Puru Tribe An important tribe, the Puru, was ousted by King Sudasa in the battle of Ten Kings with the help of his chief priest Vashishtha. Sudasa is said to be belonging to the Bharata clan, a sub-tribe or the part of Puru tribe. There are many seers in the Rig Veda those are named after Puru, such as Purumeelha Angirasa, Puru Atreya, Puruhanma etc. However, it is clear that the Rig Vedic people did not directly belong to the hypothetical Puru tribe. Rather Puru seems to be a common name used for personal as well as for cities, towns and forts. Indra’s main epithet is ‘Purabhidya’, ‘Purandara’ that means destroyer of the cities and the forts. We find the same tradition is Avesta as well. Zoroaster’s father’s name was Pourushaspa. ‘Pouru’ was a prefix of the many Avestan personal names, such as Pouru-Bangha, Pouruchista, Pouru-Dhakshiti, Pouru-Jira and so many others. However, we must note here that the name having prefixes as ‘Pouru’ mostly are come from the family of Zarathustra, so much so that one may wonder whether the Puru tribe Rig Veda mentions belonged to Zarathustra. Vedic Puru and Pouru of Avesta are the same, which means ‘Plenty’, ‘Many’ or ‘More’. Sometimes, it also stands for ‘ancient’ and ‘predecessors’. The word Puratan, Purva for ancient could have been derived from ‘Puru’. According to Saul Levin, the word ‘Puru’ is of the basic vocabulary, is archaic, and is parallel with ‘Pouru’ of Avesta. (Semitic and Indo-European: Volume I: The Principal Etymologies”, Saul Levin, Page 181). No wonder the same word came to be used as ‘Purush’ for man and ‘Purandhri’ for female while becoming cognate for cities or towns where both genders lived together to whom the term “Poura” was applied. Whether Puru was a tribal name or just an archaic epithet or vocative case used for the men is a difficult question to answer here, but from Rig Veda, it appears that the name was used as a tribal name as well as an epithet. Given due consideration to this, Puru from the lineage of Mahabharata cannot be equated with either the Puru of Mahabharata or Pouru of Avesta. In Rig Veda, though Puru, as a tribe, is allies with Rig Vedic tribe sometimes but were chief adversaries during the battle of ten kings in which they were vanquished at the hands of Sudasa. Purus seem to be in the close vicinity of the Sudasa’s region, i.e. northern part of the Afghanistan. Traditionally, it is thought that the Puru tribe was later branched in many tribes, such as Bharat, Tritsu, Kushik etc, is not justifiable for Sudasa of the Tritsu clan cannot belong to Bharata or Puru tribe, because in all probabilities they were generic words, not tribal identities. Pakhta are identified with the Pakhtun tribe that still delves at Pakhtunistan and Bhalanas at Baluchistan or nearer to the Bolan Pass. Pakhtas find mention in the history of Herodotus as “Pactiyans” informing us that they were located on the eastern frontier of Achaemenid Arachosia Satrapy from as early as 1st millennium BCE. (The History of Herodotus, Chapter 7, Translated by George Rawlinson, avalaible on piney/Heredotus7.html) The present location of the Pakhtuns and Balochis too is same as it was in the Rig Vedic times showing no displacement or migration for any reason. This also would indicate that there couldn’t have been any reason for Vedic people to migrate in any direction. The Bharata tribe, too, is another enigma. Though it has been attempted to relate this tribe with Sudasas (Tritsus) and Purus, the name Bharata does not appear in the Rig Veda as a name of any particular tribe whose existence can be shown independently. Bharata is mentioned in the Rig Veda in about 15 verses, but in at least four verses, the name Bharata appears as a synonym of Agni , at one place of Maruts and at some times of gods. At some places, the Bharatas are mentioned as insignificant, such as in RV 7.33.6. However, from Rig Veda, it seems that the term ‘Bharata’ is a generic term, like Puru, not specifically the name of any tribe. The seer Vishvamitra is said to be among sons of Bharata, the third Mandala of Rig Veda attributed to Vishvamitra and hence, it often is called Bharata book. The word Bharata is derived from root ‘bhru’, which means to provide for, to be maintained, cherished or one who protects. From this root ‘Bhrata’ (Brother), Bhartru, and so the Bharata words have been evolved, all mean the same. (Bharatiya Vivahsansthecha Itihas- Rajwade). So in this respect, like Arya, Bharata could have been the epithet to be addressed for friendly tribes including self, claiming as descendants of some mythical Bharata. The name ‘Bharata’ for the country thus seems to have been derived from root ‘Bhru’ to mean the land that provides is more logical than to relate it with the mythological kings of that name.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 12:39:16 +0000
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