Identifier: historyofworldsu02helm Title: The history of the world; a survey of a man's record Year: 1902 (1900s) Authors: Helmolt, Hans F. (Hans Ferdinand), 1865-1929 Bryce, James Bryce, Viscount, 1838-1922 Subjects: World history Publisher: New York : Dodd, Mead Contributing Library: University of California Libraries Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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Text Appearing Before Image: a long period after the manner of anideal Brahman prince. Thereupon they retired from all earthly splendour andbecame ascetics with no temporal needs, wandering from one holy shrine toanother, until at length they entered the heaven of the gods opposite the holyMountain of Meru. However large an element of the Mahabharata may be purely poetical, nonethe less the poem enables us to localise with some accuracy a number of the tribeswhich were actively or passively involved in the struggle of the two royal houses,and the overthrow of the warrior class to which that struggle led. Of llie warriorclass the chief representatives are the Kuru, who are represented as settled on theupper course of the Jumna and Ganges, Hastinapura being their rajiital town (seethe map, p. 430); they were also in occupation of the sacred Kuru land to thewest of the Jumna as far as the point where the Saraswati disappears in the sandsof the desert. The poem places the Pandu and their capital of Indrapraslha (the

Text Appearing After Image: o 2 <O f- H O ttJOf< z in^ia-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 371 modem Delhi on the Jumna) in the central Duab (the central district betweenthe Jumna and the Ganges); in the lower Duab is settled a federation of fivetribes, the Pautshala. Opposite these on the western bank of the Jumna dwellthe Surasena, whQe to the east beyond the Ganges are the Kosala (capital townGogra) who extended their power after the destruction of tlie Kuru and PAndu,their later capital of Ayodhya becoming a focus of Brahman civilization. Belowthe confluence of the Jumna and Gauges, the sacred Prayaga, where at an earlierperiod Iratisthana (Allahabad) had become a centre for pilgrimages, the northernbank of the main stream was occupied by the Bharata tribe of the Matsya, whileto the southeast of these in the district of the modern Benares i lived the Kasi; onthe southern bank the native tribe of the Nishada formed a defence agamsttheAryan tribes in the north. East and north of the Ganges together with the Kosalaw

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