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S. 0. Vid y a films an a —Licchavi race of ancient India. [No. 2, 
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The Licchavi race of ancient India.—By Satis Chandra Vidyabhusana, 
M.A., M.R.A.S. 
Since time immemorial, India has been hospitable to foreign races. 
In the Mahabharata and Puranas we read 
Word'^LicchavT 8 war ^^ e races entering India from outside, 
getting admittance into Hindu Society, and 
vbeing absorbed in one or other of the four great castes of the Indiaii 
people. In this paper, I shall give an account of a raoe that came into 
our country, in about the 8th century B.C., and gradually identified it¬ 
self with the Ksatriya or military caste of Northern India. This race 
is called Licchavi. The Pali chroniclers have so designated it. In the 
Brahmanic Sanskrit works the race has been called Nicchivi. The 
Suvarnaprabhasa-sutra 1 of the Northern Buddhists designates it as Lit- 
savi. In the ancient inscriptions the variant form Licchivi is found 
sometimes to have been used, while the Tibetan authors have occasion¬ 
ally named it as Li-tsa-byi. 
In the well-known Hindu Socio-religious institute called Manu- 
samhita the Nicchivis have been reckoned 
among the Vratya Ksatriyas. Manu says : 2 
“ From the Vratya Ksatriyas are born the 
following, viz.: Jhalla, Malla, Nicchivi, Nata, Karana, Khasa and 
Dravida.” 
Now let us examine the meaning of the word Vratya used by Manu. 
The word Vratya has been defined in the Hindu 9 astras as signifying 
one who has lost caste through non-observance of the ten principal 
Hindu ceremonies (samskaras) especially of investiture with the sacred 
thread. This definition of the word Vratya shows that the Licchavis, 
though included in the Ksatriya caste, did not in the time of Manu wear 
sacred threads nor observe any of the ten principal rites enjoined in the 
Brahmanic yastras. In fact they were even then regarded as foreig¬ 
ners, and as such did not conform themselves to the rules of Hindu 
1 Suvarna-prabhasa Sutra, chap II. 
2 Manusarphita, chap. X, verse 22. 
The Origin of the Lic¬ 
chavi race. 
