The First Battle in Indian History | The Battle of Ten Kings

In this video, we are going to talk about the first recorded battle in the Indian history. In the book 7 of the Rig Veda, we find that three hymns talk about a battle which took place on the banks of river Parushni. Parushni is the Rig Vedic name of the river Ravi. This battle, which is the first recorded political event in the Indian history, is called the Battle of Ten Kings. Although we do not know the exact date on which this do know that the text in which this battle is recorded was composed around 1500 BCE. So we can say that this battle was fought before 1500 BCE or somewhere around it. The battle was fought between the Bharat tribe on one hand and a confederacy of several tribes on the other hand. The tribes which were part of this confederacy were Now, one interesting thing about this list is that the number of tribes which are mentioned in this is more than 10 and the confederacy was led by the Purus. The Purus who were the of this confederacy were earlier a big tribe and the Bharat tribe was earlier part of this tribe. We do not know the exact reason why this battle took place but from the Rig Vedic text, we can deduce two reasons. The first reason has to do with the inter-tribal resentment that grew against the rise of the Bharat tribe. Another reason behind this battle was the removal of Vishwamitra. Bharat chief Sudas removed his Purohit who was Vishwamitra and in its place, he appointed Vasishta as the new Purohit. Now, most scholars argue that because of this resentment against Sudas, Vishwamitra organized a confederacy of several tribes to oppose the rising Bharat tribe. The Bharatas controlled the eastern part of the Parushni river i.e. the modern-day southern Punjab and Haryana area. On the other hand, the confederacy came from the west and there were several battles that took place between these two sides. The struggle was long and bitter and the final battle of the conflict was fought on the Parushni river. The Rig Ved also mentions that the confederacy had some 66,660 warriors and these warriors tried to change the course of Ravi river in order to punish the Bharata tribe. But Rig Veda further mentions that this attempt of the confederacy failed miserably when the dam which they were building suddenly broke, drowning the entire army of the confederacy. The leader of the confederacy, also lost their king in this battle. The victorious tribe Bharat under their king Sudas moved eastward and there they fought another battle against a local chief called Bhed. After this battle, they settled in the area around the Kurukshetra region and to symbolize his supremacy which he attained after the battle of the ten kings, Sudas performed the Ashwamedh yajna. It was after the battle of the ten kings, the Bharata tribe became dominant in the Rig Vedic world. According to Professor Michael Witzel of the Harvard University, the battle of the ten kings was an important point in the Indian history because before this battle there were several tribes and Rig Veda mentions that there were around 50 tribes who were part of the Rig Vedic world. But after this battle, we find that the Bharata tribe became dominant. The emergence of Bharata tribe as a powerful tribe subsequently gave way to various powerful royal houses that went on to make Indian history. The family books of the Rig Veda has not much to say about this period when the Bharata tribe reigned supreme. The next time Rig Veda discusses any political event was during the period in which the Kuru tribe has emerged and the emergence of Kuru tribe is an important point of the Indian history. We do not know how the Kuru tribe emerged but there is an interesting fact about the Kuru tribe and their history. The Kurus describe themselves as sons of Bharata and Purus. This is interesting because as you know the battle of ten kings was between the Bharata tribe on the one hand and the Purus who were the leader of the confederacy of several tribes. So, we can say that after the battle of ten kings, the Purus and the Bharata tribe merged together to form the Kurus. The Kurus on their part went on to become an important part of the Indian tradition and they were the major players of the Mahabharata. If you want to know more about Indian history, consider watching this series. In this series, I talk about Indian history from the beginning. Thank you for watching.