DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

130 POLYANDRY 15.6
Studying what evidence remains, it would seem that they were
autochthonous tribes oii the Aryan periphery who had advanced beyond
the rest by some contact with Aryans. The Nagas seem to retreat beyond
the growing margin of Aryan territory, not necessarily because of physical
retreat so much as advance of newer tribes to the Naga level. This is
a cultural movement in advance of the Aryan expansion, which included
absorption of some tribes that had formerly been Nagas, as with the
Koliyans. The Mbh gives, at the very beginning, a long list of former
Nagas who appeared reborn as kings at the time of the great war.
Among them is Dhrtarastra, the blind king of the Kurus, who is
generally a Naga in Buddhist sources. Sovereignty passed to the Pandavas
only after a jewel was torn out of the head of ASvatthaman, son of
their brahmin teacher Drona, who was himself born from a jar as were the
hundred Kuru sons of Dhrtarastra. Asvattha-man is not given as a king
in the Mbh. However, his father Drona was rewarded for a while with
the northern Pancala kingdom by the Pandavas, though the Pancala king
was their father-in-law. These five brothers had the Pancala princess
Draupadi as a wife in common. Such polyandry is supposed to be un-
Aryan, though the vedic peasant-gods (the Maruts) had a common wife
Rodasi, and the Nasatyas may at one time have been joint husbands of
Suryla, the sun-goddess, later their sister. These remnants of groupmarriage
disappeared, though polygamy remained. To have a jewel in the
forehead is the traditional mark of a cobra. Asvatthaman counted for
no reason now apparent, as one of the seven immortals (ciranfiviri), and
was the king Spatembas reported by Megasthenes. The whole story of the
great Bharatan war goes back to a lost non-Aryan or pre-Aryan nucleus,
for the very capital Hastinapura (Delhi) is synonymous for ‘ City of the
Nagas’, the word Naga being applied also to the elephant (hastin)
perhaps because of the snake-like trunk. Naga also means ‘noble in
character’ according to Buddhist tradition. Inscriptions (EL 9.174-
81) show that, as late as the llth century A. D., it was an honour for
kings to claim Naga descent. The extraction of history from the Mbh.
will not be easy because of this mixture. The historical value of the entire
Mbh.-Purana complex is at present negligible, 12 except in small portions
confirmed by some other data.