MANUAL OF THE NILAGIRI DISTRICT. 259 



Mysore, in the south. Of M^hishamati on the Nerbadda, we CHAP. XI. 

 are told that during the reign of a king of the solar line, the early 

 restorer of the kingdom of the Nagas/ — said by some to be a History. 

 Scythian race — the Haihagas — also a race, seemingly, of 

 Scythian origin — attacked the city and drove out the king. 

 During his flight in the forest his son Sagara was born, who, 

 on coming to man's estate, became a great conqueror, nearly 

 destroyed the Haihagas and their allies, and imposed on the 

 conquered the mode of shaving the head and wearing the hair 

 known as hudami. Of the M^hishamati of the Mahabhdrata,^ 

 we read that in it one Nila ruled. Here was the worship of 

 Agni (fire) maintained, and here prevailed a system of free 

 love amongst the women. Mr. Rice thinks that this fact may 

 indicate the dominion in the south of a Malabar chief. But 

 against this view it may be urged that the religion of the 

 Malaydlams was essentially phallic. Nila was attacked by 

 Sahadeva, one of Yudisthira's generals, who, after conciliating 

 the god Agni, conquered the city. Lastly we read, as already 

 stated, in the Mahdwanso that after the great Buddhist council in 

 241 B.C. — the third synod, — in the reign of A.s6ka, mission- 

 aries under the leadership of Mahadeva were despatched to 

 Mdhisha-mandalam to establish the religion of Buddha " and to 

 bring them imto righteousness which passeth knowledge, and to 

 deliver those bound in the fetters of sin." ^ There they made 

 80,000 converts.* I do not attempt to do more than draw atten- 

 tion to these facts, but it is strange to find that there existed in 

 Southern India a race of polyandrists who were at the same time 

 worshippers of the Vedic deity, the sun, and whose cities, situated 

 in the land of rivers, were called after the buffalo, whose home is 

 in the wide river basins of the Dekhan, where it attains its 

 greatest vigor and size. And further that this race should not 

 only have been in conflict with Scythian tribes, but have more 

 or less mingled with them. Vedic, Scythian, and Dravidian cults 

 seem here to have mixed. With such a race the T6das must 

 once have been in close contact. We find them using burial places 

 and performing burial rites so similar that it makes it a ques- 

 tion whether ,they were not the builders of the cairns, though 

 we know that the Nilagiri cairns do not differ essentially from 

 cairns found in other parts of the globe, which are generally 

 admitted to have been built by Scythic tribes. They still adore 

 the sun and light, though the sun has ceased to be a god ; whilst 



* For a notice of this race, see Talboys Wheeler, Vol. I, p. 147. 



2 The M^hibharata, or great war, was probably about 1400 B.C., the Kamijana 

 about 1300 B.C. 



3 Dr. Hunter's Orissa, Vol. I, p. 193. 



* Tounour's M6,h6iwanso. 



