Mede and Madra B y H a e i t K e i s h n a D e b . The Medes, when they first appear in history, naniely, in Assyrian records of the 9th century B.C., are designated Amadai, no doubt because in their country flowed the river known as Amordus to classical geographers, conformably to a common Iranian custom of naming a people after a river.^ Later, they are referred to as Madai, wath the prosthetic a left out, a process to which we have many Iranian analogies. Mela Pomponius (1st cent. A.D.) mentions the Amardi as a nation near the Caspian Sea. Clearly, therefore, there was an r-element in the name which we have not found in Assyrian renderings ; and we should take the Assyrian 3Iadai as equivalent to Ma{r)dit, wMch is sufficiently near to Sanskrit Madra to Justify enquiry as to whether they can be identified. For the early history of the Medes, the leading literary authority is Herodotus (I. 95 ff.). His account describes the Medes as revolting from Assyrian domination about 1700 B.C. when they “dwelt in scattered villages without any central authority.” There was a judge in every village; but every judge was not as just in his judgments as Deioces who managed so to increase his reputation as an upright man that he was soon chosen by his neighbouring villages chief arbiter in their disputes. Deioces, when he felt himself indispensable, withdrew from his position whereupon lawlessness prevailed. With a view to end the state of “ anarchy, ” the Medes assembled from all quarters and elected Deioces as their king. His son Phraortes succeeded him and extended Median rule over Persia but perished in an attempt to conquer the Assyrians who, although now" possessing a shrunken territory with no allies, w'ere internally as flourishing as ever, with their headquarters at Nineveh. After Phraortes came Cyaxares who was of a still more warlike disposition. He engaged in war with Lydia but w^as overawed by a solar eclipse to conclude peace.^ He was called back from his first campaign against Nineveh by a great Scytho-Cimmerian invasion against which, however, he could not hold his own. For 28 years, out of the 40 assigned to his reign, the Scythians dominated Asia, till at length he got rid of them by a treacherous trick and not only recovered his lost dominions but extended his empire and destroyed Nineveh. ^ e,g. India (Hapta-Hindu); Margiana, etc. ~ Identified with that foretold by Thales (28th May 585 B.C.). The accuracy of this account is tested by some inscriptions. That Cyaxares, and not Deioces, was the real founder of the Median monarchy is proved by the fact that, in the time of Darius, as attested by his Bahistan inscr. (col. 2), a Median usurper Fravartes, as well as a Sagartian usurper Chitratakhma, pretended to be the offspring of Cyaxares (Uvakhshatra). The historicity of Deioces is proved by a reference which Sargon makes to Dayukku, a Median chief whom Sargon claims to have deported to Syria (713 B.C.)’ Sargon’s inscrs, further confirm, Hdt.’s assertion that the Medes at that time “ lived, like the Greeks, in small states, each of which obeyed a ‘city lord’ of its own.” ^ Deioces’ position apparently was due to his reputation for honesty, as related by Hdt. ; so that virtue must have been regarded by these Median city states as the primary qualification for office. Phraortes seems to have been. like Deioces, nothing more than a republican head; and Hdt.’s statement regard­ ing the occasion of his death, which must be placed towards the close of the reign of Assurbanipal, although incapable of direct verification owing to paucity of epigraphic records of the period, is indirectly corroborated by what we know of the splendour of Nineveh at that period. Sargon and his successors down to Assurbanipal represent the Medes as tributary to them ; and, w'hen they withheld their “ tributes, ” they w'ere regarded as “ rebels. ” We must remem­ ber however that, in their inscriptions, the Assyrians are noto­ riously prone to magnify their o^vn achievements; and what we find denominated “ tribute” may have been merely some payment for freedom from molestation. The Medes who joined hands with Cimmerians and other tribes against Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal were, to all appearance, independent and could be reckoned as rebels onh" from the standpoint of Assyrian vanity. They presently became rulers; for, as epigraphic testimony indicates, Cyaxares destroyed Nineveh in 606 B.C. and established the Median monarchy. The monarchy, how­ ever, was short-lived. Astyages, son of C^^axares, w'as the last of the race and was supplanted by Cyrus about 550 B.C.