r any effective resistance. These tribes who retired
southwards are commonly known as Dravidians[110] and possibly represent
an earlier invasion of central-Asiatic tribes allied to the remote
ancestors of the Turks and Mongols[111]. At the time when the earlier
hymns of the Rig Veda were composed, the Aryans apparently lived in the
Panjab and did not know the sea, the Vindhya mountains or the Narbudda
river. They included several tribes, among whom five are specially
mentioned, and we hear that a great battle was fought on the Ravi, in
which a confederation of ten kings who wished to force a passage to the
east was repulsed by Sudas, chief of the Tritsus. Still the
south-eastern movement, across the modern United Provinces to the
borders of Bengal, continued and, so far as our records go, it was in
this direction rather than due south or south-west, that the Aryans
chiefly advanced[112]. When the Brahmanas and earlier Upanishads were
composed (c. 800-600 B.C.) the principal political units were the
kingdoms of the Pancalas and Kurus in the region of Delhi. The city of
Ayodhya (Oudh) is also credited with a very ancient but legendary
history.

The real history of India begins with the life of the Buddha who lived
in the sixth century B.C.[113] At that time the small states of northern
India, which were apparently oligarchies or monarchies restricted by the
powers of a tribal council, were in process of being absorbed by larger
states which were absolute monarchies and this remained the normal form
of government in both Hindu and Moslim times. Thus Kosala (or Oudh)
absorbed the kingdom of Benares but was itself conquered by Magadha or
Bihar, the chief city of which was Pataliputra or Patna, destined to
become the capital of India. We also know that at this period and for
about two centuries later the Persian Empire had two satrapies within
the limits of modern India, one called "India," including the country
east of the Indus and possibly part of the Panjab, and the other called
Gandhara (Peshawar) containing Takshasila[114], a celebrated university.
The situation of this seat of learning is important, for it was
frequented by students from other districts and they must have felt
there in early times Persian and afterwards Hellenistic influence. There
are clear signs of Persian influence in India in the reign of Asoka. Of
Magadha there is little to be said for the next century and a half, but
it appears to have remained t