BATTLE OF TEN KINGS

4. War of 10 Kings Dasharajnya or ‘Battle of ten Kings' :

Mention in Rig Ved :

Sudas is mentioned in Rig Ved as the chief of Bharat's who conquered the ten-kings confederacy. It is further mentioned that the king replaced Vishvamitra with Vashishth as his priest, thereby creating a rivalry between the two. The ten-kings, viz. Puru, Yadu, Turvasa, Adu, Druhyu, Alina, Paktha, Bhalanas, Siva and Vishanin, then revolted against Sudas but were defeated by him. He also fought Ajas, Sigrus and Yakshus soon after.

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This battle is memorialized in the 7th Mandala of the Rigved, in hymns 18, 33 and 83.4-8). In this Battle of Ten Kings all the people of the Rig ved Bharat were involved. It took place near the Parusni River (Ravi River) in Punjab. The place where they fought later became the site of the city of Harappa, possibly the first modern urban center in history.

In the battle some of the powerful Puru tribes created an alliance with other tribes from the Bharat and Persia. Guided by the royal sage Vishvamitra, this army came on to oppose the Bharat King Sudas (Note: King Sudas was also descendant of Puru Dynasty) in battle. But, Sudas defeated them all, and captured all the Rig vedic tribes.

King Sudas was the Great Grandson of the powerful king Divodas (Tarzi). Divodas had his empire in the regions of Kish and Punjab and earned fame as a warrior by waging a long war with the powerful non-Arya King Sambara whom he ultimately defeated and killed.

Sudas’s capital city was on the Sarasvati River. He inherited the kingdom from his great grandfather and greatly expanded it. He was also supported by the spiritual mentorship of his guru, the legendary sage Vashishth. In the process, he alienated all the neighboring kingdoms surrounding him. After years of subjugation, a group of roughly a dozen or ‘ten’ (dasha) kings and chieftans (‘raja; rajnya’) formed a confederacy to combine their strength and defeat King Sudas once and for all.

• Bhrigus : The priestly family descended from the ancient Kavi Bhrigu. Later, they are related to the composition of parts of the Atharv Ved (Bhrigu-Angiras). RV (7.18.6)

• (Y.44.20) of the Gathas directly mentions Ausijas, a branch of Angiras family.

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To win this war, Vashisth Rishi had prepared a strategy for King Sudas. King Sudas was a descendant of Ikshvaku.

King Sudas defeated a combined army of ten kings in the Dashraj war on the banks of river Ravi and shortly thereafter, Sudas had to battle with three kings along the banks of the Yamuna. Sudas was victorious again in this war. Sudas had the fighting skills that he would let his enemy do every attack first. Sudas had learned from his Guru to let the enemy attack first and then run in different directions in different groups. If the enemy attacks, run according to the need and run away, splitting them into different troops. The enemy will also run backwards, bring the enemy to such a place that he will be surrounded by your troops. When the enemy has done all his tricks, then move on and kill the enemy.

After a battle with three kings on the banks of the Yamuna, Sudas also occupied the territory of the Doab of the Panchal, the banks of the Ganges and the Saraswati River in the north of the border of his kingdom. Instead of going further, Sudas was told by his Guru to go back and establish himself towards the West. As Sudas initially moved Eastward from the Five Rivers State (now Punjab) and then went back to West, the supporters of Macaulay called crossing of Sudus's Sindhu (Indus) river and moving Eastward to the Aryan Invasion Theory. On the contrary, those known as Arya crossed the Sindhu (Indus) from the region of Punjab and went from East to West. Those who lost or King Sudas's journey back to West from Saraswati river was in fact the first crossing of Sapta-Sindhu from India and the clan (kabele) was formed in Central Asia. Now crossing the Sindhu (Indus) from the West to the East was linked to the principle of Aryan Invasion. Whereas if the principle of Aryan Invasion was to be believed, the attack was to cross from West to East i.e. Sapta-Sindhu from West to East - while exactly the opposite happened i.e. crossing from East to West.

On the other hand, after the Dasharajna war, the people of the defeated kings went towards the west and there is evidence that these people laid the foundation of the five major kingdoms Parthi, Persians, Baloch, Pakhtun and Pishk (Kurd). Apart from these, the people who lost in this war and other people divided into 16 groups and went to different places. These people found evidence of 16 other areas which they have found in Sogdiana, Margiana, Bactra, Kabulistan, Ghazni, Nanta, Archosia, Drangiana, Zamin - These clans (kabele) were established in the area between Dawar and Kalat-e-Giljay, the Lugar valley, the area between Kabul and Kurram, at Aryanya, Vaizeh, Iran, etc.