Temples and Places

Karusha appears several times in the epic as an established kingdom with its own rulers and warriors. Its kings attended major royal gatherings and participated in regional alliances. Karusha troops later fought in large numbers during the Kurukshetra War.

The geographical identities of both kingdoms survived beyond the epic age. Mathura became the recognised capital of the historical Surasena Mahajanapada, while Chedi remained associated with the eastern Bundelkhand region around the Ken river system.

The Matsya country is traditionally identified with eastern and north-eastern Rajasthan, particularly the present-day regions of Jaipur, Alwar and Bharatpur. Rajasthan’s official educational material similarly states that the Matsya kingdom mentioned in the Mahabharata extended over parts of Jaipur, Alwar and Bharatpur, with Viratanagar as its capital.

Surasena was not important simply because Mathura later became one of the great sacred cities of India. In the Mahabharata, the region stands at the heart of the Yadava world. It is connected with Krishna, Balarama, Vasudeva, Kunti, the Vrishnis, Andhakas and Bhojas. It also becomes one of the principal theatres of the long political struggle between the Yadavas and Jarasandha of Magadha.

The Mahabharata remembers Vatsabhumi as an identifiable country conquered by Bhima during Yudhishthira’s Rajasuya campaign. It also preserves traditions connecting Kaushambi with the Chedi king Uparichara Vasu, records Karna’s conquest of the Vatsas, and places Vatsa warriors among the forces fighting for the Pandavas at Kurukshetra.

In the Mahabharata, however, Anga is far more than merely Karna’s territorial title. His installation as its king becomes one of the defining moments of the epic. It is the moment when Duryodhana transforms Karna from an unknown challenger at the Hastinapura tournament into a crowned monarch, establishing a political and personal friendship that survives until Karna’s death at Kurukshetra.

Magadha’s most formidable Mahabharata ruler was Jarasandha, son of Brihadratha. His strength was so great that Krishna regarded him as the principal obstacle to Yudhishthira’s proposed Rajasuya.

Mithila was remembered as the kingdom of Janaka and Sita in the Ramayana, as a centre of philosophical debate and learning in Vedic and Upanishadic tradition, and again in the Mahabharata as a land where questions of dharma, renunciation, kingship and liberation were explored through some of the epic’s most remarkable narratives.

In the Mahabharata, territories identified with southern and eastern Kosala appear particularly during Sahadeva’s southern Digvijaya, the military expedition undertaken before Yudhishthira’s Rajasuya Yajna.

The Mahabharata-era ruler most clearly associated with Kosala is King Brihadbala — Vrihadvala in some translations. He was defeated by Bhima during the Pandavas’ campaigns before the Rajasuya, but later fought on the side of Duryodhana in the Kurukshetra War.