COUNTRIES AND TRIBES MENTIONED IN RAMAYANA AND MAHABHARATA

1.       ABHIRA: a tribe which inhabited the north of the river Indus. They were referred to as a medical tribe.

2.       AVANTI another name of the sacred city of Ujjayini.

3.       DASRAS This was tribe of Yadavas to which Lord Krishna belonged.

4.       GUHAS: Guha was the king of the NISHADA tribe, the ancestors of the present day BHILS. Later these people settled in Kalinga were known as GUHAS.

5.       KALINGA a country situated along the coromandal coast from which the present day Odisha (Orrisa) was carved out.

6.       KIRATA people living in the forests and mountains of North East India.

7.       KOSALA a country on the Sarayu river with Ayodhya as the capital. Lord RAMA was born here.

Some parts of modern Bihar formed part of the territory and were called Dakshina Kosala.

8.       MADRA a country situated in the North West of India. Madri the second wife of Pandu was the sister of the King MADRA.

9.       MATSYA situated in North India. In the Mahabharata King Virata’s capital was called Matsya. Some believe it to be in the neighbourhood of Jaipur.

10.   PANCHALA the birth place of Panchali the wife of the Pandavas. It is believed to be in the vicinity of Hastinapur and situated close to Delhi. It spread from the foothills of Himalayas in the North to Chambal in Central India.

11.   PUNDRA a country comprising of Bengal and parts of Southern Bihar.

12.   SAUVIRA a people connected to the SAINDHAVAS who lived in Sindhu or Sind (as it came to be known later). The land lay sandwiched between the Sindhu (Indus) and the Jhelum. It also included the western and southern parts of Punjab.

13.   SUHMA the country lying to the west of Bengal.

14.   TUSHARA Land of the Saka tribe who captured Bactria from the Greeks.

15.   VIDEHA the country associated with present day Bihar the capital of which was Mithila.