylonian seals during the Kassite Dynasty, suggests, however, that the Kassites came from the east and not the west, with the horse, called in Babylon “the ass of the east”.
The great epic Mahábhárata, “the Iliad of India”, may have been founded on the hero songs which celebrated the Aryan tribal wars in India. Its action is centred in Kuru-kshetra, “the country of the Kurus”, in which the Bharatas had settled. Two rival families contend for supremacy; these are the Kauravas (the Kurus) and the Pandavas who are supported by the Panchalas and others. The Pandavas and Kauravas are cousins and the descendants of the eponymous King Bharata. In the royal family tree the tribal names of Kuru and Puru appear as names of kings.