^ There is a controversy as to the propriety of apphdng the designation Mada to the Median kings who are designat­ ed Manda bj^ Nabonidus. Prof. Sayce believes that the Man- das were different from the Madas, the former being monarchical and the latter republican in their constitution.® Prof. Meyer takes the Mandas to be a nomadic Median tribe in the desert. The controversy need not detain us. It is enough for our pur- 1 The quotation is from Sayce. 2 Cf. Meyer’« arts. ‘Media,’ ‘Persia.’ ‘Cyaxares’ in Encyclo. Britt. (11th edition.) 3 Probably, Mada (of Darius) and Manda (of Nabonidus) are side- forms of an original Marda (= “ the right,” in Medic) through the form Maddu; see Bertin, Cuneiform Inscriptions, pp. 28, 82. pose if we know that from Deioces to Cyaxares(c, 700-625 B.C.) the Medes, i.e. Ma(r)das hved under a repubhcan government. Arrian states in his Indica (1.1-3) that “the Indians bet­ ween the rivers Indus and Cophen (Kabul) were in ancient times subject to the Assyrians, afterwards to the Medes, and finally submitted to the Persians and paid to Cyrus ^ the son of Camby- ses, the tribute that he imposed on them.” Prof. Jackson ^ has brought forward corroborative evidence so far as Cyrus’ domini­ on over this region is concerned. It will therefore be hardly a haZard to take Arrian's assertion on trust so far also as it makes the same region subject to the Medes before the Persians and subject to the Assyrians before the Medes. And, since the Medes established themselves by revolting from Assyria, Median rule over this area may beheld to have begun about 700 B.C. Let us turn now to the Indian evidence concerning the Mad­ ras. Our earliest references to the tribe occur in the latter portion of the Aitareya Brahmana and in the BrhadaranyakaUpanisad- texts assigned by Vedic specialists to the period 700-600 B.C.- In the Ait. Br. (VIII.14) five forms of earthly government are des­ cribed as obtaining in five different localities; and it is stated that, in the north, beyond the Himalayas, dwell the Xorthern Kurus and the Northern Madras among whom the “ peoples” (/anapacZs^) are consecrated to rulership, the form of government being denominated vairajya, whereas in every othei' region the “ kings ” (rdjmmh) are spoken of as being so consecrated. The enu­ meration being strictly symmetrical, the employment of the w ord janapada for raja must signify, as was first pointed out by Mar­ tin Haug,® that vairajya was a kind of jion-nionarchical govern­ ment. This inference is borne out by a passage* in theKauti- liya Arthasastra (V1IT.2) wherein is cited the opinion of ])re- Mauryan political thinkers favouring vairajya, on account of its dependence on popular approval and a consequent liability to enjoyment by rulers and ruled alike. Kautilya, of course, mon­ archist as he is, disapproves of this form of government and pic­ tures the miseries of a people living under vairajya, no doubt of a degenerate variety. Etymologically, the term has been ex­ plained variously. Sayana, commenting on the Ait. Br. text, ex­ plains it in one place as visesena rdjatvam, and in another place as ilarebhyo bhujpatibhyo vaiHstyam. Martin Haug, K. P. Jayaswal and R. C. Majumdar ^ equate it with “ kingless government.’' R. Shamasastri® takes it to mean “foreign rule” If however we look to Vedic uses of vi-raj, we get at its primary meaning, “ to shine, to be illustrious” That this meaning is appro­ priate to the text w'e are discussing ® follows from Rigveda, 1, 188, 1 Cambridge Hist, of India, p. 332. 2 Ibid, pp. 113, 149, 697. 3 Transl. Ait. Br., p. 518. * The passage is found first in Shamasastris 2nd ed. of the K.A. (1919): vairajyamtu prakrticittagrahanapehsi yathasthitam anyair bhujyate. ® Corporate Life in Anc. India, p. 89. ® TransL, K.A. 4-6: pracinam barhir ojasa sahasravlram astrnan j yatraditya virajatka\\ (4) .virat sanirad bibhvlh prabhvir bahvis ca bhu- yasis ca yah | duro ghrtany aksaran |j (5) surukme he supe- sasadhi sriya virajatah \ usasaveha sidatah j| (6) Here we find the terms virat, samrat, etc., associated with vi-raj denoting to shine, to be illustrious ” ; and the same meaning should be ap­ plicable to the text of the Rigvedic Ait. Br. (VIII) wherein virat, samrat. etc., are spoken of together, and the form of gov­ ernment pertaining to the virat receives the designation vairajya. Vairajya, therefore, denotes primarily a form of government in which the ruling element rules by reason of its shining or illustrious character - an aristocracy, as the earlier Greek philo­ sophers would call i t ; the authority, however, was ultimately derived from the janapacki- or the body of the people ; and this representative or universal character of the rule finds its ana­ logue in the parallel conception of the All-pervading Universal Virat figuring in the famous purusa-sukta (Rigveda, X, 90).